Leading an organization requires utmost ability in empowering people. People tend to adhere to ideals, support worthy causes, cooperate, and collaborate when they are empowered enough.
In the context of a workplace, even long-tenured and well-remunerated employees veer away from their head’s directives, become lax in the conduct of their designated tasks, and focus more on things unrelated to work even during office time when they are not empowered enough. Foremost step in empowering people in an organization is to make the organization’s vision, mission and goals clear to every member of the organization. As head of the workforce, you have to give your subordinates the opportunity to appreciate the fundamentals by which your company was founded and continues to exist. Regardless of their position, designation or specific task assignment, they have to understand the reasons for which your company is pursuing its goals and its future direction. This can be done by allowing them to undergo a process like where they are given the orientation they deserve and the opportunity to draw their own objectives towards realizing your company’s goals. Empowering people in an organization entails making clear the role of each one as part of the organization. Critical to their delivery of the output you expected of them is your subordinates’ understanding of your specific objectives and targets as head of the workforce and their roles in achieving them. Their position, designation, and specific task assignment must be thoroughly discussed to them. Making clear the roles, ways, and lee ways is a way of empowering people towards self-direction, self-regulation, creativity and collaboration. The parameters of your subordinates’ specific tasks like time-frame and quality, as well as the boundaries by which they are allowed to make certain decisions, execute their own workstyles, or exercise their creativeness must be made clear as well. Awareness of each other’s roles and of how they can possibly help or support each other pave way for team work. Giving some extent of autonomy in carrying their roles is a way of empowering people. Rather than giving extensive ‘to-do’ lists that may curtail your subordinates’ initiative and creativity, you must calibrate giving instructions and directions. Give proactive guidance, reminders, and encouragement but let them manage on their own within the designation, direction, parameters, and boundaries already given to them. Allow some extent of autonomy for them to discuss among themselves ways on how to carry-out their roles and how they can collaborate with each other. Giving acknowledgement and recognition is a way of empowering people. Whether or not the hard work of your subordinates resulted in the achievement of goals, it is still important to acknowledge their hard work and recognize their contribution. Giving due compensation has been proven an effective way of empowering people. While a self-empowered leader can draw support from his subordinates, recompensing good intentions and efforts sustains their support even more. Especially in the workplace, due compensation and incentives drives your subordinates to further their hard work and dedication to the company.
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Self-empowerment in essence is power over self. It means taking control of your own life- choosing which life path to follow, setting your own goals, directing the course of your life, as well as being responsible for the consequences of your choices. It is about your ability to pursue your aspirations for yourself and for others thereby impacting significant change.
Self-empowerment is not about defiance nor dominance. It is not about your confidence to dictate on others. Some of those whose standpoints you challenge may feel doubts and reservations but that does not mean they are not self-empowered. There were those who endured years of oppression but silently forged their inner strength and eventually rose-up liberating themselves and impacting social change, like Martin Luther. Self-empowerment is not anchored on richness, social status, nor on political connection. Many who were born and raised in affluence end-up groping during the financial crisis. A lot of powerful politicians failed to effect social change. There were those who relinquished their riches and chose to live with the poor yet exemplified service to humanity, like Mother Teresa. Self-empowerment is fueled by inner strength. How to be that empowered? Here are 3 life-changing steps to follow: Step 1: Know and accept yourself. Ascertain your strengths as well as your weaknesses. Distinguish your needs from your wants. Identify your wishes as well as your inmost longings and desires. Recognize your own values, beliefs, and principles. Acknowledge your intentions and aspirations. And then embrace who you really are. Unless you truly know and fully accept yourself, you cannot step-up to forging power over yourself. Step 2: Declare your life goals and work-up yourself towards attaining them. Accept yourself but never settle for you are a work in progress. Further hone your strengths and find ways to confront your weaknesses. Learning is a lifetime process and evolving into a better you entails constant hard work. Study with constant practice is key to acquiring knowledge and skills necessary for you to respond to your needs and wants, longing and desires, wishes and aspirations. Achieving your life goals is your own mission. You are responsible for your own well-being and happiness just as you are accountable for your own failings. Step 3: Impact positively on the imperfect world around you. As you endeavor towards your personal goals, you will be challenged either by differing individuals or trying circumstances. Things usually happen not according to your plans and expectations. And oftentimes, you cannot effect change out-rightly because most problematic situations are already systemic. Rather than whine and bark complains, effect proactive and creative change. This calls for the best version of yourself – your abilities to:
Self empowerment is that power that you harnessed from within you. Do you know that emotional intelligence is one of the strongest indicators of success in business? It is because emotional intelligence is not only the ability to identify and deal with your own emotions but also the ability to become aware of others’ emotions. There is plethora of research on emotions and how to develop emotional intelligence. It reveals that the highest performers at work are those who demonstrate a higher emotional intelligence. A high performer in the workplace possess high emotional intelligence matters more than you think. It is, therefore, important to develop emotional intelligence in the workplace to improve relationships and enhance performance. Like intelligence quotient, emotional intelligence also varies from one person to another. While some people naturally have the ability to understand and step into other people’s shoes, others may require a little effort to build their emotional skills. It is imperative for you to become emotionally mature in order for you to improve emotional intelligence. This is dual-faceted is one part of it involves naming emotions specifically so you are able to differentiate between similar emotions like feeling sad versus overwhelmed.
