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Type: HR, Report if not a HR topic
Wanted to share...."Leadership Rewards and Recognition"
by Susan M. Heathfield
"Today many American corporations spend a great deal of money and time trying to increase the originality of their employees, hoping thereby to get a competitive edge in the marketplace. But such programs make no difference unless management also learns to recognize the valuable ideas among the many novel ones, and then finds ways of implementing them." -- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
"There are two things people want more than sex and money -- recognition and praise." -- Mary Kay Ash
A leader makes other people feel important and appreciated. The leader excels at creating opportunities to provide rewards, recognition and thanks to his or her staff. A leader creates a work environment in which people feel important and appreciated.
How Leaders Make People Feel Important Through Rewards and Recognition
A key leadership trait is the ability to inspire followership. In addition to supplying a shared vision and direction, leaders must develop a relationship with the people they inspire to follow them. The successful leadership relationship inspires people to become more than they might have been without the relationship. Following an effective leader, people accomplish and achieve more than they may ever have dreamed possible.
The foundation of this successful relationship is the leader's ability to make people feel important. (Sure, money works to a certain extent, although, as a limited quantity in organizations, I wouldn't overemphasize its importance.) So, effective leaders need to demonstrate these practices.
1. Pay attention to people using common courtesy.
Say good morning. Ask people how their weekend turned out. Ask whether Rebecca won her soccer match. Practicing simple courtesy is a powerful relationship- building tool.
2. Listen to what your coworkers, peers and staff members have to say. Listen giving full attention to the person seeking your attention. If you can't pay full attention and listen actively, set a time with the person to meet when you can. You gain much information from the ideas and opinions of others. You make people feel special when you listen to them without distraction. Know that Rebecca has a soccer match.
3. Use powerful, positive language in your interaction with others.
Say "please" and "thank you" and "you're doing a good job." Say, "We couldn't have accomplished the goal without you." "Your contribution saved the customer for the company." Powerful, positive recognition makes people feel important. Powerful, positive recognition encourages your employees to contribute more of the same work in the future.
4. Put praise in writing.
A "thank you" note to the employee, with a copy to her file, magnifies the impact of the recognition.
5. Keep your commitments to staff.
If you have a meeting set up for Tuesday, attend the meeting. Cancellation should not occur except in a true emergency. Promised Pat a raise? Don't do it unless you know you can keep your promise.
6. Give staff public credit for contributions.
You didn't think up the idea for senior staff review. Instead say, "Mary thought this approach would work well and I agree with her." "The credit belongs to John. Isn't that a terrific idea?"
You may think these actions sound a lot like leadership by the golden rule. You're right, although a fellow consultant told me about an even more powerful rule - the platinum rule. In the golden rule, you treat others as you wish to be treated. In the platinum rule, you treat people as they wish to be treated. These are powerful, yet simple, ways you can reward and recognize people. These are powerful, yet simple, ways to make the people you employ feel important and appreciated. The bottom line? Believe people are important. Act as if you believe people are important. People will feel important. Important people will think of you as a great leader.
[About the Author: Susan Heathfield is a Human Resources expert. She is a management and organization development consultant who specializes in human resources issues and in management development to create forward thinking workplaces. Susan is also a professional facilitator, speaker, trainer, and writer. Susan is a member of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD). Susan contributes regularly to professional publications including a book chapter for ASTD and a recent article in the American Society for Quality's Journal for Quality and Participation. ] (Copied )
I am a regular reader of Susan's blog. She has this uncanny ability to make complex HR tasks easier. A great figure among contemporaries.
The leadership model that I follow :
1. Be Approachable: I have always felt that being in touch with your subordinates helps. Although having that huge cabin may appear very lucrative, many a time, I have chosen to be among my subordinates, which has helped me to be approachable. I call it being a shout-away.
2. Be Dependable: When you commit something to your subordinates, be sure you live up-to it. Reverse-engineering tells us, that commit only those things which you can live upto. It increases your credibility quotient among not just your reportees, but also among your peers and superiors.
3. Be Time-conscious: It helps to have a good time sense, since without our notice, our behavior is both being observed and being aped. It helps to set the right precedents.
4. Take-the-brick-bats: When your reportee/team goofs up, be there like a true leader and take the blame, instead of trying to pass the buck infront of your superior. It sets a exemplary example infront of the reportee, who would instantly realize his/her mistake. Course correction is much easier after you have owned up the mistake as a leader.
5. Be Spotlight-shy: Dont be eager to lap up the bouquets when they flow in for the good work done. Your subordinates will respect you more. Next time, when you have a deadline, you will not be let down, not because you are their leader, but because they dont want to let you down.
6. Recognize & celebrate small-wins: There are a lot of small wins in our day to day work life. It is important to recognize and celebrate them in front of the entire team. It gives a sense of belonging to the reportee because he doesnt have to wait till the formal awards ceremony to be recognized. It also helps to foster bonding within the team, which is invaluable. A small example can be, each leader should have some Thank You notes printed and kept with him/her. When a reportee has done a good job, you can sign the Thank You note, and along with a Dairy Milk chocolate, you can keep it on his/her desk before they login. You can add an Appreciation mail to it, copying the rest of the team. When they login and find the Thank You note and the chocolate. I have seen some of my subordinates maintaining a track of the Dairy Milk wrappers each one of them received.
