How to Inspire Your Team

You are only as good as your team” and it’s up to you as a leader to inspire and motivate your team to help ensure the success of your firm. Being an inspirational force at your firm will motivate your team to look forward to coming to work and giving 100%+ – which in turn will positively affect you too.

First of all, clearly communicate the culture, the vision, and the goals of the firm and help your team to feel personally vested in the success of the firm. It also inspires confidence when there is clarity of purpose.

What do they need? Keep open lines of communication so you will know if they are happy or if they have suggestions for improvements at the firm. Be sure to be a good listener – find out what they need from you in order to be successful as when they are more successful, so is the firm.

Empower rather than micromanaging. If you did your job well in hiring them then give them the space to do what you hired them to do and let them know you respect and value their hard work. Encourage them to take the initiative and make decisions. If you feel it was not the best decision, then discuss why and how they could do it differently, but allow them the freedom to fail. You might give them the ability to make financial decisions up to a certain monetary amount. You want to develop and inspire a strong team – not those who are afraid to make any decisions without your permission. That’s not positive for you or for them. You want to develop leaders within your team and empowering them to make both good and bad decisions is part of that. Along with empowering them, be approachable so that they feel comfortable coming to you with possible problems – or solutions or new approaches.

As their leader, take action – be proactive not reactive and encourage them to do the same. Help them to grow and excel by encouraging them to work outside their comfort zone. Along those lines, be flexible. This business so often calls for flexibility and making a change midstream so show flexibility in working with your team.

Be honest and be human – we don’t always have the answers and we all make mistakes – so be honest with your mistakes and if they make mistakes, discuss what they can do to avoid making that mistake again.

Encourage lifelong learning and as their leader set the example by keeping up on the profession, business practices, new products, technology, etc. and share it with your team. Encourage the growth of your team – both professionally and personally in order to develop future leaders. Include them in business networking events or have them represent your firm. Also offer them the opportunity to attend seminars and events with you such as those offered through Gail Doby Coaching & Consulting.

And finally, make sure you lead by example in the behavior and attitude you expect from your team!