Enhance Success by Empowering Employees
Cathie Leimbach • September 23, 2020
Many leaders believe that employees don’t care about workplace culture or company results. They stifle success by ignoring strategies that would attract, retain, and empower quality people. At Leadercast 2019, Ginger Hardage , former Senior Vice President of Culture and Communications at Southwest Airlines, debunked several underlying limiting beliefs. She shared five aspects of creating a culture that empowers employees and drives organizational success.
Hardage encourages leaders to:
- Be intentional about building a healthy, uplifting culture.
- Ensure the organization has defined its core values and talk about them regularly. Include values discussions in job interviews and staff meetings.
- Ignore the naysayers who think this culture craze is all fluff. Join the parade of healthy culture, high performance companies that includes Chick-fil-A, Trader Joe’s, and Southwest Airlines.
- Develop, write down, and distribute policies and procedures that provide a framework for doing your organization’s work ethically, effectively, and efficiently. Equip your people to do the work and trust them to handle day-to-day variables within the framework.
- Strengthen culture by strengthening communication without waiting for a large line item in the budget. Have face time with your employees daily, involve them in decision-making, and share success stories.
Equip your employees by providing the right level of information and training, and they will help drive organizational success!
A growth mindset means believing you can get smarter and develop new skills through hard work and practice. People with a growth mindset see challenges as opportunities to grow. On the other hand, a fixed mindset means thinking your talents and abilities cannot change much, no matter how hard you try. People with a growth mindset are more likely to exercise self-discipline to learn new behaviors. This helps us adapt to new opportunities. When we push ourselves to try different approaches, we open doors that would otherwise remain closed. This takes courage and commitment, especially at first when new ways of doing things feel uncomfortable or difficult. Our brains have amazing potential to change throughout our lives. When we repeatedly practice new skills or ways of thinking, our brain creates new pathways that make these actions easier over time. What once felt impossible can gradually become second nature. The hard part is sticking with new behaviors long enough for them to become normal. This is where self-discipline comes in . By consistently practicing different approaches, what once required enormous effort eventually feels natural. This ability to adapt keeps us growing, helps us keep up with our changing world, and unlocks possibilities we might never have imagined.
In today's busy workplace, asking good questions can make you better at your job. Open-ended questions—ones that need more than just "yes" or "no" answers—help you learn more and have better conversations with others. Research shows these questions really work. Gallup found that managers who use open-ended questions have 27% less employee turnover and 18% better productivity. These questions make team members feel safe to share their ideas. Harvard Business Review says that when bosses ask at least four open-ended questions in meetings, teams come up with 42% more creative solutions. By asking instead of telling, leaders get more ideas from everyone. McKinsey discovered that managers who are good at asking open-ended questions find 34% more opportunities for process improvement. These questions help spot problems and challenge old ways of thinking. These benefits go beyond just team conversations. The Journal of Applied Psychology found that salespeople who use open-ended questions with customers make 23% more sales. By better understanding what customers need, they can offer better solutions. Learning to ask open-ended questions isn't just about talking better—it's a skill that helps you succeed in all parts of work. Click here for more information.