Have you noticed that your staff members seem stuck and unable to move upward? Do you have employees who sit in meetings like a plane stuck on the runway? Have you noticed that your team doesn’t seem to be reaching for the sky? If you have noticed any of these situations in your business, it may be time to PILOT your employees, rather than merely manage them. Not only will you notice an increased level of motivation, you will begin to notice that your staff contributes more and becomes more involved and invested in your business.
When you PILOT individuals, you help them realize their full potential and become the type of leader that every business needs in order to soar. Not only will the following guidelines help your team become more motivated, they will also help them realize their own potential. Many employees are not as successful as they have the potential to be, simply because they do not realize the power they have within them. Being a PILOT for your staff will help them realize their abilities and use them to become more effective, productive, and be a catalyst to their growth.
P: Potential
Leaders develop others’ potential: to be a better person, to perform better in their job, and to be better equipped to grow into leadership. Leaders develop leaders. But you may not understand how.
To develop leaders, you must be someone they can emulate. Show your staff that you are learning alongside them. They want to learn from the way that you handle failure and you can do so with grace and ease. When they see you fail, they see that you are just like them; you are still learning and working at becoming a better leader. As a leader, you need to use your failures as learning experiences that you can share with your team. These experiences will create a culture that allows for creativity and educated risk-taking to allow failure, and not fear it. People tend to learn more when they feel safe and secure enough to make mistakes.
I: Implementation
Have you ever had a meeting to discuss the meeting before the meeting? Are you spending more time getting ready to get ready? These behaviors occur when we become stuck in “Analysis Paralysis.” In order to turn your ideas into actions, you need to take action! There is a fine line between waiting for perfection and taking a calculated risk.
Ask yourself: Is the speed of implementing this more important than perfection? What will we gain or lose from pulling this trigger? What will we gain or lose from waiting? Then, ask yourself these questions: Are we hitting the mark? What are the performance indicators we need to watch for? Involve everyone on the team in the problem-solving process and put everything up for consideration, and then discuss the pros and cons for each possible adjustment.
L: Leadership
It’s always good to be the first. Leading your industry demonstrates innovation, and innovation does not happen without first, taking educated risks. Leadership is such a broad and all-encompassing term that it may be difficult to explain. Effectively leading means communicating in a clear and concise manner. As a leader, it is important that you clearly communicate the vision and inspire your team to perform their duties in the manner that is expected of them.
The speed at which you act can determine the amount of time it takes for your products or services to hit the market. The sooner you take action, the faster your customers will be able to benefit from the products and services you offer. As a leader, you need to commit to a course while you communicate with your team and take the required actions to achieve your goal.
Your communication and action will lead you closer to your vision, because as we all know, if you are not moving closer to your vision, you are actually moving further away from it. When your staff sees your drive and dedication to achieving the end result, they will follow and lead their team more effectively because they can clearly understand your vision and the actions needed to reach your goal.
O: Optimize
As a leader, you need to understand that you are responsible for the nurturing and culture of your organization and how it responds to risk, change, and learning from failures on any level. To evaluate the strength of your team, you should evaluate how they embrace change, welcome change, initiate change, recommend change, and ask for ideas on how to change. If new ideas are raised in a meeting, do you properly explore them or immediately shut them down? Do you allow your staff to have a voice?
At the close of every meeting, do you take the time to ask whether your team members have anything they would like to address? Do they have any feedback over what was covered in the meeting? Effective leaders understand the importance of asking these questions and actively listening to the responses.
T: Tenacity
Too many people give up when they are so close to success. Don’t give up; on yourself as a leader, on your team, or on your organization. You are essential to their success. Be the Pilot in Command of your organization, not the co-pilot who follows along.
You want your staff to willingly follow you! No one asks themselves, How can I be an average leader today? Every day, you need to show your team that you believe in the vision of your organization, your employees, and the work that they are doing. To do this effectively, you need to take the time to be the Pilot in Command and lead from where you are, in order to drive the action!
