With the mounting pressure to meet your year-end goals and the massive workload, you might find yourself leading your subordinates in a high-pressure and stressful environment. If you don’t handle the situation well, they will easily end up detesting you and, worse, under performing. How can you ensure that you don’t compromise your business mindset and still bring out the best in your employees? Check out these highly relevant tips:
1. Check your physical and emotional wellness.
You don’t want your health checking out on you in these crucial times. You need to constantly check your physical health by visiting a fitness expert. The same goes for your emotional health: ask your family and friends about your role in their lives. Listen to what they have to say, and seriously consider their advice.
2. Link to the overall goal.
What’s the overall purpose of the task? Whether your employees are attending meeting after meeting, or accomplishing complicated paperwork, always link their activities to an overall purpose. Let them understand why the work they’re doing, however seemingly insignificant it is, matters.
3. Get to know your employees.
In tight situations, knowing what team members is good at just wouldn’t do. You have to understand that their lives extend beyond the workplace, as it will ultimately help you understand the reason behind their actions.
4. Assess their workload.
Does everyone in the team have equal workload? Understandably, there can never be a perfect distribution as to workload, but at some point, you will have to draw the line when one of them is getting a little too much work.
5. Be open to the truth.
Would you rather that your team pad their information, or do you prefer the cold hard truth? As a leader, it is up to you to create a culture where that is open to the truth—truth as to the progress of projects, truth as to whether goals can be attained in time, truth as to how much more time is needed. And this starts by not exploding whenever you hear something you don’t want. Ultimately, this outlook will lead to better relationships.
6. Don’t encourage whining.
Blowing off steam every now and then isn’t a problem. But when excuses and sidestepping responsibility become a constant attitude of your employees, you better call them out on it. Start the practice of encouraging your employees to speak directly to the person concerned to move the situation forward and solve the problem once and for all.