7. Have an Open-Communication: It is very imperative to have open-communication within the team. It eliminates bias and fosters good will among the team members.
8. Appreciate in front of your Superior: I always found that when I am sending an appreciation mail to a reportee, it would always be more effective when my superior is copied on the mail. It gives the reportee the sense of fulfilment that his/her efforts are not just being noticed and recognized by his/her boss, but also the boss' boss. That is the icing on the cake.
9. It is good to know what is happening in the lives of your reportees. For this, you would have to don many roles, like a Coach, a Mentor and a leader.
Most of the stuff mentioned above is from my personal experience, which I have incorporated by not just my experience, but also from observation. It is amazing how much you can learn not just from your failures, but also others.
Thanks for the post. I am sure others would benefit from it.
This made me reflect on the broader question of what is really important to people.
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"There are two things PEOPLE WANT more than sex and money -- recognition and praise." -- Mary Kay Ash
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There are two more that I think can be added to the list of recognition, praise, sex, and money: Love and Time
So the list would be:
1. Love
2. Recognition
3. Praise
4. Sex
5. Time
6. Money
Open to discussion on the order of priority for these six and any other items that you think can be added to this list!
I may be excused for the digression... it's just that this is one of my favorite topics: what is more important to people and why? / why we do what we do?
RK
As Robert Frost said :
The woods are lovely,
Dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
and miles to go before I sleep.
I have read about Mary Kay Ash and her Charitable Foundation against domestic violence and for women sick of cancer. She was a successful entrepreneur, a powerful leader and a great motivator.
I often asked myself what motivates people, what makes us in motion, what gives us force to overcome our barriers and achieve best results, feel accomplished. I think people are basically the same, even if it's about leadership or family life, their driven forces are the same.
Love is undeniably the most powerful motivating factor in our lives, it's what gives you "wings" to feel strong, to feel you can do all, to find the necessary resources inside you to succeed.
People need also to be listened. If you want to be a successful leader you have to know your team, to know how to listen to them. You have to care, to empathize with them. It's the same thing in life, in family, in my job as a doctor. People come to me asking for a treatment but also looking for someone they can open up to, someone to listen to their problems, to encourage them, advice them.
In our basic structure we weren't created to be alone and I'm thinking of the spiritual aspect, not necessarily the physical loneliness. We need to share our achievements, to share our concerns. People need recognition of every small steps they're doing. We all need to feel appreciated, to be noticed and this way to feel encouraged to go further, do more, do better.
Mary Kay Ash said: "I have learned to imagine an invisible sign around each person's neck that says, 'Make me feel important!' I respond to it immediately, and I never cease to be amazed at how positively people react. If I were to teach a first-year management course, I would instruct every student to wear a make-me-feel-important sign for the entire semester. By the end of the term and for the rest of their lives, they'd imagine seeing the same sign hanging from the neck of everyone they met. What wonderful relationships they would build with their spouses, friends, co-workers and customers!"
Starting with what RK said Love, recognition and praise address the emotional faculty of the individual and Money and time appeal to the tangible faculty. Time equals money and in that context Tangible faculties can be classified under financial domain. Tangible faculties as i see it is more Rationally driven... Now Sex- could be emotional or physical which could be a case where mind over rides values... As i see it, there is a third faculty which is intellectually driven that can get people to cross mountains. So a challenging job or problem is the third domain that drives/motivates people to do what they do. The mix of emotional, intellectual and the financial domains varies from person to person. Identifying,rewarding and recognising is an art.
If we werent created to be alone from a spiritual domain we should rather appreciate collectivism than individual recognition. All the sharing and caring is not about collectivism it is just ego gratification. Leadership therefore is a question of what governs what is it mind over values, emotion over values or values over mind and emotion. There is always a constant tension brewing between these three and that influences leadership styles.
Now,If we are to look at the leadership styles of the west and east, west is more individualistic and east is more pluralistic. So national culture has a role in defining styles of leadership. In India we try to balance the styles of west and east but in a competitive climate Individualism takes over collectivism. If we move further to countries like Japan or Korea its collectivism that dominates individualism. So there is a national culture, individual culture(governed by individual values) and group culture that influences leadership style.
Leadership style is also influenced by internal and external focus. Customers, competitors and shareholders influence external and employee/stake holders govern internal focus. Taking a page from the current crisis, share holder focus has led to value erosion. So if we assume a linear scale here share holder focus would be the bottom of the scale above which would be stake holder focus. Focus on customers, competitors and employees would then take the highest level
At the simplistic level, there is a cultural element (3 forces), there is a individual element(3 forces) and then you have the organisations focus (3 elements). So we end up having a 3X3X3, which makes it very interesting. Now if we go back to the styles of leadership and ways to motivate, reward and recognise we can come up with a more dynamic approach. An interesting exercise would therefore be to map styles mentioned by my esteemed friends on that 3X3X3.
In my humble opinion if we assume things in absolutes then we end up piegon holing styles of leadership. Absolutes mean this or that and there are no grey areas. We as individual always operate in shades of grey. If that is the case why should leadership be any different.
Harish,
This is one of my favorite poems... those 4 lines speak a lot!
RK
Hello Ram,
Just a quick note to let you know that I appreciate your perspective.
More detailed reply later...
RK
Hello Ram, that was an amazing perspective. Thanks for sharing with us.
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