Leadership must continuously strive to improve their craft. The key to optimal performance often boils down to efficient, effective management, which should always be the end goal. Still, implementing these management practices is easier said than done without the help of a premier leadership coach. Learn how to improve employee work performance to improve your job performance as a leader in our blog.
Build Trust
When wondering how to improve work performance, one of the most important things to consider is building trust.
Demonstrating trust makes employees reciprocate that trust and believe you are competent, honest, and reliable. “Nobody cares about how much you know until they know how much you care,” Consilio CEO Stacey McKibbin explained.
Some ways to instill trust and improve employee job performance include:
- Establishing credibility with every employee
- Respecting employees
- Setting employees up for success
- Advocating for employees and having their back
- Making fair decisions
- Requesting feedback and acting on it
Trust also improves problem-solving and empowers your team to analyze issues and work toward practical solutions quickly, whether it involves improving processes together or independently solving problems without issue.
“Establishing trusting relationships is one of the best ways to optimize the performance of your team,” Stacey continued, “you should always empower them to have candid discussions and healthy debate.”
Building trust frees you up to do your best work as a manager. Still, establishing trust can be difficult, which is why the value of leadership training is impossible to understate.
Collaborate, Communicate, and Delegate
Collaboration, communication, and delegation are also essential when considering how to improve your work performance as a manager to improve employee job performance.
Collaboration is invaluable. Work with your team to craft plans and devise new ideas. Still, keep in mind that collaboration doesn’t mean reaching a unanimous decision or pursuing decision-by-committee. We recommend:
- Involving your team in decisions
- Requesting employees’ opinions
- Holding regular one-on-ones
Communication is also indispensable. You must create clear communication channels within your organization. For effective communication, we advise:
- Promoting active listening
- Maintaining the utmost transparency
- Eliminating your biases
- Understanding and respecting everyone’s POV
- Asking employees what problems they are facing
Lastly, delegation is an essential component of effective leadership. Understand your priorities and remember that you must focus on big-picture tasks.
One issue managers face is that just because they have experienced a promotion and title change externally, they haven’t done so internally. You must promote yourself and empower your team to help, develop, and grow.
Delegation requires exceptional time management and an understanding of employee weaknesses, strengths, and goals. To successfully delegate:
- Always provide necessary instructions
- Trust your team when you assign tasks
- Utilize feedback to optimize delegation
- Be crystal clear about targets and visions
Ultimately, these management strategies make employees feel valued, included, and motivated to do their best work, which is how you should measure your success as a leader. However, implementing them is difficult without an expert leadership coach.
Consistently Recognize Employees and Reevaluate Promotions
Effective management requires recognizing employee performance. Recognition makes employees feel appreciated and improves job performance across the board.
Recognition is often the most important driver of performance and even eclipses things like pay, promotions, inspiring work, training, and independence. To make recognition a company ritual, we recommend:
- Instating recognition triggers
- Implementing visual representations of recognition
- Encouraging employees to celebrate and report their and their colleagues’ success
It is also important to reevaluate your promotion process. For example, if the only route to a promotion is managing a team, it is likely time to rethink that roadmap. Some individuals are more valuable as autonomous contributors, some as part of a team. To do so:
- Help employees earn new responsibilities and develop skills
- Be active in employee development plans
- Be vigilant for different ways employees can add value or lend expertise
This reassessment should extend beyond promotion. Rethinking all processes is essential to optimizing employee productivity and performance, which optimizes your performance.
At Consilio, we also provide a premier certification process that creates career paths for employees by certifying them in things like leadership and sales. Our program incentivizes professional development in a way that doesn’t have to hinge on a raise or title change.
Schedule a Consultation to Learn How to Improve Work Performance through Effective, Efficient Management
Managers are only as effective as their people. Still, understanding how to improve employee job performance to boost your performance and empower you to handle the most crucial tasks is no easy feat. Only through effective and efficient management can you achieve this, though achieving this style is easier said than done.
Luckily, at Consilio, we provide unequaled leadership training that helps managers reform their styles to elevate everyone’s performance. Schedule a consultation to get started.
