Expectations of a Front Line Leader
- Recognize that the leader needs to maintain both a focus on results and on involving their team to drive performance.
- Reflect on the leaders you’ve worked for and the characteristics that made your best leader so effective.
- Evaluate yourself using a self-assessment (done in class) on fifteen leadership behaviors/competencies.
- How to avoid the leadership trap in which your team members bombard you with questions, decision and problems they could be empowered to solve on their own.
- How to get your team started effectively at the beginning of their day.
- In a multi-shift environment, make shift handoffs more effective.
Leader’s Vision
- How to transition from being reactive to being proactive so that you can achieve performance improvement in your team.
- Creating the sense in your team that you as the leader are working to make the department better.
- Clarifying how you would like your department to be in the future.
- The importance of explaining “why” when assigning work your team might resist or to get them to buy-in to the need to change.
Leading by Example
- Recognizing how your actions and behaviors set the example for your team.
- Ensuring that your words and actions are consistent.
- How to avoid perceptions of favoritism by applying rules consistently and giving your time, attention and work assignments equally across the team.
- How to balance leadership and friendship, especially when in transition from co-worker to leader.
- How to treat your team with respect and earn their trust and respect.
Leadership Styles
- How your approach as the leader impacts both the performance of your team and their job satisfaction.
- Situational Leadership: When to strategically use a more direct style, a more easy-going style or a more detail-oriented or compliance style.
- In this session, we use an interactive activity to reveal how four leadership styles create different outcomes and satisfaction levels: Coach, Caretaker, Autocrat, Conformist.
- Focus on being more of a “coach” by clarifying expectations, involving your team and building on positives.
Motivating and Engaging Employees
- Reflecting on when you were the most motivated and whether you are providing these opportunities to your team.
- How to connect new team members to the department to increase retention.
- How your beliefs about others influences their behavior and performance.
- How workgroup behavior and performance are a reflection of the leader.
- Reasons employees don’t perform and how to correct and prevent them.
- Motivating factors: The three most important actions a leader can do to create a motivational climate.
- Different types of motivation – fear, incentive and attitude.
Effective Communication
- Thinking before you speak – what you want to communicate.
- The impact of what you say, how you say it and your body language.
- How to be more persuasive and influential.
- How to communicate with your manager.
- Improving your listening skills.
- How to prepare for and conduct a correcting conversation.
Leading Change
- Why, as the leader, you need to buy into change first.
- Understanding resistance to change and how to overcome it.
- How change can be a positive motivator.
- How to simplify the change, encourage the team and make it easier to change.
Correcting Unacceptable Behavior and Performance
- Understanding your role in the coaching, confronting and correcting process.
- Why it is important to say something when you see something.
- How to comment on a performance, safety or quality issue.
- How to address difficult situations and unacceptable behaviors.
- When to involve your manager.
Accountability, Empowerment and Training
- Why most employees rely on the leader to make every decision and solve every problem instead of being more self-sufficient.
- How to get employees to take ownership of their work by applying positive and corrective consequences.
- Equipping your team for success: Effective on-the-job training and coaching to build capability and confidence.
Managing Conflict
- Recognizing that conflict is necessary and expected when implementing change.
- Understanding that conflict, change and continuous improvement often co-exist.
- Understanding your own conflict style and recognizing that different situations may require a different approach.
- Understanding and dealing with defensive behavior in yourself and others.
- Remaining constructive when dealing with passive or aggressive employees and peers.
- How to mediate conflict between two employees.