If you’re in a managerial role, you may know how employee behavior can influence the organization’s performance. Similarly, a leader’s role is pivotal in shaping employee habits and productivity. 🎯
For these reasons, effective leadership has gathered tremendous momentum in the past few years. Being in a managerial position is no longer about supervising a group of people alone. 🏢
It goes beyond and includes one’s ability to organically boost employee productivity and bring out the best in people. ✨ To gain more perspective on the topic, let’s understand the 8 things the smartest leaders do to motivate their employees. 💯
✅ 8 Things The Smartest Leaders Do To Motivate Their Employees
As the renowned poet, Maya Angelou once said, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”👌
This statement is relevant in the corporate world and goes to show a leader’s impact on employee motivation. While it is also commonly believed that employees work mainly for money, it may not be fully true. 💸
Employees value strong leaders at the workplace just as much as their paychecks, if not more. Effective leadership, therefore, is a pertinent non-cash motivator and one that can bring immense benefits to companies. 🌴
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Tried and tested by the smartest leaders across the world, here are 8 tactics that you can use to efficiently motivate your employees. 💪
1. 😇 Believe in your people
A strong belief can move mountains. 🏔️ Showing unwavering trust is one of the best tools to boost human motivation. Even the best of us falter in life, but a leader who believes in his or her employees instead of berating them can bring about positive changes.
✔️ Action tip: Believe in your employees and communicate it to them through words and gestures. This will motivate them to work on their flaws and put in the extra effort.
2. 🧩 Be a problem solver
Most managers adopt an ‘I am not interested in problems but only solutions’ approach. However, leadership skills can go a long way in problem-solving.
Understanding the concerns of your team and guiding them through those with effective strategies is a great way to make them feel heard and motivate them to do better. 📈
✔️ Action tip: Encourage employees to talk to you about their problems and guide them through those. Set an example by leading the way and developing problem-solving capabilities in each of your team members.
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3. 🪴 Teach new skills
A great leader sees beyond the self and is truly dedicated to the growth of the people. Further, employees are always looking for ways to enhance their skills and a great way to keep them motivated is by teaching them new skills at work as well as outside of it.
You can do so by giving them more responsibilities in their current role and by extending other educational opportunities to them. 📚
✔️ Action tip: Develop a skill-building plan for your employees and guide them on how they can make the best use of it. Identify the learning zeal in your people, mentor them, and help them hone their skills on a day-to-day basis. 📑
4. ❤️ Pay attention to employee health
How can you show that you truly care for your employees? Beyond using kind words and providing keen professional guidance, leaders can make employees feel cherished by taking care of their health and wellbeing.
Providing health offerings such as comprehensive group insurance is an excellent way to kick start this plan. 🏥
✔️ Action tip: Consider buying a comprehensive group health insurance plan with a focus on preventive care. Further, spread awareness about mental health and provide enough avenues to employees to seek counseling. Also offer gym memberships, ergonomic furniture set-ups, flexible working arrangements, etc., to promote employee health.
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5. 🙏 Use praise and gratitude
Positive emotions and reinforcement can go a long way in motivating employees. Instead of being overly critical, leaders can choose constructive criticism mechanisms and avoid calling out team members openly. Further, they can express gratitude more often to help employees feel appreciated. 🎗️
✔️ Action tip: Send gratitude notes and publicly praise your employees with awards, rewards, and more. At the same time, be mindful when you need to express criticism and only do it in private. 📝
6. 🗣️ Talk about employee benefits
Another important technique that leaders use to motivate their employees is designing a fitting employee benefits package. This includes making provisions for both monetary and non-monetary perks and showing employees how to use them to take full advantage.
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It’s also important to communicate the employee benefits to the team and provide regular training and updates.
✔️ Action tip: Start by understanding what benefits your employees want and then move on to designing an employee benefits plan that works in accordance. For instance, giving a workforce that’s made up of older individuals maternity leave makes no sense. You would rather give them comprehensive health insurance and younger women maternity leave.🏥
7. 👂 Listen patiently
A great leader is inadvertently also a great listener. Only when you listen can you guide others and bring about a change that matters.
Since a big part of leadership is dealing with human emotions and understanding them in depth, listening to what your employees have to say can help immensely in the long run. 💹
✔️ Action tip: Schedule more one-to-one time with your employees and solicit their feedback regularly. Create an open hierarchy system wherein employees feel comfortable in reaching out to leaders and are often encouraged to do so. 💬
8. 😃 Create a positive work atmosphere
What intrinsically brings about motivation is a sense of positivity and purpose. Great leaders are well aware of this and hence use this as a technique to motivate their employees.
A workspace that runs on integrity, honesty, and strong ethics is bound to bring out the best in people. You can achieve this with relevant employment policies and implementing them.
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✔️ Action tip: Design a workspace that is welcoming both aesthetically and otherwise. Greet employees with a smile and motivate people to choose kindness in their approach daily. Further, create an ethics framework and helpline for employees to refer/reach out to. 📜
💯 Make A Change For The Better
Smart leaders are the ones that communicate efficiently with their employees. They act as drivers instead of enablers and provide the right footsteps for others to follow. 👣
By following these steps, managers can create a motivated workforce and further benefit the organization with reduced turnover, higher productivity, and more.
To know more about how to motivate employees and keep them engaged, read Employee Engagement Handbook to better your employee experience.
