Malcolm Baldrige Criteria – A Business Excellence Model

The Leadership Initiative Trait

 simply defined, initiative is a trait someone has in them to take on task without having being told or instruct. Among leaders, this initiative traits is more an expectation. To acquire this trait, it requires training and cultivation.

Between initiative and decision making, it is merely a fine line in between and confusion often arised to differential the two. Take an example to illustrate; the floor is wet at the entrace, customer who walk in may trip. An initiative would be to realize the web floor and take action to clean up immediately without being told. Of course you need to make a decision to clean it up but the difference is you did it without being told

 An effective leader should discover employee who take the initiative to do the right thing as opposed to waiting to be told. Worst thing is some employee has a tendancy to wait for someone else do it. You should observe employee with outstanding initiative which is an indicator for maturity and potential. However, you should take action immediately you have discovered the initiative else it will fade away over time. To sustain employee take out their initiative, leaders should take action to encourage such initiative and give employee an opportunity to take on heavier task is his initiave warrants it

“Monkey see Monkey Do” is a phrase which describe employee tend to follow what the leader does. If you want to cultivate a “take Initiative” culture, you as a leader not only need to show leadership by example but also need to motivates employee who do so with the appropriate recognition.

In this current economic uncertainty, most employees are worried about their job sucurity. concerns on layoff, paycut, force-leave etc are some of the key concern among employees. Due ot all these worries, they can get distracted wondering how they can recognize to keep their job. For some, they will start updating their rsume, about job alternatives, and other anxious fretting about the future. During this instable economy, it is wise to keep employees informed the company’s plan and direction. Senior Leaders need to become more transparent and help their employees cope with these uncertainty.

Leadership Transparancy is a management tools that builds trust and gives employees confidence of them in the area of looking out for their well being. Leadership transparency to be perfomed Transparency should balance the business and knowledge sharing by pommunicatiing enough information (that is – what is perceived as sensitive information) to employees as a whole as to comfort any concerns.

Below are some pointers to practice at the right level of transparency with your employees:

1. Publish and Align common goals
As gola may change due to changed in the enocnomy, sharing of this goal timely and communicate responsibility and accountability in work tasks. Be assertive to the employees with the objectives in mind.

2. Share changes to the market
While some market information may be sensitive, sharing them to the employees is perhaps the most logical things to do. Whether the business is doing and not doing. However, you need to isolate and balance confidential information with other decisions that are acceptable to let employees know about.

Be firmed to the employee but Give your employers something useful – tidbits of information that they would not know from the rumor mill. Your employees will be grateful for your willingness to approach them at their level.
3. Do what you say and say what you mean
As a effective leader, you are viewed as the only person emplyees “trust”. If you have a bad news, communicate it to the meployee and be open about it. Talk about what the impact is on the company and how employee can do to cushion the impact. Beclear and concise to the key action empoyee must carry out and not confusion. difficult tasks (like communicating cut-backs or other changes). Even if you can’t deliver on something,

4. Be Compassionate
Employee understand it is not an easy task to manage in economic downturn. They need to perceive that you are genien open to their frustration and concerns in a safe, non-threatening environment. Leave plenty of time every week for personal check-ins. Unlike a pure 1-1, a personal check-in focuses on the person, not work, to allow employees the freedom to share their intimate thoughts and feelings.  Effective department and managers know where their employee faith in the job. Employees welcome a department heand or manager balanced their taks between wrok and personal touch. After a while, better relationship is build up at a personal level, employees tends to adapt changes more willingly and faster because their emotional base is validated.

Department heads and Managers have tough job ahead. The pressure to continue to produce and compete never will stay and employees need to know their department heads or manager can be trusted. Transparency helps leaders build credibility with their employee and help to create a unified front to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes.