Inspiring your staff to excel

Inspired staff are able to achieve remarkable success if they are given the right motivational leadership to mobilse their inner drive and strengths, enthusiasm, vigor and expectations. To be able to inspire staff you need to be a credible leader who leads by example.

Test yourself with the following questions to find out if you are credible leader who can inspire others. If your answers are yes, you are credible leader.

1 Do I perform to the highest level of competence? Do I take initiatives and risks? Am I a good team member?

2 Am I open with information and knowledge and respect others as I respect myself?

3 Do I trust others and am I trustworthy? Do I accept responsibility for my actions?

4 Do I judge and reward others with praise on the basis of their performance?

Tips for Inspiring Your Staff

1 Never seek results by bullying your staff, but use discipline swiftly, effectively but sparingly.

2 Always keep the “carrot” visible but the stick hidden and share responsibility for failure, mistakes and analyse errors to prevent them next time.

Establishing Vision

To establish a vision is to see with the eyes of the mind where you want to be long term. Your ability to visualize the future will inspire your staff to look to the future as well.

To develop a vision you should be able to define what you are aiming to achieve in future and compare that vision with where you are now.

Your vision needs to be expressed as statements to communicate a clear understanding of the long term aim. In business communication, the vision statement requires a tripartite focus on customers, on the staff and on improved performance to ensure excellence.

Tips for Creating a Vision Statement

1 Write down your ambitions and revise them periodically. If they seem unattainable, simply intensify your efforts and give your schemme to others to check before you finalise it and then map out what you will need to do to bridge gaps

2 You will need visionary staff, pragmatists and conservatives to devise an effective vision statement.

i) Visionary staff can see the benefits of change and they have the courage to carry out change despites obstacles.

ii) Pragmatists are staff who can accept innovation only after innovations have been proved to work by somebody else.

iii) Conservative staff resist innovation and change, and are creative in inventing excuses for rejecting anything new. Nevertheless, you need to involve everyone in order to create successful team spirit

3) All staff need to be animated by visionary strong leadership to work together successfully.

4 Ensure that you apply the focus of the vision statement in ways that are different and better than your competitors.

Strengthening Your Vision Statement

Weak Vision Statements	Questions Raised	Strong Vision Statements
We have a strong people orientation and we demonstrate care for every employee in the company	What does the word “people” in practice; and what kind of care does the company mean in this statement?	“We will” lead local suppliers in share, product/service quality, value, customer satisfaction and good conduct by being different and better than competitors
We sustain strong results orientation coupled with a prudent approach to business.	What does the word “results” orientation mean in practice and what is “prudence” about?	“Strategies, policies, and implementation are designed for and by people who work with suppliers to achieve high customer satisfaction
Our aim is to be the biggest and the best in our market”	What do the words “biggest and the best” actually mean? On what criteria are they applied?	“We invest and innovate” to double real revenues every three years while raising operating profits, cash flow, and sharing the rewards.

Generating Big Ideas

As a leader you do not have be the most inventive person in the company but, you need to release the potential for generating ideas that exist in all your employees because, that will help the company to achieve both your VISION to generate new ideas and innovation. Lower any creativity barriers by tolerating failure and eccentricity, by flattening organisational structures, refusing to accept the (NIH) “Not Invented Here” syndrome or (IWNW) “That will never Work” syndrome and their equivalents.

Tips For Generating Ideas

1 Make staff see that, it is everyone’s job to generate ideas and you should never shoot down an idea before it is fully examined.

2 Explore and analyse ideas, dream and conceptualise ideas, challenge and visualise ideas.

3 The purpose of ideas must be defined, their criteria set and ranked in order of importance.

4 Innovation is a process that starts with concepts, followed by assessment, evaluation and a decision.

5 Implementation starts with drawing up a plan and following the plan stage by stage to the end.

Sharing Information

It has been generally accepted in business circles that as a manager or leader, “It does not matter how much you communicate, it is never enough” because information is the blood of any organisation and communication its main artery.

Therefore, you must make sure that your communication channels are always open in all directions to keep staff up to date with the latest developments which generate goodwill towards your company. By trusting your staff with information and by being open and honest with them, you will inspire them to perform better to achieve excellence.

Channels of communication are unlimited such as, email, meetings, journals etc that carry messages throughout the company.

Tips for Communicating Fully

1 Unnecessary secrecy demoralises staff and diminishes the potential for communication.

2 Ensure that your messages reach all members of staff and encourage them to do the same.

Boosting Staff Achievements

As an effective leader, you must insist on positive outcomes for both short and long term visions by making sure that team members know what your desired results are, monitor staff out put and performance as individuals as well as teams