By Dianne Durkin

What do the leaders of top companies do to create an inviting workplace filled with fully engaged and enthusiastic employees?

The best leaders motivate, inspire, and energize people by connecting the vision, values, purpose, and business goals of the organization to individual values and needs. Below are some specific actions leaders can take:

Develop Your Vision

Be sure your vision has a purpose and values associated with it. This makes it real. It also needs to be clear and simple. The values help every person in the organization understand how to operate and act at work.

Identify Your Leader Type

Knowing who you and what type of leader you are helps you and others communicate more effectively and efficiently.

Track Your Leadership Development Progress

Keep a leadership log to document your daily accomplishments and learnings. Review trends.

Recruit and Retain the Right People

Identify what makes individuals successful in your culture, and recruit for those skills. The culture will keep them loyal and happy, and exceed all expectations. Improve your interview and listening skills so you can hear what individuals are saying between the lines.

Engage, Empower, and Enrich Your Employees

Invite employees to become part of your vision.  Empower them to be a force of change. Ask them to develop solutions to major business issues and give them a role and the responsibility for implementing the solutions.

Create a Work Environment that Fosters Creativity and Innovation

Go beyond simply improving the physical environment. Focus on how people feel at work.  Evaluate the energy when you walk the floors. How connected to their teams do virtual or remote workers feel? Make changes to ensure that the work environment fuels your objectives and helps to achieve your goals.

Appreciate and Reward Your Employees

Develop and deploy a schedule that regularly and meaningfully rewards employees to create a culture of appreciation. Assess and improve the way you reward people so that you are sensitive and responsive to the differences in age, education, maturity, and demographics.

Focus on the Things that Inspire Your People

Identify what inspires you and your employees. Do they need more education and training, creative time, or wellness programs to promote less stress and better health? Develop and improve the key programs that your people need to stay engaged and loyal.

Improve the Most Important Things First

Identify the most significant of your short comings head-on. Identify what is impacting your own progress and what is holding you back. Are you a poor listener, a technophobe, or do you yell and rave? Admit it. Then take action to get help, fix your problem, and improve your own performance, skills, and abilities.

Visualize the Future

Define the characteristics of the leader you want to be and what the future looks like for you. Describe the way you will balance your personal life and that of your organization and its people. Document how you will build loyalty and trust with your leadership.

The results you will attract and retain happy, engaged employees who will exceed all your expectations!

Dianne Durkin

Dianne Durkin is the president and founder of Loyalty Factor, a consulting and training company that enhances employee, customer, and brand loyalty for some of the nation’s most prominent corporations and smaller businesses. She has a very unique background including finance, direct sales, international marketing and training, and development.