“LEADERS BECOME GREAT NOT BECAUSE OF THEIR POWER BUT BECAUSE OF THEIR ABILITY TO EMPOWER OTHERS” – JOHN MAXWELL.
Men learn and grow from their mistakes. An employer/leader should encourage his staff to take the initiative to get the job done and accept the fact that during this learning process the employee will make mistakes. Employees gain experience from their mistakes and develop their abilities during this process of growth.
No man is born an expert at anything, unless, he practices and makes mistakes to reach perfection. An employer should understand that a new man who shows ability will make mistakes but eventually it will pay off. For an employer though this method is expensive yet in the long run it pays off. However if mistakes continue and productivity does not come than that employee needs to go.
The advantage of this method is that it encourages employees to explore themselves, to seek their undiscovered potentials and encourage themselves to grow. It inspires the employees to have confidence in them selves and their abilities as it cultivates the quality of initiative, which creates profits for the business.
Therefore, an employee will want to stay with a business in which he can reach his full potential. Sometimes an employee will reach his limits (as he may only have certain restricted capabilities) thus he will then become stagnant and will not be able to add to the productivity of the business.
When this happens a leader needs to come up with more attainable challenges more training, more education, and more methods to make his staff productive.
An employee needs to understand that his development depends on himself and the quality of his work. Thus, raises should be earned and not given. Basing your attitude towards an employee upon such principles makes the employee do more than he is paid for which eventually qualifies him for a raise because of his increase in productivity during a certain span of time.
However, it is the employer’s task to create a clear vision for the firm’s goals so that the employees can understand how and why their roles are meaningful. A shared vision helps a team coordinate their efforts towards their shared realization of that goal by promoting mutual constructive spontaneity to attain that goal.
To instill autonomy and self-determination in staff a leader needs to delegate the tasks effectively as well.
According to the LeaderLetter a leader must:
- Have a plan
- Define objectives and standards.
- Specify the range of discretion.
- Involve subordinates in the delegation process
- Clarify performance consequences.
- Match responsibility and authority.
- Inform others that delegation has happened.
- Evaluate progress and results and provide consequences.
- Continue to delegate.
In conclusion, a leader needs to define goals clearly to measure outcomes correctly.
SMART goals tend to lead the highest levels of performance in staff according to LeaderLetter Notes.
- S: Specific goals lead to higher performance than “do your best “ goals. Vague goals lead to inertia or misdirection.
- M: Measurable goals are an alternative to abstract or intangible goals, and they are normally expressed in numerical terms (units to produce) or certain deliverables.
- A: Align Goals with your overall strategy and priority of the organization in order to avoid conflicts of efforts that are counterproductive to the organization.
- R: Reachable goals should be established. Goals should be challenging but reachable. If goals are unreachable they fail to motivate effort from staff.
- T: Time limit for goals should be specified.
Article by Ayesha Shafiq, eParisExtra.com contributing writer