The other part of it is knowing the profile of each emotion so you understand its message clearly to become emotionally mature. You may practice mindfulness to gain perspective on your feelings so you can manage negative emotions and harness positive ones. Becoming mindful of the words you use will allow you to develop empathy for others, which cements existing relationships and helps you build new ones. Moreover, when your emotional sharpness increases, you become more resilient to challenges. Once you understand the emotion, it becomes easier to cope with appreciation on your emotions. Always remember, your emotions are never wrong they are there to supportive you, so you have to be honest about how you feel. Learning to validate your own feelings lets you validate others’ emotions, which is a core component of practicing empathy. Empathy can be a little difficult to achieve, but there are a few things you can do to develop emotional intelligence and one of its most integral part. Learn to listen effectively to both the non-verbal and verbal messages of others, including body gestures and physical signs to become emotionally mature. Ask other people questions to find out more about what they are feeling and take feedback to clarify you’ve understood their feelings clearly. Even if you disagree with someone, respect and acknowledge the feelings of others even if you disagree, don’t make judgmental or belittling statements. In order to gain confidence in mastering become emotionally mature, think of a time you successfully grappled with a similar feeling in the past. If you can do it once, you can do it again as you bolster confidence in your previous successes, you’ll be able to navigate uncertain land with certainty. As a matter of fact, many of your social skills are deeply rooted in personal confidence and self-esteem by improving your social skills, you become a good listener, a trustworthy and an approachable person. This in turn builds up your own confidence, making it easier for you to have a greater acceptance and a better understanding of become emotionally mature, which thereby develops your emotional intelligence. An effective communication is more than just saying the right words and not likely to find the right words to say if you have never learned how to listen. It is no irony that a speech pathologist spends a lot of time helping clients learn how to listen in fact, it has coined the term immersion listening to describe a heightened listening style. When asked to describe this listening style that compares it to immersion learning when one studies a foreign language. They think it is a wonderful concept and pleased to publish the own words about the concept. Listening is the core of communication and without strong and authentic listening skills we will not be effective in other areas of communication like understanding and perspective of body language to speaking and commenting with insight. There continues to be limited awareness of the power listening can bring to initial interactions and building trusted relationships. Unfortunately, there is tend on how to improve listening skills to be a low priority on the self-improvement on to do list.
There are various of listening styles from passive to informational and superficial. However, the most effective is immersion listening style which is an authentic to essentially high-level approach how to improve listening skills. Immersion listening includes the components of full attention to openness in speaker perspective with empathy and receiving the complete message without pre-conclusion. The key of listening is to be open and in the moment without anticipating what your communication partner will say. This however does not mean the listener needs to agree with the speaker’s message it’s just means the listener needs to receive it fully. In today’s world of multi-tasking using a listening style can be challenging because of the necessary focus on discipline energy and commitment takes to put into practice on how to improve listening skills. However, individuals who use this listening style are typically viewed by others as energetic, interested and approachable. Business networking is a prime example of the power of immersion listening and the immersion listener can gain the attention and interest of others far more easily than someone who is a passive listener. People want to engage with others who demonstrate a true and authentic interest in them and their message. Listening truly is the foundation of communication and building relationships. When interacting with clients, colleagues or superiors, individuals need to know that their issues, goals and opinions are valued. It is only on how to improve listening skills through consistent use of listening style that others see the interest of their communication partner. The effort it takes to use in listening to build trusted relationships is small in comparison to the relationships and loyal client base that can result. Believing in listening as a listening style has great potential for use in media interviews, business situations, such as networking events, and in virtually every social relationship. Sometimes it’s not easy to begin a conversation but what can be even more difficult for many people is keeping the conversation going and how to improve listening skills will be. Believing by doing more than just asking a lot of questions sometimes ask the wrong question and the conversation is over and it calls them conversation killers. It may be able to save the conversation with a fast footwork but this will take the risk. Conflict looms whenever people of differing personalities and perspectives work together. When they are confronted with issues and difficulties in the workplace, talk is inevitable. Discussion of issues usually starts on the sidelights resulting to gossips and backbiting. Or it can escalate into argumentation. When arguing sides push their standpoints further to a point of disrespecting the other sides, real conflict blows-up.
