Create a More Positive Work Environment For Your Team

Episode # 79: Can your team members thrive in their current work environment? As leaders, we have standards to uphold, tasks to get done, and a strategy to execute, but do our team members believe they are treated well, are their voices heard, and do they have opportunities for growth and development?

How much time do you invest in your team members?  When you lead a team, you have more responsibility than only completing tasks on a list, you have people who are looking to you to help them accomplish their goals. The greatest responsibility we have is to grow other leaders, and we do that by creating an environment of support, learning, and development.

Episode outline:

1. Are your team members thriving?
2. What would your team say about you in an anonymous survey?
3. Are you helping your team members to grow and win? and
4. What can you do to create a more positive environment?

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Transcript

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Stephen McLain: 0:05

Can your team members thrive in their current work environment? As leaders, we have standards to uphold tasks to get done, and a strategy to execute. But how well do our team members believe they are treated? Are their voices heard? And do they have opportunities for growth and development? How much time do you invest in your team members? When you lead a team, you have more responsibility than only completing tasks on a list. You have people who are looking to you to help them accomplish their goals, and help them to have a daily positive experience. The greatest responsibility we have is to grow other leaders. And we do that by creating an environment of support, learning and development. Please enjoy the episode. Welcome to the finance leader podcast where leadership is bigger than the numbers. I am your host Stephen McLain. This is the podcast for developing leaders in finance and accounting. Please consider following me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. My usernames and the links are in this episode shownotes. And also, please join the Facebook group I have for this podcast community. Thank you. This is episode number 79. And now we'll be talking about how leaders should be creating a positive environment for their teams. And I'll highlight the following topics. Number one, are your team members thriving? Number two? What would your team say about you in an anonymous survey? Number three? Are you helping your team members to grow? And when? And for? What can you do to create a more positive environment? Denis Waitley said, Don't dwell on what went wrong. Instead, focus on what to do next, spend your energies on moving forward toward finding the answer. Now, what would your team say about you in a completely anonymous survey? Would they say you care about them? That you want them to win? That you are setting the right example of behavior, ethics and humility? Do your team members want to emulate you and become you? Or do they revile you? Are your team members merely surviving you every day? Or are they thriving under your leadership, and are excited to start the day with you in the lead? As the leader we set the conditions for success, we have the duty to communicate clearly what we expect. And then also to lead ethically, and to set the right example with our own behavior and actions and how well we treat others. Also, how are we performing on a daily basis? Are we completing our duties to a high level of performance, I have served under many different types of leaders from the mean and uncaring to the weak and have no real idea of where they want to go to the incredibly selfish and who wanted to steal the organization to ensure their own success without caring what happened to everyone else. But I also had some incredible leaders who set the right example, who cared about my own career, who ensured we were properly resourced, who gave us enough room to do our jobs and were available if we needed to ask for help. The best I have served under had a few special characteristics. They carefully planned how involved they were in my day, not too much, not too little. They coached and only directed when they had to. They allowed me to be me. And let me get the work done. My way. Where we agreed upon was the expectation. These were balanced in their approached. They held people accountable, but also we're deeply committed and how they coached you to achieve it. They got out of the way when they needed to. They understood a situation before judging, and they treated people fairly and they preserved everyone's dignity. Even when having tough conversations around performance. There are required duties we need to be doing as leaders. How do you set expectations? How do you hold people accountable, and also show genuine concern for your team members growth, we should want our team members to do better than just survive the work day each day. They should be in fact thriving. You can have the tough conversations without communicating that you are only showing up to ensure you look good. So your career flourishes, but that nothing great happens for your team. Here is the test. If the work your team is doing will elevate your own standing and your team members are not reaping the same benefits from their own work. Then there is an imbalance and you have not done enough to care for your team. Have your team members received appropriate raises promotions recognition company Oh adds more opportunities, and anything else that is deserved. So their careers move forward to if you are getting all these and you move ahead and no one else is moving also, then something is wrong, there is an imbalance, you as the leader have failed. I believe that a leader who is treating their team members fairly, and holding everyone accountable to the same standard will have no issues on those typical surveys. And we don't lead for great survey results we lead so we can make a positive difference for the people on our team. And then the surveys will not be an issue. Leaders often get confused on the balance between being approachable, and ensuring the team achieves a high level of excellence, you can get the work done without abusing the entire team. This always starts with how we approach leadership. You don't have to be a people pleaser. And no, you don't have to act toxic. Those are two extremes. We are looking for you to be a coach and a mentor. And these are two different roles you need to play and not at the same time. And I don't want you to base your leadership on surveys. We should always be doing the right thing regarding leadership. treat everyone fairly and with dignity and share you're helping your team members to win and that they have opportunities to grow. Are they resource properly? Do they have the tools to do well? Are you helping them see where they can improve? Are you waiting to judge a situation so you can get all the information first, I don't want to see leaders operating in the extremes. One is a people pleaser with no direction and one is a self serving narcissistic bully. Both can be toxic, both are harmful. I want to see leaders as coaches who can help eliminate obstacles and to help their team members achieve their goals. Now let's talk about how leaders can create a positive working environment. Number one, are your team members thriving? Are your team members excited about the work every day? Or are