When change is proposed, it usually comes from above – the top management – and people see it as a major threat to their style of life, comfort and even livelihood. With a little diplomacy from the leader, a resistant team can change into a willing and positive force towards that change.

People need to understand why change is necessary – Many leaders feel they do not owe it to their employees to explain why the change is necessary; they might not. But a good leader understands that without the willing participation and understanding of your team you cannot count on your people’s full commitment; and without commitment your overall strength is vastly diminished.

Need to know basis information flow – good communication skills in the workplace does not mean you tell your team members everything. They might not be able to cope with such overload of information. However, to have their goodwill and cooperation you need to give your employees more than just orders. Good leaders will conduct a series of participatory meetings where he would lead his people towards the realization that change is imperatives. Enough information should be shared so they employees realize the importance of change not only for the company, but for their own growth.

Allow for fine tuning on a bottom-up approach – the best participatory methods that would bring in the employees towards accepting change is to allow them to contribute. As a leader you should be able to give them the basic direction, methods and then invite them to perfect it. When the employees feel they have a say in the matter, they would not feel as threatened and therefore try to cooperate rather than dismiss the idea of change. Good communication skills would ensure that your employees feel in charge of the situation; when actually you remain firm in your driving seat.

Encourage change with rewards – eliminate people’s fears by allowing them additional training so they can adapt to their new roles better. Monetary gains, promotions, opportunities to gain more certifications are among the possible rewards that can be offered to encourage cooperation towards change.

Great leaders often use good communication skills in the workplace as their only and most powerful tool for motivation.

© 2012 Incedo Group, LLC

Why Change Is Feared?

Most people fear change because they do not feel in control of the situation. They fear the unknown that would come with the change. They fear the negative outcomes of such change. When companies introduce changes, they fear that such changes would not suit their career growth plans, inconvenience their style of work, or worse it would mean loss of their jobs.

Change is normally perceived as a negative, one that would create trouble rather than help. People most of all fear they lack competence to face the changed environment.

How Good Leadership Skills Can Help?

A leader would need to be sensitive to the fear and acknowledge it as normal. Ignoring it, undermining it or ridiculing it would not help; it would make it worse. It takes enormous skill to take your employees along with you when change is required.  Some of the critical steps that facilitate this process are:

Reality check about the company/ business – if you want your team to respond to change with the same fervor as you do, they need to understand why it is necessary. Good leadership skills require you to translate the ground reality to the whole team. They should know and internalize the fact that unless change is introduced, the company’s growth will be hampered.

Participatory approach to change – the overall vision for the direction of change would come from the management of the company in most cases and because of this often employees feel left out and out of control. A good leader would ensure that there is a considerable amount of participatory interaction takes place before change is introduced whenever possible.

One to one counseling – before change in introduced a good leader would try to counsel people who would bear the greater brunt of the change. Where the company is very large, the managers or team leaders would first be counseled.  They would then feel empowered enough to counsel those who work under their command.

Good Leadership Is the Best Role Model Of Change

Change is inevitable in the growth of a company. When the economic conditions are volatile change may become the best tool for survival. Hence, good leadership skills are of utmost importance to ensure that employees stop fearing change and focus on taking the business forward.

Great leaders and successful companies will tell you that motivating employee performance is a full time job. You need to be at it 24x7x365 if you want a dedicated and committed workforce. Here are 5 vital steps that will keep you and your workers on the right track:

Sense of achievement – the worker needs to have a sense of achievement when he does a task. Does he have it? Check this out and if you find that there is no sense of achievement, you need to ensure that he gets it. How? Make him accountable for the task; let everyone know that the overall success of the task and the company depends on each task being completed well.

Work commensurate to ability – the greatest tool for motivating employee performance is the right amount of work and the right type of work. If the work is too difficult to perform, it will frustrate the worker and he would either leave or be happy with a shoddy outcome. If it is too easy, it would not be challenging enough and the result would be the same – less than stellar outcome. You need to ensure that the job is commensurate with the worker’s abilities.

