Leaders: Proving Need Not Stop the Improving #EmployeeDevelopment
by Kate Nasser | 3 Comments »
Leaders, do your employees spend most of their time proving their value to you or improving their value to the organization?
After your feedback or after a performance review, do they truly feel the focus is on improving their skills? Or do they think the focus on proving themselves to you?
Proving Need Not Stop the Improving – It’s Up to You!
Improving: What Message Are You Sending?
Leaders and managers, if you are thinking you must constantly prove your value to your boss, then you are likely spreading this prove to survive outlook to your direct reports.
You are also at risk for spreading the disease of perfectionism to your teams as you minimize all chances of mistakes. When people are learning new skills they make mistakes. Perfectionism (aka no mistakes allowed) makes proving and improving mutually exclusive.
It is through constant improvement that people create and prove their value to the organization. If you as a leader say and live the message “Let’s learn from our missteps and keep growing”, then employees will focus on learning, improving, and growing. They will also have far better morale!
Mindset & Communication:
Your mindset and daily communication shape the message employees will focus on — long before feedback or performance reviews.
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Being clear will help employees improve. Innuendo and confusion foster fear that drives most employees to focus on proving their value.
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Courage and communicating with caring honesty promote improvement; fear and avoidance of conflict create a CYA culture of proving instead of improving.
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Engaging employees for organizational success fosters learning and improving; climbing the ladder only for your success tells everyone to prove themselves to survive.
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Broad views of what is possible elevate all to limitless success; vertical thinking and a shortage mindset confine everyone to proving themselves amid very limited opportunities.
Improving: Beware the Five Traps
Leaders, avoid the trap of the “prove to survive” mindset. Abandon the “prove me wrong about you” approach to leadership. Engage employees to learn, grow, and contribute their talents for organizational results!
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Separate your own personal pet peeves about employees from the essentials of organizational success.
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See the employees’ talents as a pathway to everyone’s success instead of a threat to yours.
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Be clear in your feedback to promote improvement. Be specific and offer examples.
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Use honesty to communicate clearly instead of scaring and scarring employees with your emotion-packed bluntness.
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Applaud talents that carry the organization forward and guide each employee to change their behaviors that threaten organizational success.
Action Reminder!
Constant proving robs improving of valuable time and vital energy; continuous improvement fosters limitless success.
From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People Skills Coach™
Image above by: SweetDreamzDesign via Creative Commons License.
Related posts:
Leaders, Do Your Pet Peeves Disengage Employees?
7 Steps from Brutally Blunt to Helpfully Honest
©2012-2024 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, if you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com for permission and guidelines. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.
Kate Nasser, The People Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on leading change, employee engagement, teamwork, and delivering the ultimate customer service. She turns interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.
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Great insights! I like the focus on improving and distinction of proving relating to confining fear. Your piece gives a transformational objective with clear transferrable steps. Great for organization and insights for personal too!
Many thanks Angel. The post came to me as I was coaching leaders and employees. I am grateful for your feedback that the distinction is valuable.
Warmest regards and hopes that you will visit here often and share your experience and learning!
Kate