Making Business Sense – Frontline Leadership Vs Frontline Management
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Traditionally organisations have managed from the top down, in a management by results style.
The concept of leadership has successfully pervaded the senior levels of management and gradually the style is changing. However, for our frontline employees they are by far managed rather than lead.
What are the consequences for your business?
This approach is only effective for a small proportion of your frontline employees, for your top performers. It doesn’t effectively motivate or engage your average performers or your low performers.
If you think of how your frontline employees’ performance is distributed across a bell curve, most sit in the average area. These are your core performers. In a frontline management style this performance will stay static. However if your first and second level managers use a frontline leadership approach this distribution can change. Your average employees can turn into your star performers. Imagine the impact on your bottom line.
The most hidden and unused potential in most organisations lies in your frontline teams; the direct connector is through the frontline leaders.
What is frontline leadership?
Frontline leadership is about leading your team in a manner that maximises both employee engagement and productivity.
It’s taking the core skills of leadership and applying it to the frontline manager level in your organisation.
Your frontline staff need to know how their job fits into the big picture, they need to know what they’re doing right and how they can improve.
They need to be given the tools to reach their goals and succeed. This is what frontline leadership development is about.
Key frontline leadership skills include being able to provide balanced feedback and being able to effectively coach employees in the critical behaviours required to reach their KPIs. The result however, is more than just reaching KPIs. Employees become engaged and motivated and willing to go that extra mile for their organisation.
Engaged employees are more loyal and committed to their organisation. Because of this they become less likely to leave their job lowering staff turnover in high turnover positions. Sick days are reduced as employees are less likely to throw a sickie, just so they can have a ‘duvet day’.
Productivity increases as does service delivery. When all these factors are added together you can see the incredible potential for increasing your business performance through frontline leadership.
You’ve heard of leadership for senior leaders and the executive team and the difference it has made to organisations. Think for a moment about how many more frontline managers you have than senior leaders – the potential for change is astonishing.
By creating effective frontline leaders in your organisation you will make the most of your current resources, an essential strategy in today’s business climate.
For more tips on helping your average employees turn into top performers see my blog http://www.frontlineleadership.com. James Brava is a specialist in Frontline Leadership Help which results in significant improvement in employee engagement and business performance.
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