How Malta’s CEOs should develop their managers

“When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” – Jack Welsh

Micromanagement often comes up as a complaint about bosses who do not empower their people to use their ability. They would say ‘… my boss feels the need to control everything – I feel like s/he is my babysitter’. As a leader, you need to trust your peoples’ know-how. Although this can be hard to do, it will give your people some space to become confident problem solvers and develop their potential.

Coaching for individuals, teams and organisations works. Evidence shows that it’s a powerful development approach that leads to positive change and results. Learning the behaviours of a successful coach amplifies your ability to help employees succeed by using their natural strengths. Coaching improves peoples’ performance by providing them with ongoing feedback and support. It reinforces what they are doing right and guides them to identify what they need to do differently.

As a leader, you can only achieve better results by unlocking and maximising the potential of your people. You should continually upgrade your team by using every opportunity to guide, critique and help them be better. We all want feedback to be able to improve our work, fix our mistakes and achieve better results. Giving critical feedback might be uncomfortable, but in the end, they stand to gain greater self-awareness.

A survey done with millennials featured in a recent Forbes article reported that almost 90 per cent of respondents said they would feel more confident if they received frequent or ongoing feedback at work. Another survey featuring in Harvard Business Review showed that 72 per cent of employees from all generations thought their careers would benefit from more corrective feedback.

Feedback establishes trust and opportunity for recognition that builds peoples self-confidence. Self-confidence energises and gives people the courage to stretch, take risks and achieve their goals.

Exploit the numerous opportunities for people development within your day. By integrating people development in every aspect of your daily work – be it a customer visit, corporate presentation, budget review or project management, you are injecting self-confidence. You are also making space to give specific praise for great work done or a creative solution to a current challenge.

By inspiring risk-taking and learning from mistakes you are setting the example. Inspiring performance is about facilitating high performance in others through problem-solving, promoting, recognising and supporting others’ work. Encourage your people to share their problems. When they do, help them think of potential solutions instead of providing the solution yourself. When they reach their conclusion through their efforts, they are more accountable to achieve success. 

Remember, there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach or playbook that will mark your path. Remaining curious allows you to learn more about what your people are dealing with and the challenges they are facing. This allows you as a leader to adjust your leadership style to best fit with the people and situation you are leading.

Karl Grech is an Associate Certified Coach (ACC) with the International Coaching Federation (ICF). Helping his clients enhance how they connect, communicate and collaborate at work, he can be reached on [email protected] or visit www.karlgrech.com  to learn more.