What are the keys to making this transition:
1.Prepare yourself
Analyse what’s working and what isn’t in your leadership of your team. When you are clear on what needs to stay you can look at replacing unprofitable tasks, like spending too long on administration and email, with effective frontline leadership activity.
2.Develop a critical behaviour checklist
When you pay attention to the activity of your top performers, you will notice there is a theme to how they continually do better than your average performers. Remarkably this often comes down to consistency of critical work behaviours. While average performers may show these behaviours sometimes, high performers use them consistently.
3.Coaching – more than managing by results
Many frontline managers may look at this point and think they have this under control. Look again. How are you coaching? Is it on a results basis? If it is you need to rethink your coaching approach. Coaching that is effective for your average performer must be behavioural based. Coach and reinforce the critical work behaviours consistently.
4.Balanced feedback
Look at how you are giving your feedback. If you are like the majority of managers your feedback will likely contain equal doses of both corrective and positive feedback. If you can switch that ratio to be more strongly focussed on using positive feedback to reinforce the critical work behaviours you are trying to instil, you will create much more success for both your people and for yourself.
5.Practice, practice, practice
Research shows that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert. Therefore, if you practice at anything you will get better. Frontline leadership skills are no different. Consistency is the key to success. Keep at this day in and day out and you will quickly build high levels of trust, employee engagement and performance in your team.
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