As the leader of your department or your company, have you ever
- Send a birthday card to your employee’s children
- Asked your employees how they are going
- Asked your employees how’s your mom or dad going
If you never did, try it; these simple things will make a massive difference with your employee’s motivation and inspiration. When you show your employees the simplest of gratitude and you genuinely (stress on the word GENUINELY) make your employee’s family part of the company, you will have some of the most loyal employees in the world.
As a leader, you have an incredible opportunity to change someone’s life every single day. It could be something as simple as saying hello, writing a handwritten note stating you did an excellent job today, or remembering your employee’s names when you greet them. Some leaders take these things for granted but believe me; your employees will feel valued. Leadership is all about people, the little things make a huge difference, and the organizations that get it are the ones that ultimately succeed.
Love your players
Legendary hall of fame football coach Vince Lombardi, who is arguably one of the greatest coaches in the history of the NFL said: “I don’t necessarily have to like my players and associates, but as their leader, I must love them. Love is loyalty; love is teamwork; love respects the dignity of the individual. This is the strength of any organization.”
Love is at the heart of leadership, especially servant leadership, and if we’re to thrive in our organizations and communities, we need a great deal more of it in our leadership today. According to Simon Sinek, “The leader who gets the most out of their people, are the leaders who care most about their people.”
Serve your players
When you are called to lead, you are called to serve. You become the servant because leadership is all about being of service to others. A leader with a servant’s heart is a truly invaluable asset; they work tirelessly to develop his or her people and is focused on what they can do for others. How can you develop a heart for servant leadership, and how can you establish a culture of servant leadership at your company, follow these four simple steps.
Change your mindset
Robert Greenleaf, the founder of the modern servant leadership movement, describes a servant leadership mindset, as one that begins with the desire to serve by meeting the needs of others. To embrace the spirit of servant leadership, you must first change your mindset and get in the habit of focusing on providing service to others. Great leaders are always seeking to improve and enhance something or someone. This very important, to become one of the greats of leadership, you must develop a habit of service to others first.
Lead by example
Most leaders know that their actions can influence how a team feels and performs. However, when leaders don’t practice what they preach, you can almost see the loss of enthusiasm and goodwill among the staff. Once a leader’s character is proven untrustworthy, their ability to lead will diminish. If you want a culture of servant leadership at your organization, as the leader, you must walk the talk and lead by example.
Make the environment safe
You have to give your team a safe place to share their ideas and opinions without malice, judgment, victimization, or condemnation. A servant leader must be able to listen to others and to be very receptive to what is being said. They may not always agree, but they are very responsive to someone’s position without undermining that person.
Build a culture of leadership throughout the entire company
A company with a leadership culture expects all employees, not just those with “VP” or “Chief” in their titles, but all their people, to think and act like leaders. What separates the good leaders from the great leaders is their ability to build a culture of leadership throughout their organization that cultivates great leaders.
Bringing all together, embracing a servant leader mindset at all levels of an organization can transform any organization’s culture.
Why Leaders Fail
Research conducted by Harvard Business School professor, Linda Hill, has found that negative patterns and habits established in a manager’s first year, continues to “haunt and hobble them” for the rest of their managerial careers. As a result, 60% of new managers underperform in their first two years, according to a study by the Corporate Executive Board, resulting in increased performance gaps and employee turnover.
Here are three common reasons new managers fail and what you can do about it:
Reason #1 Negative self-talk
When it comes to the worst things for our mental health, constant negativity is definitely one of them, especially if you are managing or leading people. When it comes to thoughts about yourself, your self-image serves as a sieve, filtering every experience and interaction while creating a running inner dialogue. You talk to yourself regularly about all of your experiences – what you think about yourself, the way you see others.
This ongoing, internal dialogue is your “self-talk,” and it goes with you everywhere. When these private conversations are positive, they support you and work in your best interest. When they’re negative, they’re destructive and demoralizing, and as a result, it impedes your leadership abilities.
Recommendation
– Make a list of all the things that trigger self-doubt and create a strategy to mitigate these occurrences.
– Reduce your inner doubt through physical activity or other types of relaxation.
– Spend some time exploring the values and principles that you feel most strongly about and write down the important ones.
– When current strategies are not working, make the necessary changes to your plans, activities, objectives, or behavior.
Reason #2 Justifying your behavior and blaming others
Do you find it hard to admit when you’re wrong? I read an article where the author shared his experience when he heard a leader blaming everyone else for the way he was acting: “I sat there listening to this poor justification for unacceptable behavior thinking to myself: The excuses that people come up with never cease to amaze me.” but that Theory of Cognitive Dissonance.
The feeling of discomfort caused by performing an action that is discrepant from one’s self-concept, cognitive dissonance always produces discomfort, and in response, many people try to reduce it by blaming others for their actions. There is no I in team and leadership is all about building and creating an environment that allows their people to maximize their full potential while in the process, helping the company achieves its objectives.
Recommendation
– Lead by example and encourage others in a positive way
– Validate your team by creating trust.
– Genuinely show interest in helping others.
– Admit when you are wrong .
Reason #3 Lacking Emotional Intelligence
For leaders, having emotional intelligence is essential for success. After all, who is more likely to succeed – a leader who shouts at his team when he/she is under stress, or a leader who stay in control, and calmly assesses the situation?
Leaders with self-control stay calm and clear-headed while under stress or during a crisis and maintain emotional balance. Leadership is demanding, and the people who can juggle multiple demands, but remain focused on a group’s goals are the ones who are likely to succeed.
Recommendation
– Listen attentively to your team to understand their perspectives
– Create and maintains good working relationships with other people.
– Practice empathy, feel what other people are feeling so you can put yourself in their shoes.
– Read non-verbal cues, read messages conveyed by facial gestures, posture, eye movement, and body language.
Final Word
leadership because of their belief that was passed down from generation to generation. Leadership is about people and self-discovery; you were born to have dominion over your gifts, not people. Become a slave for your gift and serve that gift to the world. Inspiration is the highest form of leadership, and you become a leader when you are of service to the world, not by the number of people serving you.
Be very wary of people who called themselves leaders, the colonizers tried and in many instances succeeded in their quest to divide the people based on their twisted leadership thinking and perverted agendas. It’s up to us now to change these practices and mind-set, because leadership is all about people, inspiring people to believe in the impossible, and inspiring people to dominate their gifts; never over people.