“The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humour, but without folly.” – Jim Rohn
Conscious leadership is now more important than ever. When working out your constantly changing work environments, it is not always easy to put employee wellbeing first when you have logistics, numbers and contingency plans coming out of your ears! However, your employees are the lifeblood of your business, and their lives have also become more complicated over the past 18 months.
So, as more and more people are returning to workplaces, and your offices are starting to see the hustle and bustle of working life return, ensure that the people that work for you are happy and comfortable with how things are being managed. Having people back ‘in the room’ with you will take some adjustment, as well as catering to their requirements, but this will always pay dividends in the long run!
1. Keep Your Employees Informed
This is not new when it comes to conscious leadership. It is always important to make sure that your team is in the loop with any decision or issue that affects them in any way. Within their roles, employees will organise their time based on what information they have. Getting information late, through the wrong channels, or indeed, not at all, leads to a multitude of problems, the most pressing of which is damage to the trust they have in you as a leader. Keeping them in the loops also implies that they are respected as part of your business and that you trust in them as employees as well.
Also, as people are getting used to the stamina required to get through a full working day, both physically and mentally, having all the information they need in a timely fashion will lead to much less stress and anxiety within your workforce.
2. Come Through on Promises
This is another cornerstone for trust, but also a way to ensure that you feel like a team. Not following through on promises will only drive your employees away, and therefore make them less inclined to put their energy into your business. Employee wellbeing does not necessarily depend on pandering, but rather them feeling that they are needed and respected as part of your team.
3. Flexible Working
Now, more than ever, people have complex needs when it comes to managing their lives as a whole. After this year, some people will have setups that work much better for them when they work from home. Consider being open to the flexibility when it comes to working hours, and whether it is mandatory to work in your actual workplace all of the time. Do your best to work with your employees to ensure the best working arrangements for you and for them.
4. Promote A Healthy Work-Life Balance
Try to enforce a good work-life balance for your employees. As a conscious leader, you will understand that a well-rested employee is a happier and more productive employee. Having an employee work overtime and not rest properly, is not necessarily better, in terms of quality of work and efficiency, than having an employee work strictly within contacted hours. Also, it is much nicer to have happy people around you than it is to have stressed and tired people around you, right?
5. Positive Reinforcement
It is all too easy to point out blunders and forget to praise success. This is often because successes are not things that need ‘fixing’, therefore pointing out success doesn’t always feel like a good use of time. However, this makes your employees feel appreciated and cared for, which, on an ongoing basis, makes for a happier, more confident, and more empowered employee.
6. Make Them Part of The Company’s Journey
Employees know your business very well, and likely know things about the way that it works that you do not. Use this to your advantage and give your employees a say in how your business grows and moves forward. This, again, is a huge vote of confidence in your team and is a good way to have them invest in the business’s direction. Also, on top of this being a way to look after employee wellbeing, it may also make your business a richer and more nuanced enterprise than if the vision is cast by just a few people at the top, who see the company from a similar angle to you.
By Chris Thomson
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