What are most buildings and properties built on? A solid foundation. To improve team engagement, especially galvanising the team member’s mindset around the company’s core objective, starts off with a strong foundation. If you are a manager or a leader, the first 2 tools to use to build this strong foundation is transparency and leadership. Firstly, being transparent with your company’s objective is a good starting point which allows the team to see what their contributions are going towards.
This also allows the team to understand where leadership is coming from and why leadership is doing what they are doing. To boost the morale, a bonus tip would be to have the company objectives centre around adding value to others.
Studies have shown that most teams are more productive if they know what they are achieving. If the manager can adapt this into the company’s objectives and be transparent on the purpose, the team will add the extra effort in and if you are lucky they may even work those long additional hours and even on weekends. Secondly, leadership style in today’s teams can build or break a company’s operation and morale. Often, I hear from managers and leaders that “this is my management style” and “this is what the team will have to adapt to”.
Research in the last couple of years around workplace engagement suggest that to lead and inspire a productive team, managers and leaders need to adapt to who they are leading especially if they are looking at retaining and building a loyal team for years to come. Unfortunately, that means out with the past mentality (i.e. one management style fits all).
My tip here is that leaders and managers should start off with understanding what type of team member they are managing and what type of management style each team member needs. I.e. coaching, delegating, directing or supporting. And yes, you can choose only one management style for all team members but that’s another whole article.
