You might be the most important member of your company, but if you have a team of staff, then you’re not the only important element. If you can galvanize your team to deliver their best work, then your business will be on the fast track towards success. Indeed, there aren’t too many things that’ll push your business in the right direction than having a first-class team that can get results. 

But of course, that won’t happen on its own. You’ll need to work to make sure that it happens. And how does that work? Simply by being a good boss. You’ll find that it’s much easier to get a team that helps your business when you’re a first-rate leader. In this post, we share some of the top ways to level up and become a good boss. 

Realistic Workloads

You’ll want your business to be moving in the right direction. However, it’s important to remember that your team of staff aren’t worker drones. They can’t be expected to work at an extremely high standard, all day, every day. One of the central tenants of being a good boss is ensuring that your team of employees have realistic workloads. Don’t just pile them with work and expect them to get through it all!

Of course, how much work you should assign to them will depend on various factors and may differ at different points during the year. Also, be sure to listen to what your staff are saying. If they’re suggesting that they have too much work on their hands, then that’s a pretty clear indication that you should start assigning them less work!

Learn Your Leadership Style

Some people just fall into being a boss. They didn’t even think that they would have a company, let alone manage a team of employees. While some people are just naturally born to be leaders, for the majority of people, that’s not the case. It’s a skill that they have to learn.

If you’re just winging your leadership, then you’ll be more likely to fall into problems. Instead, take a look at defining your leadership style. You’ll find that it’s much easier to get results if you’re following a predefined approach. This will also help to build consistency; poor leaders are generally unpredictable, which causes issues with employee faith and trust. 

Deliver Praise

No employee wants to feel like they’re working extremely hard without any acknowledgment. Yes, you’ll be paying them a salary, but in this day and age, employees typically ask for more from their work. They want to feel like they’re valued by the company for which they work. You can make sure they know how much you value them by delivering praise whenever it is justified. They’ll be times when you need to give constructive criticism. But if that’s all you’re doing, then it won’t be long before your employees begin to feel a little unmotivated. 

Look At Your Own Performance

There are some people who are good at offering critical evaluations of other people, but less good at delivering critical evaluations of themselves. You can’t expect to win the credibility of your staff if you’re not pulling your own weight. So first, it’s a good idea to look at your own contributions to the company, and make sure that you’re delivering the best results that you can. Also, remember that just because you’re in a position of leadership, that doesn’t mean that you get special privileges. Your staff will expect that you work just as much as you ask them to work. 

Open Door Policy

You’re not going to get everything right. Or at least, you won’t if you’re just trying to read your employee’s minds. You might think that you’re creating a positive working environment, but are you actually? The only way to know for sure is to have an open-door policy and encourage your staff to visit you whenever they have an issue, no matter how big or small that issue might be. Open communication is the key to any successful relationship, and that includes in the employee/employer dynamic. It’s much easier to discuss any issues at the first sign rather than having to deal with the problems that they cause later down the line.

Improve the Staff Experience

Don’t just ask what your employees can do for you. Ask what you can do for your employees. One of the most effective ways to become a better boss is to take a look at the overall staff experience. But yourself in your employees’ shoes; is what you’re offering them positive? Would you like to work for your company?

If you think that you could do things a little better, then take a look at software such as Motivosity. This will help you to improve engagement in various ways, including boosting the sense of teamwork and making it easy for those in leadership positions to acknowledge the good work of employees. 

More Than Professional

Your relationship with your team will, of course, be primarily professional. But there is also space for things to be personal, too. If your employee has been working for you for a while, yet you don’t know anything about their lives outside of the office, then something is wrong. You won’t want to get too friendly with your employees, but the relationship should extend beyond just work. A little bit of connection and common trust and respect can really go a long way in all aspects of life, including in the workplace.

The Working Environment

And talking of the workplace: is yours all that it could be? The office environment isn’t just a place where people work. It reflects the company. If your working environment is uninviting, uninspiring, and simply not that enjoyable to be in, then it’ll be inevitable that you’ll run into problems. People do, after all, reflect the environment in which they find themselves. Your office is something that you can actively — and even easily — improve, so why not look at doing so? It’s one of the better investments that you can make. 

Invest in Your Staff’s Future

You’ll be hoping that your team helps to make the future of your business bright. In return, you should ensure that they have a bright future. There are multiple ways to do this. One is to invest in their ongoing training and development. Ambitious workers will want to feel like they’re improving; the trick is to make sure that they can do those things with your business. This will help to boost employee retention.

Additionally, you should also create a pathway so that employees can elevate their careers. Do you have systems in place that ensure that your employees can move into more senior positions? If not, then you’ll run the risk of having your employees look elsewhere. Everyone wants to reach their full potential, and if they can’t do that at your business, then you’ll run into problems. 

Give Trust

You might view your business as your baby, but if there’s one thing that you’ll need to avoid, it’ll be micromanagement. That’s something that can be highly tempting to fall into but which will only cause problems. No one likes to be micromanaged! If you’re going to have a happy workforce, then it’ll be key to give trust. Your employees will be able to do the work you assign them better than you can. So the best approach is to just let them get on with it, rather than trying to control things. 

Have Their Back

It’s easy to say that you and your employees are like family when nothing’s on the line. The value of your commitment to your employees is when the going gets tough. If there’s a customer who makes a complaint and singles out an employee by name, then what is your approach? If you throw that employee under the bus, then you might appease the customer, but you’ll have lost the trust and respect of the employee. Of course, you don’t need to die on the hill for a member of your team. But if you’ve hired correctly, then you’ll never find yourself in that position anyway. 

Having your employees’ back goes further than simply supporting them during a complaint or overcoming a disruption. All bosses need to show that they care about their employees’ health and well-being, so workplace safety should be a priority. You can learn more about the support you can offer following a workplace injury, as this will make them feel more confident whether you run a hectic office or hazArdous factory floor.

Ongoing Improvement

Finally, remember that your journey towards being the best boss that you can be will likely never be complete. It’s something that you’ll actively work on over the years. As with most things connected to running a business, it’s all about keeping your eyes and ears open, learning from your mistakes, and having the humility to recognize when things need to get better. If you take those three things with you throughout your career, then you’ll be much more likely to be a boss that employees love to work for.

Conclusion

It’s not easy running a business. To succeed, you’ll need all the help that you can get. The backbone of your success will be the performance and productivity of your team members. But of course you can’t expect employees to deliver their best work if you’re not delivering as a leader. Make a commitment to being the best that you can be, and you’ll feel the benefits in countless ways!