When an employee asks, “Where are we going?” The leader needs to know a simple answer to that question that can be understood clearly and quickly. Alice in “Alice and wonderland” and the Cheshire cat had the following discussion regarding how to get where they wanted to go; Alice: would you tell me please, which way I ought to go from here? Cheshire Cat: that depends a good deal on where you want to get to. Alice: I don’t much care where. Cheshire Cat: Then it doesn’t much matter, which way you go. Leaders do right things, managers do things right. The leader needs to climb to the top of the trees, survey the direction the workers are going as they cut down the forest and make sure they are in the right jungle headed in the right direction. A leader needs to make sure after climbing the ladder to success it is leaning against the right wall. When employees know what the company goals are, they will walk through brick walls for a business owner who knows where they are going. Telling employees to “try harder” only frustrates them if their leader can’t tell them what to try harder for. Try this experiment and watch production double Spend one week complementing each employee on their work, from the first thing in the morning to the last thing at night, don’t bring up any deficiencies, watch production increase exponentially. You may be thinking, Sue doesn't do anything worth complimenting. Find something, perfume, dress color, desk layout, you can find something, and once you do you will find more and more things Sue is doing right. Once you find more things Sue is doing right, you’ll be surprised how fast Sue will even do more things right. Make sure what you find she is doing right is something you sincerely believe is being done right. Insincerity is obvious and transparent and offensive. That’s why you must find something you truly believe is being done right. This is contagious. Another team member who observes this starts to do things right so they get appreciation and praise. People respond to positive appreciation with high production and negative criticism with low production. If you want a happy environment (which is the number one reason people work) your communication will focus on positive reinforcement. If you want to be right, and prove to your employee that they don’t know as much as you, and point out their faults, you will have a negative environment and turnover that will cost you up to 24 times the salary you are paying your employees and you will have to bribe your employees to stay. Treat your employees equally, with dignity and respect. You may have more knowledge about your business, but that doesn’t make you more important or more knowledgeable than your employee.
Article Source: http://bizymoms.com/business