John Eades* says the best leaders know that when their teams under-perform the responsibility is there’s and they are the ones who have to fix it.
Joey was an experienced manager at a mid-sized company.
When his team missed its mark in the first year, he made a myriad of excuses.
The next year didn’t get any better, so he blamed people on his team and even threw a teammate under the bus to save his job.
While Joey’s responses weren’t unlike most leaders of under-performing teams, the reason things weren’t getting better was that Joey hadn’t come to grips with a hard truth — the responsibility is the leader’s.
Sure there are many possible factors to can cause a team to under-perform.
These are just a few: Lack of talent; talented people not meeting their potential or a lack of resources.
Still, ultimately, one person is responsible, the leader.
If you are leading an under-performing team or you want to take your current team to higher levels of performance, here’s what you can do.
Reinvest in your relationships: People work harder and push themselves to new levels of performance when they know their boss cares about them.
Researchers at the University of Berkley studied what motivates productivity in professionals.
When people felt recognised for the work they did, they were 23 per cent more effective and productive.
What’s even more astonishing is that when people felt valued and cared for, their productivity and effectiveness experienced a 43 per cent increase.
While recognition is essential, there is an additional 20 per cent jump in performance by showing your people you care for them.
Make time for one-on-one meetings with team members to find out what’s important to them, what goals they want to achieve, and what current challenges they are facing in their life.
Set higher standards: Anytime performance isn’t where you need or want it; it’s time to raise the standard.
A standard is simply defining what good looks like.
From all of our research in studying what the best leaders do it’s clear that good leaders define what good looks like; great leaders define what great looks like.
Raise the bar on what is expected to be a part of the team or organisation.
Start with the level of effort and commitment required moving forward.
Ask yourself this question: What kind of behaviour and actions do we need from every member of our team to level up?”
Then set standards based on what’s required.
While this is simple to write, it’s difficult to put it into practice.
For your people’s behaviour to change, you have to be consistent in your message and in accountability, which leads us to the next point.
Accelerate with accountability: Many words make people uncomfortable. Accountability is one of those words.
Accountability is simply the obligation of an individual or organisation to account for its activities, accept responsibility for them, and to disclose the results in a transparent manner.
A mentor of mine always told me: “What you tolerate, you encourage.”
It is your obligation to hold yourself and others accountable to the standards you set. Otherwise, you’re encouraging sub-standard behaviour.
To do this effectively, you have to have the courage and a proven model to have direct dialogues with your people when standards aren’t met.
Remove the people who haven’t bought in: One of the fastest ways to improve performance isn’t by addition, but by reduction.
If there are team members who haven’t bought in and they have been given multiple chances to get on board, it’s time to make a change.
Not only does their continued participation hold others back, but there’s a good chance they are bringing negativity and doubt to the team.
There is no bigger killer to performance than doubt and fear.
Each of these strategies by themselves is challenging, but put together, they become even harder.
Know this: You were not put in this position if you couldn’t rise to the occasion.
If you believe in yourself, you will be surprised at what you are going to achieve as a team.
*John Eades is the Chief Executive of LearnLoft a leadership development company. He is also the host of the Follow My Lead Podcast. He can be contacted at johneades.com.
This article first appeared on John’s LearnLoft blog.
