Leadership Habits for the new year

How is your team looking as we approach the end of 2021? Tired? Uninspired? Fragmented?

Do you fear “the Great Resignation”? Are your staff going to use the festive period to review what is important to them? Will they look for change?

As is often quoted; people leave managers, not workplaces. Are you doing enough to make sure your team isn’t going to leave you?

The role of the leader has never been so important and factors which have always existed are now in greater focus. The employee is demanding more in terms of wellbeing and workplace safety, and legislation is now in place to ensure that safety extends wider than physical safety, but includes mental and emotional health.

Going into the new year, how will you, as a leader, adapt your behaviour to meet these demands?

Here’s a few items from the InteChange Leadership Toolkit which may help you improve your teams mood and morale and consequently improve the productivity and output:-

• Conduct a Psychosocial Risk Assessment. Find out what your team members really think and feel about the workplace. Then you can see what needs addressing.

• Listen to your team members and follow up with actions. Invite suggestions and encourage the reporting of issues, incidents and near misses.

• Do a Mental Health First Aid Course. It will open your eyes to understanding your team and could help you understand friends and family who may be struggling.

• Share the organisations purpose and relate each team members role to that purpose. With a common sense of purpose, there will be a greater sense of belonging and a renewed unity amongst the team.

• Get to know each team members passion. Spend the first 2 minutes of a 1:1 on that. It will be time well spent as the employee will feel uplifted for the rest of the meeting and they will feel valued.

Above all, share something of yourself. Be vulnerable. Nobody has all the answers, so sharing this and encouraging input from the team will develop a mutual trust. With that trust, the team will bring suggestions for improvements, and this is like having your own team of internal consultants at your disposal.

Contact Nick, at InteChange for more on the Leadership Toolkit, and for more on making your workplace a psychosocially safe environment and how this will deliver better KPI results and service performance.