Nurturing Employees to Excel

Getting employees to fall in line with a company’s vision can sometimes be, well, frustrating.  When diverse personalities, goals and work ethics collide, it takes more than magic to foster success. In fact it can be painful to figure out what they need to get motivated to excel in their individual roles in order to help the company as a whole move forward. The answer may lie in nurturing your employees vs correcting them.  Unfortunately most leaders have  been trained in their business life through the model of oversight, control and critique If you continue to lead in this manner,  how can you create a new path for your employees’ that will lead to the success currently eluding you?

An alternative approach to this is one we’ve experienced but in most cases forgotten. For most of us, the person we most admired, respected and adored was our mother. Because she held the most critical role in our development, that of nurturing our self-esteem as we grew up, she was responsible for assisting us when we fell down (and then due to her love and support), helping us find the way to get “back on the horse.” Somewhere along the line this was discarded in the business culture and replaced by objective measures for success or failure.

The growth and maturity process of an employee is similar and thus needs the same understanding and nurturing within the context of goals and expectations. And yet, we don’t allow nurturing to occur in most workplaces today out of fear we’ll ‘coddle’ young employees and encourage their ‘laziness’ and lackluster work ethic. On the contrary, organizations have found that a softer start with more hand rails in the workplace is the best way to produce employees who are both knowledgeable and confident in their field.

A leader’s focus shouldn’t be on giving answers, but on championing their employees to discover them. By doing this you recognize that your responsibility is not to provide solutions for the problems your employees have, but to give them the guidance and support to tap into their native talents, experiences, and insights to discover the best course of action going forward.

Remember that believing in your employees’ potential for greatness requires a leader who believes in that as well. If leadership can show faith and trust in their team’s abilities by giving them the permission to fail, and the support they need to pick themselves back up, it will help them learn how to grow and evolve into a better version. A version you as leaders can shape and be proud of with a little nurturing nudge.

Remember this quote from Maya Angelou as you attempt this practice, “People may not remember exactly what you did or what you said, but they will always remember how you made them feel.”