Involve Your Employees

You'll be a more effective leader if you work hard to involve your employees.

Here are 10 ways to do that:

1. Have active ways to listen to your employees.
2. Check often with employees to see if the information you are sharing with them is what they need and what they want.
3. Share information about customer satisfaction with employees.
4. Discuss financial performance with your employees and be sure everyone understands the importance of profitability and how they can contribute to profitability.
5. Allow ad hoc teams among employees to form to address organizational problems and work with those teams to tackle the identified issues.
6. Encourage employees to make suggestions for improvement whether those ideas are large or small.
7. Take an idea from one employee and share it with other employees and teams and let everyone make a contribution to build upon that idea.
8. Train!
9. For long-term employees, find ways to keep their jobs interesting through new assignments and challenges.
10. Conduct meetings around specific issues and brainstorm solutions.

"Involving people in the business is the most effective way to produce an organization in which people know more, care more, and do the right things," said Edward Lawler III,  Professor, University of Southern California, as quoted in the book, 1001 Ways to Energize Employees, by author Bob Nelson.  Take a look at Nelson's book for more great ideas.