Talk is imperative in any human interaction. Hence, formal discussion of matters related to work must be done on a regular basis or whenever deemed necessary in order to give the workforce opportunity to talk about issues and concerns, raise suggestions for possible resolutions, and express opinion and insights relevant to the improvement of work. This enables management to harness the perspectives of workers in resolving possible triggers of conflict. This is what conflict management is all about. Conflict is best managed before triggers happen. Triggers of conflict can come subtly in the form of gossip whispers or as bold as rants and tirades. Human frailties can get in the way of human intentions. Feelings of envy or jealousy can worsen into prejudices and resentment. Suspicion or doubt can aggravate into distrust and defiance. Apprehension and fear can ignite disobedience and non-cooperation. These sorts of triggers are best addressed before not after they escalate into real conflict that is far more complicated to handle. Conflict happens when issues and concerns are not formally discussed. With periodic formal talks in the form of gripe sessions, meetings or conferences, ideas are free-flowed usually with good intentions. It enhances understanding and prevents disputes. It enables management to proactively make use of human ideas and opinions for the improvement of work. Human resource management involves conflict management. If you are a manager handling a pool of dynamic workers, you need to learn the following techniques in managing conflict: 1. Be aware of triggers of conflict and get into the bottom of it. Know every single issue that concerns your workers and address it before it blows up into conflict. Investigate further to know all sides of the issue. You can only do so if you are attuned with your workers. Go down to their level so you can better manage them. 2. Take a rational approach to conflict. Your workers may be emotional towards issues especially if it directly affects them. Never partake with their emotions; show empathy but deal with it rationally. Forge a reasonable discussion and resolution of issues. 3. Stand as moderator. As moderator, you take control of the discussion. Ensure that everyone gets enough time to express but in a manner that is cordial and respectful. Always direct the focus of discussion into the main issue. Gather all the suggested possible resolutions. End the discussion in an atmosphere of mutual understanding. 4. Devise collaborative measures. Devise measures to resolve the issues based on suggested resolutions by the workers. In doing so workers feel counted and will collaborate in the implementation of the measures. 5. Always follow through. Evaluate how things are going. Know how the measures are addressing the issue and where the loopholes are. Devise mitigating measures to improve on. Conflict management is not a one-time thing; it is a cycle of perfecting human cooperation and collaboration. It is a process that never ends alongside human resource management. Listening is one of the most crucial of human abilities. Almost all human functions rely largely on this ability to receive and interpret messages accurately. It is an active process by which we make sense of, assess, and respond to what we hear. It involves understanding of what we hear and processing it further towards acting responsively and appropriately.
Listening is more than just mere hearing. Any sort of sound or verbal information regardless how important becomes an oblivion when someone ceases to really listen to it. Like in- following instruction or taking down notes, participating in simple conversation or class discussion, interacting with others in a game or group dynamics, figuring out if the bus is coming or when the plane has already taking off- mere hearing is not enough; being able to process what is heard to a level of understanding and responding is critical. And this requires effective listening skills. Listening effectively is crucial in maintaining productive relationships. Our socially responsive actions rely heavily on how we accurately process information from our listening to people. If we fail to effectively listen we consequently fail to respond at all, lest act accordingly. Being aware why and when we fail in listening effectively is a jumpstart to honing our listening skills. We must acknowledge that indeed there are factors that hinder us from listening as intently as we should, reasons enough for us to consciously and constantly improve the way we listen. The following are 9 reasons why we fail to listen effectively: 1. message overload – Lots of information are thrown at us daily especially when we drown ourselves into social media. We have to qualify what to listen to and when. We have to filter out information that is irrelevant to our present occupation and only take in those that are valid and helpful. 2. preoccupation – Listening to all sorts of things all at the same time is but waste of our time. We can’t multi-task at listening. Like in- talking to someone while checking on a phone message while watching news on television- certainly, information gaps occur somewhere in between and failure to accurately understand information and do responsive action happen. Not only do we fail in listening and responding, we may also offend the person we are talking to because of our preoccupation. Paying attention is very important. 3. rapid thoughts – Our brain has the ability to associate topics similar to what we hear. When listening to a lecture we tend to veer away from the speaker’s topic and ponder on rapid thoughts that are related to the topic. We then lose focus in listening. We have to control our rapid thoughts in order to stay in focus and listen effectively. 4. lack of effort – We have to put a good effort at listening. When in conversation, we have to be in proper body position and keep constant eye contact to the one we are listening to. We have to put in energy in listening as a way to control attention span. 5. external noise – We have to consciously veer away from distracting noise in order to listen effectively. We have to control noise and be close to the person we are listening to. 6. faulty assumptions – It is difficult to really understand the person we are listening to if we allow our faulty assumptions and prejudices on the person talking or on what he is talking about get in the way. We have to set-aside perceptions to be able to focus at listening. 7. lack of apparent advantage – We tend to lost interest in listening about things we deem unimportant to us and won’t benefit us in any way. In order to listen effectively, we have to set-aside out egoistic tendencies and humbly hear others’ ideas. 8. lack of training – Being a bad listener is not permanent.One can always train at listening effectively by consciously doing it at all times. Listening skills can be honed. It can be developed and perfected over time with conscious effort and constant practice. |
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