These four things can immediately improve your relationship with your team
The relationship between leaders and their team members not only affects employee performance but also can affect the relationship between employees and the organisation. It also impacts the breadth, depth and frequency of employee interaction with one another, which can only serve to improve dialogue and the sharing of ideas. Leaders at all levels are spokespersons of their own organisations, serving as the bridge and link connecting employees. Entrusted with the task to communicate organizational goals, visions and ideas to employees, they are responsible for maintaining and implementing organisational strategy and, more importantly, the culture. They also have the final say on promotion, retention and dismissal so employees can often feel intimidated by their leaders.
Here are four things leaders can do to improve their relationships with employees
1 Create an open environment. Many organisations, unfortunately, take an authoritarian approach to leadership, ruling their employees through bullying, threats, and intimidation. But this can have a negative impact in the long term because fear causes employees to contribute less to their organisations. This one of the things that causes employees to disconnect both mentally, by checking out or losing interest, and physically, through absenteeism and resignation
2 Be transparent. Organisations have to be transparent in their communication, whether it is about impending retrenchments or promotions. Employees must be constantly informed through constant, complete, and unfettered communication by their co-workers, managers, and customers because it is only when they have complete information can they will trust the organisation put effort into their work
3 Create growth opportunities. Financial, career, professional, and personal opportunities for growth provide more reasons for employees to give extra effort and enjoy working for your business than just a title and a paycheck. Opportunities for financial growth mean more than just regular salary increases for top performance.
4 Engage your people. Although many organizations have spent a lot of time over the past few years developing and installing elaborate employee suggestion systems, few have made them a permanent part of the way they do business. Even fewer actually implement the good suggestions they receive. This is a mistake. Employees are a tremendous potential source of organizational improvement, and you should make it a point to regularly tap this wealth of ideas.