Bite sized tasks are better – whatever be the project, you need to have a plan that shows how the project is to be done. The plan should be start with the idea and end with the ultimate goal. It should be broken into small, bite-sized tasks, on a day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month basis so the employee knows what is expected of him and will be able to stay focused on the task. Motivating employee performance and keeping them focused is possible only if they know what they are doing and why.

Have contingency plans set in – things can go wrong anytime. As the saying goes, ‘Stuff happens!’ (or something similar to this expression). Keeping the employees motivated when things go wrong is most important for it is at such times that people lose focus and let go of their will to achieve the company’s goals. Motivating employee performance depends on them knowing that there is always a plan B in case plan A fails to take off.

To be able to help addressing this concern, a good leader needs to first understand why his people fear change. What are the factors that cause such a terrible blockage in motivating employee performance? The reasons are many but the top five reasons why employees fight change are described below:

They perceive a risk in their personal well being – change is perceived as a force that brings in additional responsibility, new modalities of work and in worst cases loss of job. The employee acutely fears that if the change is allowed in the company, he would be at high risk.

There are no immediate role models when change comes in – one of the key problems with motivating employee performance is that the employee has no one to emulate. There is no one to put as a role model. The employee is fearful about the mistakes that he might make especially if he is the first one to tread on the ‘changed’ path. The fear of unknown, the apprehension about making mistakes could stop the employee cold in his tracks.

Employee may feel incompetent to take up the new responsibilities – change means new way of doing things, new jobs, new skills. People fear that they may not live to the expectations of their superiors; they feel that they do not have the required competency to deliver their duties in the new style of working. At the same time, they are afraid to admit this to their supervisors/ managers/ bosses lest they would lose their jobs.

Employees feel overwhelmed – there will be a slack period when change is introduced or about to the introduced. At that time, the work often seems insurmountable. It is difficult to keep employees motivated when they feel the task at hand is impossible to achieve success. The period before the change would have already bogged the employees down quite a bit; and they would be already tense about the overall picture. When change is proposed they would feel that all control would be lost.

Employees fear there is a hidden agenda – unless you start with a well informed group about why and what type of change is planned, employees would fear there is a hidden agenda about the change.

Motivating employee performance is very important while introducing change; hence a good leader would ensure that the majority of concerns that cause fear are addressed before any change is introduced.

The Importance of Identifying Your Workers’ Strengths

Very often, professionally qualified people have various aptitudes that may be exploited for the benefit of the company; which may not necessarily in concurrence with their chosen profession or desired role.  It helps that tests and performance reviews to ascertain aptitudes, attitudes, strengths and weaknesses be conducted yearly (or if possible more often).

To build on the strength of your people, you need to first identify what they are. To identify these strengths you need to have exceptional assessment measures and appraisal exercises in place and these would need to be applied periodically. Not only strengths, but also aptitudes need to be identified and measured. Having stellar communication skills facilitates this process.

How Do You Build Success on People’s Strength?

There are two reasons why identifying people’s strength can lead your business to success. The first is that is encourages the person to perform optimally. When you identify the strengths of your employees, you know about it, the company knows about it, and most importantly – the employee himself knows about it.

Just knowing and recognizing a person’s strength can influence the way he works. Recognition and appreciation can vastly improve a person’s performance.

The second reason is that it allows others to build on this strength ensuring that the team work is highly enhanced. This is part of good communication skills in the workplace – as people tend to specialize in a certain field once they are identified as experts in that particular area.

Weakness As a Gateway to Success

When strengths are identified, you also tend to identify the weaknesses of the workers. When these are identified, good communication skills would help the leader  make the worker aware of this, and motivate him to take measures to improve their performance, or find roles where they can capitalize on the strengths.  This means that not only you are able to identify the strengths of the worker and make him feel good about this special quality, but also you are able to motivate him to address his weaknesses.

The result is that your business will have people who know their strengths and weaknesses; feel good about themselves; and are ready work to address their weak points. In such a scenario, is it a surprise that the business will achieve success?

Leaders are constantly dealing with problems inside and outside the company as well. When it comes to internal problems there are 5 critical problems that all leaders have to face at one time or other during their lifetime all tied to good communication skills in the workplace. Their ability to overcome these challenges is what separates ‘leaders’ from ‘great leaders’.

