Encourage Your Employees to Embrace Accountability!

First, ask yourself...
Would you like for more of your employees to take ownership in achieving their goals?


Everyone has goals they are working towards. Obviously, your employees are no different. But spending time trying to "hold them accountable" to achieving those goals can be time-consuming, frustrating, and give you the feeling that all you do is go around putting out fires. What we, as leaders, need to do is to help others make the choice to take ownership in achieving their goals...so you don't have to!

For this to happen, there are many critical steps that leaders should follow. One of the easiest is to involve your employees in the goal-setting process. If they are involved in determining the goals, and are given the chance to provide their input, they will be much more likely to do whatever is necessary to ensure success. Plus, involving them in the goal-setting process helps to ensure that the goal is emotionally meaningful to them (which will have an impact on their motivation to achieve it) and in the situations where the goal might NOT be meaningful, or possibly too unrealistic (which will deter them from putting in max effort) they will have the chance to tell you so it can be adjusted!

When you are successful in this practice, you will spend less time trying to hold others accountable because you have successfully created a culture of accountability!

Motivate Your Employees Through The Change Process!

First, ask yourself...
Do your employees ever "lose steam" at some point of the process during a big change?


Going through change is difficult for many reasons. Change requires people to take a chance, step out of their comfort zone, and possibly do things they have never been asked to do before. We as leaders must do all that we can to ensure we get the best possible result from the changes we decide to implement.

To achieve the best possible outcomes from change, we will need the commitment, motivation, and effort from each and every one of our employees throughout the entire change process. To help make sure this happens, we should try to "create victories" for them as much as possible. They desire to know that their efforts are working, and that they are making progress or accomplishing something with all of their hard work. Creating victories can come in many different forms- anything from sharing a weekly progress report, to e-mailing an update, to giving periodic awards to people for accomplishing specific goals related to the change.

Showing our employees that they are doing a great job, the changes they are trying to make are working, and that they are on the right path, will help to keep them properly motivated and their minds focused on the end goal.

Do a Better Job Resolving Conflicts!

First, ask yourself...
Would you like to have better success resolving conflicts with your colleagues?

Contrary to what most people think, successful conflict resolution does NOT begin with the actual realization that there is a conflict at hand. So, where does it start? It starts with the relationship you have with the other party! This means that your ability to resolve a conflict in October might have begun in January when you first started working with that person.

Having a track record of working with the other party to resolve conflicts, having an open line of communication already established, and trusting that the other party has integrity and a mutual best interest at heart are all things that will come into play when trying to resolve the conflict at hand.

Without a solid relationship already in place, when a conflict does arise, both parties will be much more likely to only care about their own interests and not be willing to have an open dialogue - which will significantly hinder your ability to find a quick and positive resolution to the issue. The stronger and more trusting your relationship is with the other party, the greater the chances are that you will be able to find common ground on your issue, ensuring BOTH parties leave feeling satisfied.

**This week's tip was taken from "Resolving Conflict Successfully" which is the September session of The Compass Program. Click Here to view the schedule of all 12 sessions for The Compass Program.