The Fred Pryor workshop titled "How to Supervise People" covered material focused on effective leadership skills to maximize employee performance. A few of the main topics included: Choosing a leadership style, interviewing and hiring for success, building a highly productive team, training new and seasoned employees and avoiding common management mistakes. Below are some key points:
Choosing a leadership style
- Leadership style should depend on the situation
- Keys Issues to Consider
- How well defined is the job versus how poorly defined is it?
- How much attention is needed to maintain harmony, attend to "people problems," keep morale up, etc.?
- How achievement-oriented are your employees? How educated, experienced and able are they to work on their own?
- Four Basic Styles
- The Prescriber: high task, low relationship
- The Persuader: high task, high relationship
- The Participator: low task, high relationship
- The Permitter: low task, low relationship
Interviewing and hiring for success
- Determine job core competencies
- Identify skill, knowledge and experience required to the job
- List and define intangible qualities new employee must have
- Define what skills or training can be taught to new hire employees
- Set parameters for benefits, salary, bonuses and hiring incentives
- Develop interview questions in advance and use them consistently with every applicant interviewed
- Mix question types throughout the interview (behavior-based, open-ended, closed-ended, probing, hypothetical)
Building a highly productive team
- Set and define the team goals and objectives
- Determine individual roles and responsibilities
- Gain employee commitment
- Identify strength and weaknesses of each team member
- Match tasks with team member strength and experience
Training new and seasoned employees
- Ask, don't command.
- A positive order is better than a negative one
- Tell why it is important. Employees have a need to know
- Requests should leave freedom of action to the receiver, consistent with his or her ability and training.
- Encourage Feedback
- Watch for nonverbal signs that may indicate doubt
- Encourage and reward questions
- Ask open-ended questions, like "What do you think?"
- Avoid close-ended questions, like "Is that clear?"
Avoiding common management mistakes
- Mediocre Performance- Clearly define what you want, identify and reward it
- Boring or Thankless Work – Redesign job to fulfill higher levels of need such as independence, challenge and creativity
- Money as a Motivator – Identify what motivates the employee best and use alternative methods of motivation
- Failure to Recognize and Praise Employees – Praise and recognize employees on a regular basis.
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