Leaders are constantly dealing with problems inside and outside the company as well. When it comes to internal problems there are 5 critical problems that all leaders have to face at one time or other during their lifetime all tied to good communication skills in the workplace. Their ability to overcome these challenges is what separates ‘leaders’ from ‘great leaders’.

• Managing a diversely skilled team – no matter how good the recruiting system is, a leader will always face the challenge of managing a diverse team. A poor leader  may get overwhelmed if the diversity is too wide. On the other hand, a great leader will have communication skills designed especially to bind every worker and understand how to manage this diverse team.

• Binding and facilitating team work – one of the greatest challenges with leaders today is coordinating work with teams. People prefer to work on an individual basis and not share the credit for success with anyone else, leaving team members not bound as a team but as individual contributors.  A great leader, with good communication skills would be able to guide and inspire them to work as a team.

• Inertia towards change – technology today demands that you change continuously if you want to stay in the leading position. You need to not only change to keep pace with the ever evolving technology, but also you need to anticipate it. Unless the leader is able to fight the inertia of his team with good communication skills the company will die a slow but sure death. A good leader is able to inspire his team to want to achieve more, to do more, to welcome and face change with enthusiasm.

• Connecting the employees with the vision of the company – in most companies the production level goes down over time because the employees move away from the vision and mission of the company. As the leader with good communication skills, you should be able to keep the vision and mission alive in the minds of the employees through participatory management and decision making.

Promoting a culture of trust and transparency – A culture of trust, mutual respect and transparency are some of the key factors that can be achieved with good communication skills in the workplace. In most companies, with time the culture becomes vitiated with mistrust and craftiness to promote individual interests.

What do you say about Donald Trump? Or Bill Gates? Or Oprah Winfrey? Or Warren Buffet? Or Steve Jobs? Or Mahatma Gandhi? Or Mother Theresa? They each have a brand of their own. When you speak their name aloud, you draw a definite picture in the mind of the listener; a picture that describes that person’s strengths, charisma, gifts, and beliefs.

This is what leadership in business really means. First of all, a leader worth his salt will build his own personal and very unique brand. There are no exceptions to this rule.

Why Building A Personal Brand Is Important?

When you build a personal brand as a leader, you are broadcasting a larger than life message – this message is, “I know  who I am”. This is one of the most powerful beliefs that all leaders project. This is what attracts followers to these leaders; the inspire trust and dependability.

This is the real acid test for leadership is are able to translate their beliefs into actions with the full conviction that they can do whatever they put their mind to. The benefits of developing a personal unique brand are many, but the top three are:

1. You attract the best possible platforms for work – businesses are always looking for people who can lead. What better proof that you have mastered leadership in business than projecting your own unique brand image?

1. You can attract best talent to work with you – when you are recognized as an outstanding leader, high talented people would make it their privilege to work with you. You can have your pick from among the best brains in your field.

1. Your innovations/ products would enjoy a head start - whatever you do would be considered good quality unless proved otherwise. The rule of the market is to consider a product or service with doubt until it earns its place in the market. When your brand is recognized the market is more eager to embrace you and you gain a huge advantage over your competition.

Since the proof of the pudding is in eating it, it is worth the time to build your brand. If you want successful leadership in business you have to build your unique brand, for without it what leader are you?

What Makes Negotiations Successful?

So, what type of business communication skills do you use to win a negotiation? The term ‘winning’ –used very often – is actually a wrong connotation because when you say ‘win’ the implied result for the other party is ‘lose’. Thus there is likely to be acute resistance from the party with whom you are negotiation. The keyword for success is win-win; in other words, a middle path that makes both parties happy.

Is it possible that you will always be able to work out a win-win situation? Is it possible that you will be able to resolve conflict with this approach? Common sense says that this is not possible. So, what do you do? The answer is, you use your exceptional communication skills to project it as a win-win situation to the opposite party.

How Do You Orchestrate A Win-Win Negotiation?

