Have you made any changes in your accountability approach based on the two XM Truths from last week’s blog? In our wide range of SMB clients, most human performance problems are missing these components.
We want to share two more hot tips that will help leaders make delegation and accountability positive and powerful.
Hot Tip #1: Know your people. We mean, really know them. If you can connect what they want and how they are wired to meaningful, inspired work, their engagement and results will multiply. For a very small investment, you can assess them for personality style, motivations, and strengths. Line up assignments where they are naturally gifted and communicate effectively in a style that works for them.
Hot Tip #2: Master effective feedback. This process starts with building relationship capital with regular 1-1’s with your direct reports; listening, connecting, seeing what they see. (Check-in next week for a guide on effective 1-1’s). From this foundation, you will create regular opportunities to GET and give feedback. The sooner you give feedback, good or bad, the better. Try starting with a very gentle opening statement like this. “I want to give you a little feedback, I might be wrong about this…”. With strong relationship capital and a soft opening, providing feedback is easier than you think. Leaders, adopt the mindset that feedback is a gift.
If you are serious about growing your business, accountability is critical to team performance. One of my mentors once said, “Don’t mistake cowardice for grace.”