Famous business leaders like Bill Gates, Tim Cook, and Arianna Huffington prove that firms perform best when their figurehead is invested in the company and cares about the growth of their employees.
However, if you’re an entrepreneur who recently started a small business, you may find that leadership doesn’t come naturally. Fortunately, anyone can become a leader over time. As a business owner, invest in yourself and improve your communication skills to become the best leader possible for your business. Improving your leadership skills will boost morale, drive growth, and encourage innovation amongst your employees.
Boosting Morale
Businesses that boast high morale outperform competitors where employees resent their managers and are disengaged on a daily basis. This sentiment is echoed by a Gallup meta-analysis of employee engagement. The meta-analysis found that engaged workplaces with high morale benefited from:
- 10% higher customer loyalty;
- 18% lower turnover;
- 23% higher profitability;
- 18% higher productivity.
These figures can’t be overlooked if you want to grow your business and take your firm to the next level. However, boosting engagement at work can be tough. Get the ball rolling by making simple changes to boost morale like:
- Check-In: Take time to talk one-on-one with your employees. This shows you care about their well-being and can help you identify ways to improve as a leader.
- Increase Participation: Employees want to feel involved. Boost morale by ensuring team-building activities are inclusive and inviting everyone to participate.
- Promote Collaboration: Your staff wants to feel connected to the team. Build morale by giving folks from different departments a chance to work together on projects that promote growth.
- Agency: Don’t micromanage your staff. Instead, give them responsibility when they’re ready and take a step back. Only involve yourself when they ask for help or have hit a genuine dead end.
Boosting morale will increase engagement and bring the best out of your employees. This is particularly important if you work in a creative field and need your staff to bring their best selves to work every day.
Communication Skills
Clear and consistent communication is vital for anyone in a leadership position. Bringing a clear and consistent approach can help you build rapport with new hires and ensure that everyone is on the same page.
Lauren Landry, Director of Marketing and Communications at the University of Harvard, foregrounds the importance of adaptability when communicating. Landry explains that understanding your own style can help you “better understand how you’re interacting with, and perceived by, employees across the organization.” This helps you tailor your communication style to better serve the needs of each employee.
Landry also suggests asking for feedback to improve your communication. Gathering feedback gives you a chance to assess your strengths and weaknesses while showing that you care about the employee experience. Making changes based on feedback is deeply rewarding for staff and shows that you’re committed to running a democratic company.
Leveraging A.I.
Effective leadership is all about making the right decision at the right time. As a business leader, you can supercharge your decision-making capabilities today by investing in artificial intelligence (AI). AI can help you make better decisions and boost your bottom line through search development programs designed to comb through large data sets and find crucial information related to your industry.
AI-powered machine learning algorithms can help you scale up your operations while protecting existing staff from burnout, too. For example, if you’ve recently received a bump in sales volume, you will probably need a more robust customer service department to deal with queries and complaints. Automated chatbots can help by providing quick answers to consumer’s FAQs.
Using AI to minimize stress and prevent burnout can increase productivity by 35% at your place of work by reducing the amount of time folks spend on mundane tasks. This is key if you want to build a culture based on communication, empathy, and inclusivity. AI-led programs automate tasks like spam filtering that kill employee motivation and free up time for employees to focus on jobs that bring them genuine joy.
Ethical Decisions
Artificial intelligence can help you make decisions based on industry trends and future forecasts. However, if you want to become the best leader possible, you’ll need to become an expert in ethical decision-making.
Making the right ethical decisions isn’t just good for morale, it can save you from expensive lawsuits and litigation down the line. Improve your decision-making and make better moral judgments by embracing the core tenants of ethical business conduct:
- Do no harm;
- Make things better;
- Respect others;
- Be fair;
- Care.
These principles sound basic but are flaunted regularly by firms that put profits ahead of people. When facing your next big decision, consider the above principles and the impact that your business decision will have on internal and external stakeholders alike. This will turn you into the kind of leader who promotes public health, takes care of their employees, and protects stakeholders from harm.
Conclusion
Becoming the best leader possible requires time, effort, and an eye for technological advancements. Get ahead of the competition by boosting morale and improving your communication skills. This will increase engagement at work and show staff you care. Protect morale by using AI to make strategic decisions and follow the principles of ethical business conduct when facing a morally fraught fork in the road.
Photo Credit
Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash
Guest Author Bio
Luke Smith
Luke Smith is a writer and researcher turned blogger. He enjoys writing on a variety of topics but business, technology, and digital marketing topics are his favorite. When he isn’t writing you can find him travelling, hiking, or getting into the latest tech.
Thanks so much, Gaurvi!
Pleasure!
Brilliant post, Luke. I specially loved the parts about ethics, and leveraging tech, when leading a business.