How do I empower my team to take initiative rather than just following orders?

Building a resourceful and empowered team requires earning trust, listening, and leading by example.

Earning Trust & Listening

When I start on a team, the first one-on-one I schedule is about getting to know each other. It's learning about their family, their hobbies, and their background, but it's also learning about what is working well on the team and what isn't.

I've found that if you share details about yourself, it's more likely that others are willing to share with you as well. If I offer transparency and honesty, I will get that in return. Once that's shared, I listen closely to the landmines and goldmines of their everyday work life.

Leading by Example

For example, if they share that the morale on the team is low, I will probe to find out when that turning point was. "When did this start and what do you think caused it?" If someone is saying that a systems change is causing a lot of friction on the team, there are a few approaches I would recommend to them:

1. Create a SME (subject matter expert). Find someone on the team who enjoys the change and set aside time for them to explore the system's capabilities. Then, they can act as a support for their peers.

2. Invite an already established expert to a team meeting to serve as a representative that can implement change and answer questions.

3. Find the impact (good or bad) and explain the why. Business decisions are not made on a whim, but to those outside the leadership team, it can be hard to guess these strategies. Sometimes, the solution can be as easy as explaining the impact, the reasoning, and how it will improve their daily lives.

4. Incentivizing. A monetary or other type of incentive can be motivation enough to help ease change of the transition.

5. Lastly, recognition is KEY to any successful team.

Once my team has options for how to move forward with a solution, they can be strategic in which option they choose. Showing that I am guiding them rather than handing them an issue and expecting them to come up with an idea out of thin air, builds that trust even further. After all, if that was possible, they already would have!

Building a team that feels confident enough to take initiative also requires the knowledge that they will make mistakes.

How you navigate that misstep will secure how willing they are to try again. Compassion and understanding is key. Scolding or showing disappointment in them will halt any progress they made to be confident enough on their own.

If you want strong leaders who feel comfortable enough to come up with their own solutions and take initiative, you have to be willing to accept that failure will be a part of that journey.

Be a coach. Not a boss.