If you are a leader who manages to communicate with your employees at least six hours a week, your effort will bear fruits in form of increased levels of motivation, engagement and higher number of innovative proposals from them. When you interact with your subordinates on a regular basis, you will not only be better informed about the ordinary problems that occur every day, but you will also be able to know who is working hard and who is under-performing. What areas should you be most interested in? The entrepreneur.com website has the following advice.
1. Motivation
Increased communication can tell you something about your employees' intrinsic motivators and also reveal the factors that actually undermine their motivation. Ask them in a natural way when they felt motivated and demotivated. In the beginning, the answers you get may sound a little bit superficial, but as they get used to it, they will share their feelings with you frankly. It is important to take action based on your findings. If you can’t do anything about a particular problem, admit it.
2. Goals and ambitions
Show your employees that you care and ask them about what they are want to improve. When workers learn new things they are much more engaged than when there are no new challenges for them. The next step is for you to take advantage of their efforts in improvement and to support them when necessary. Constant growth is what you want to achieve.
3. Discover sources of frustration
Ask them which roadblocks annoyed them the most in the past month. Were there any breakdowns that also made work difficult? You can be sure that you will get amazing improvement ideas.
4. Wins wins wins
What were your subordinates greatest achievements? What made them happy? Ask for their opinions on what their key wins were, because nothing is worse than a boss who ignores your successes.
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