It would be so much easier if they did. If one was underperforming, you could go to the index, look up “underperforming employee” and find the page number with instructions on how to increase employees’ productivity. If another causes friction on your work team, you could look up a not very nice word that describes a difficult person in the same index and it would lead you to the pages where you would discover tips on how to turn a difficult employee into a team player. But of course, this is all wishful thinking.
When you hire an employee, they bring with them beliefs, attitudes, predispositions, personal agenda’s and most important of all, they come with needs and they are there to get them met. And, those needs are far greater than earning a paycheck twice each month. Some will be forward and tell you how they like to work and what they need to do their jobs to the best of their abilities. Others are more mysterious, which can be much more challenging. As a manager, you’ll need to read their body language, tone and performance under a variety of working conditions and discover what those needs are. Adding to this complexity, everyone has preconceived expectations of what others should be doing on the work team, and when those expectations aren’t met, it spawns disappointment, disrespect and confrontation all of which throws sand in the gears of your production. With a lack of strong leadership, these behaviors are very difficult to reverse. Managing one person is relatively easy. Managing individuals blended together in work groups is much more difficult, and your role as a manager simply can’t be focused on making sure everyone plays well in the company sand box. If you find yourself in this position, you know it’s drain on time, energy and valuable resources. This is where leadership training, such as L.E.T. will prove to be immeasurably beneficial.
Leadership training is 100 percent E.Q. Emotional Intelligence, or, Empathy Quotient), as training managers how to properly and effectively manage people has nothing to do with technical skills. The problem with promoting brilliantly technical people into management (leadership) positions is that although they can lead a group to an outcome based on experience, they may not have the skills needed to arrive at that outcome in the most efficient manner where everyone is motivated to give their best. Instead, people problems have the potential to surface which detracts from the end goal and can slow a project down to a slow crawl. When the order of the day is speed, efficiency and quality, it’s easy to understand how critical management skills really are, and the conclusion is both simple and logical – people who enjoy working with, and respect their immediate boss will produce. Those who don’t are distracted with ongoing people problems, lack of direction and are bothered by their inability to effectively communicate with their manager.
Employees don’t come with manuals, but leadership training provides the skills to turn them into peak performers and producers.