How to encourage and be supportive as a leader?

The challenge for many leaders, however, is if their behaviors and attitudes towards their staff reflect that belief.

In business, individuals should be treated as resources not prices. Assets help create income and gains and thus they’re looked after and subject to continuing investment.

a significant type of investment in people is to offer development and training opportunities to help them develop their skills and behaviors so they can contribute much more to a team’s success.

Leaders should carefully reflect on the amount of personal support they provide to people in their group. They should question themselves by asking questions such as:

How accessible am I actually for folks to speak to me and seek my advice and encouragement?

Do I actually have an open door policy where I welcome individuals or is the coverage little more than a platitude?

Am I easily available to give people the support they want, when they want it?

The significance of an open door policy

But being accessible and using a real open door  is 1 thing, but is it sufficient? The potential issue is that it places the onus onto others to make the effort to go and see their chief wherever he/she could be. Some people might be put off doing this because they don’t want to bother their boss with what they believe may be a relatively trivial matter, while some may be worried about interrupting their boss at a busy time.

Therefore, leaders will need to make themselves more accessible to individuals in their staff and make the effort to go to where their staff are and not await their team to see them. Leaders should visit different areas of the organisation, meet people, and not simply the favoured few, taking the time to discover how people are getting on, how they’re feeling and offering words of encouragement and guidance. Leaders shouldn’t underestimate the value of personal visits to inspire people and they ought to be certain everyone understands that they matter and that their participation is critical.

The best way to motivate people effectively

The greater that a leader understands the folks in their team, the more effective the individual will be in motivating as a team. approaching each individual and treating them as people can have a substantial impact on their performance and behaviors. To effectively motivate others entails finding out what people want, nor desire, from their job and thus it involves spending some time talking together and listening to them, not only once but frequently as motivators will probably change. After a pioneer finds out what is going to enhance an individual’s motivation, then he/she can do something about it.

For some people, it’s important they are openly acknowledged by their own leader. For others, merely to know that the leader is there and ready to support them and stand by them if things get hard is encouragement enough. In whatever way leaders provide support, their focus must be to supply a positive example to promote a culture of mutual support in their team.

The emphasis is on service. Leaders should encourage their staff to think issues through for themselves, but also make it very clear that they have their leader’s support.

As a leader you can always brand some encouraging quotes as well

Leaders should make it clear that their staff have nothing to fear because fear motivates people to act passively, to conceal mistakes, to blame others and so discourages honesty and openness. The higher levels of motivation and self-esteem felt by those who have successfully completed tasks and projects based on their own initiative as opposed to carrying out someone else’s directions is highly important.

When things go wrong, and on occasions they likely will, then leaders will need to publicly encourage the people concerned. They need to have the courage to stand up for every individual in their group, to encourage them when they make errors and show actual loyalty to them.