There are many ways of helping the other party to see your point of view. That is the key to any growth plan. The easiest way to do this is when the other party believes that this is a win-win situation for both of you. How do you do this?

Do your homework thoroughly – you will need to come across as confident at many of the points in negotiations. Good business communication skill would entail that the other person believes you. This is possible only when you know the whole story (your side and their side) inside out. Before you set out for any type of negotiation, you need to do your homework.

Prepare for the worst case scenario – you cannot negotiate anything if you are scared of the outcome. Fear has a way of showing itself, and when you are fearful you cannot stay in charge of the situation. The dictates of stellar business communication skills demands that you never show fear, hesitation, doubt – unless these would help with the outcome of your negotiation and  you are knowingly showing this doubt or fear.

You can be fearless only when you are aware and prepared for the worst case scenario. It is like you have nothing to lose as you are prepared with Plan B, Plan C and a Plan D if required.  Being prepared means you also have excellent business communication skills.

If you want your business to profit, you need to hire people who will retire with you, or at least stay with you for years and years. This is just like a marriage – you need to be sure that the people you are bringing on board are a good fit right from the beginning. Good leadership means you should be able to identify the type of people that your company needs most, and then recruit them.  Apple would not be what it is if it did not have Steve Jobs at its helm for so long.

How Do You Ascertain Whether You Are Hiring The Right People Or Not?

Good leadership skills are not only gut feelings or high business acumen. It is also knowing how to find and using appropriate tools where necessary.  Hence, assessment of a person’s suitability for any job is commensurate to the size of the company. In small organizations, chemistry between the people who are working is an important as the applicability of their skills to the said job.

As the size of the business grows, other assessment tools become important in ascertaining the fit of the person within the company. There are many such tests and assessment tools, but three are very critical where hiring for long term.

Core Values – good leadership skills will recognize the fact that unless values match with those of the basic culture of the company, the hired personnel would not fit in. Core values of a human being are what drive him in his life and the biggest power behind every decision.

Personality - what type of personality does the person you hire have? The answer to this question would help you find the right fit for there are enough tools that can test and answer this question for you. You need to match as closely as possible the personality type with the demands of the job for optimal success.

Attitude – is the person accountable? Does he shirk responsibility? Is he a loner or a team worker? These are questions that an attitude test would answer.

Good leadership skills is knowing how to aggregate these inputs and taking an informed decision. Often tests would be exceptionally fruitful if complimented with general mental awareness tests and work references or on-the-spot tests.

The first and most visible among obstacles in team work in lack of clarity of accountability; every person in the team needs to know who-is-doing-what. Unless each member is clear about his role, he would not be able to do his best. This under-productivity would be further compounded when the leader issues penalties for shoddy work or missed deadlines. Hence, it is important for motivating employee performance, that the leader divide the work clearly and pin accountability to each one of the team members individually.

Another very critical obstacle in team work is the inability to give credit where due. Every person wants to be appreciated and noted as a good worker. Unfortunately, in most team only one or two members are highlighted, while the rest go unnoticed. When this happens regularly, the invisible team members would not be willing to cooperate any longer. Hence, a good leader would ensure that credit is shared equally among the team members. This is another key factor in motivating employee performance.

A third barrier in effective team work is uneven work distribution. Though one cannot ensure that all tasks are evenly shared by all team members, there has to be a check and balance on the overall workload. If some members find themselves slogging all the time, while the others enjoy freedom from work and responsibility there will be problems. At the same time these non-working team members often enjoy the credit that the team gets. This unevenness of work distribution can be a very big deterrent in motivating performance.

Leadership within the team is another key factor that may act as an obstacle in motivating employee performance. For a team to work well, someone should take the lead. However, if that person is not well accepted, or there is one or more contenders to the position of a team leader, then the team will not pull together. A good leader would diffuse such a problem by appointing a team leader and ensuring that the rest of the team accepts his lead.

It is among the most important roles of a leader to ensure that people get along and are able to work effectively in a team. By eliminating these types of obstacles the leader would find ways to keep motivating performance and lead the business to growth.

© 2012 Incedo Group, LLC