they only excited about going to lunch? And clocking out at the end of the day? I know this is a loaded question. And there are many variables in this. We all have the one person who is miserable, and does not want to be there. But do your team members get excited about the projects they're working on? When they're not excited? It might be they are not resourced properly or have enough time to properly complete the tasks to thrive is to go beyond daily survival of the workload. And the interactions we all have to thrive is to grow and develop and to be better tomorrow than you were yesterday. To thrive is literally to flourish and to prosper. Are you thankful for your team? What do you do when bad news happens? Do you fly off the handle into a rage? Or do you approach it from a problem solving perspective? Are you supportive of your team when adversity strikes and it will happen? What do you do? How do you react? Please assess if your team is growing under your leadership? Or are they withering away? Are they growing under your guidance? Can you do better? Number two, what would your team say about you in an anonymous survey? I don't want you to lead based on what may happen on a survey. But these surveys happen. And when an employee believes they are anonymous, truly anonymous, they will fill them out. Honestly, I have dealt with surveys for decades. Sometimes they are brutal. And sometimes you get nothing out of them. And we don't get too concerned about outlier generalities. But what if you see comments that are common across the team? Like my supervisor doesn't care about my growth and development? Or my boss doesn't let me do my job? One answer may be an outlier. But if 80% of your team is saying this, you may have a problem. So what will your team say about you in a survey they believe to be completely anonymous. Yes, employees don't always believe surveys are anonymous, and that they can be tracked and a company can figure out who answered what this belief does happen. But what would they say about you? Are you growth oriented? Do you give credit? Do you only care about yourself? Do you invest in your team? This feedback is very important. So what will they say about you? And what can you do differently? Number three, are you helping your team members to grow and win? One great privilege we have is that we can eliminate obstacles for our team. We get to resource them and can set the conditions for success so that we can help them win and achieve their goals. Unfortunately, we do have absent leaders who give little direction, who don't coach and who don't create a pathway for success. These are the leaders who stay in their office that's both physical and virtual office and then bark just figure it out. I am a believer and figure it out up to the point with a little is failing to do their basic responsibilities. I see leaders bragging this as their philosophy. But they have done nothing to really lead because their team has to go around them. And no, their leader is not there for them. These are absent leaders and are among the weakest and most hated of all, they will never be there for you to solve an issue or to resource a problem properly, your team will figure it out every time and you will become more irrelevant every day, if you just use the quote, unquote, figured out philosophy. So the big question is, what are you going to do to help your team win? To the point where you don't do the work for them? But you are creating the conditions? So they do win? How are you creating the conditions for success? Number four, what can you do to create a more positive environment? Are you showing genuine interest in your team members? Or are you using them to elevate your own career? This is a huge deal. When we lead a team or a department or an organization, what your team is doing can decide your own fate, your own career path, and what you get to do next, that is a fact. What are you doing to help your own team to thrive and grow as you also grow and get better opportunities. I would like for leaders to create an environment of growth and opportunity be open to helping your team reach a goal to improve a skill and to develop a talent that may seem out of reach right now have a philosophy that fosters and promotes learning and wanting to become better today than we were yesterday. It is also an environment with no favoritism. And for accountability for those who are not pulling their share of the task load. Create an environment of trust. And we as leaders need to start that first. I like to see teams who openly collaborate who trust each other, who support each other. And it begins with the leader, we must begin so that our teams follow and begin to do those same activities. Again, I have worked for many different types of leaders in my career, you can always tell if you're a being used to help your boss elevate their career, but they do nothing to help you elevate your own. So let's not be that type of leader, recognize your team, get them more money, promotions and other rewards, as they produce excellent work as they sacrifice for the team, and the organization. And even for you for action today. Like always, I love to ask introspective questions to provoke thinking in action. What are you doing to help your team members to thrive in when? What is your approach to coaching a performance to a higher level? Are you genuinely concerned? Are you arrogant? are you preaching me a solution? Or are you helping me to self discover the solution? And are your team members frustrated with their work environment? Or can they accomplish their tasks? Do they have the tools they need? Or is it impossible to get a great work product done every day? Please consider these questions so you can make appropriate changes in how you view others, and how you help your team to win. Today I talked about how a leader should create a positive environment for their team. And I highlighted the following points. Number one, are your team members thriving? Number two? What would your team say about you in an anonymous survey? Number three, are you helping your team members to grow and when and for what can you do to create a more positive environment. I believe that when a leader creates a positive environment for the team, they will see the impossible be achieved, that productivity will naturally increase that people will be happy to start their day and get more things done in a positive environment does not mean that people are doing what they want. It means we communicate better. We share ideas, we collaborate, we encourage each other, and we help people to grow and develop. We also hold ourselves accountable. high performers expect everyone on the team to perform at a high standard and the leader is expected to enforce that high standard. But we also can hold each other accountable in a healthy and positive way. That is our goal. Next week, I'll be sharing about how you should be advocating for yourself always. This is a very important topic as we build our careers. I hope you enjoyed the finance leader podcast I am dedicated to helping you grow your leadership skills to change your mindset and to clarify your goals so you advance your career. You can find this episode wherever you listen to podcasts. Until next time, you can check out more resources at finance leader Academy comm and sign up for my weekly updates. Don't miss an episode of the show. And now go lead your team. And I'll see you next time. Thank you