My last 2 employee retention blogs “Employee Retention through Motivational Leadership” and “5 Employee Retention Tips for Leaders” focused on motivational leadership and how the way you behave as a leader will affect the retention of your team members. This blog will be focused on how we can proactively retain people when we take a person-centered leadership approach to develop them.
As a leader, you have a tremendous amount of responsibility for, and influence over, your people. This means you can literally be the one who sets them on a trajectory for future success or failure. Leaders should take this obligation seriously and follow a few simple steps to develop and advance them toward their goals. When you do this, people will be more inclined to stay with you longer and refer others to work for you.
- Motivate Them to Set Goals. Lewis Carroll wrote, “If you don’t know where you are going any road will get you there.” This timeless truth is how many people live their lives, wandering down paths that take them into the unknown. They do not sit down and create the direction to live an intentional life. As a leader, you should take the time to understand what the goals of your people are, and in some cases help them understand how to think about what they should be. Many people have never developed goals or thought about developing a plan for where they want to be in 3, 5, or 7 years.[vcex_spacing size=”30px”]
- Delegate and Empower Them. Once they set goals, it is time for the leader to take action. Give stretch assignments, delegate responsibility, and empower them to advance in knowledge to help them grow. When there are limited opportunities for stretch assignments, leaders should challenge them to be subject matter experts for the rest of the team or organization. This is how leaders keep the fire of enthusiasm burning inside their people.[vcex_spacing size=”30px”]
- Support Them and Hold Them Accountable. When growing people through stretch assignments and delegation, they may run into roadblocks. These roadblocks can come in many forms such as not having the authority, knowledge, or resources to get things done. In these cases, it is up to the leader to intervene, remove obstacles, and provide resources. Other roadblocks may be caused by confidence issues. When these types of roadblocks occur, many leaders take back the delegation or put it in limbo, instead, the leader should hold the person accountable for getting the job done. This builds confidence and loyalty when you tell people, “I knew I picked the right person for the job” or “I had every confidence you would find a way to resolve the issue.”
Do we want to be the mentor they fondly tell others about as the one who had the biggest influence on their lives? In motivational studies, one of the key factors is that people want to feel that they are being mentored and grown. By following the steps above you will increase the likelihood that employees will feel engaged, challenged, and want to stay with you longer. In other words, you will retain more people when you invest in helping them grow and advance.
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Interested in learning more, attend out complimentary webinar on “Retention Strategies for Leaders” on August 25, 2022 at 9 AM.