Small Business: How to Promote Personal Responsibility When the Boss Is Away

In my world of customer service and project management at a very large, very successful company -

I have thought long and hard numerous times about how my employees are "producing" while management is away.  

Whether it's a daily meeting or vacation, we all have times where employees are on their own.  So how do we go about motivating them to be productive, work independently, and seek assistance from others without necessarily going to the top?  Here are some suggestions:  

Delegation for future success:

It is important to let your employees know you trust them to make the right decisions.  Let's face it, some great future leaders are out there in your workforce.  I've found that instilling a great team concept with a goal (be it financial or otherwise) is paramount to employee productivity with little or no supervision.  One of the biggest mistakes newer managers make is not allowing their hires to make their own mistakes.  Giving away that power is tough when it's ultimately your butt on the line at the end of the day.  We will go into this in greater detail in future writings.

Make sure you give someone the keys:

Now that you have given away the power to your employees to make the decisions - it's important to have one or two key people there to make sure the ship doesn't sail into rough waters.  The key here is to pick people you trust, but also who won't be overbearing with their new temporary power.  Time and time again I have seen where the boss is blamed for "picking favorites" and those people just are the leaders that you are - YET!

Check in, gingerly:

Now you are going to have the ear of who you have appointed to make decisions for the group or team, but you need to make sure you let them lead.  Sure, it's fine to check in to see how things are going although you need to make sure you aren't directing to everyone.  This is a big deal because you need to establish to your employees that you trust them.  In trusting one of their teammates and not meddling too closely in their business, you are in turn showing the others they too may some day be in that position.

Set goals, but not too high:

Okay, so now you trust your people even more.  One thing to avoid is (no matter the business) setting goals such as "I want to see X,Y and Z done by the time I return.  This can be seen as a breach of trust and should be avoided.  You do want to set some short term goals that are realistic so the team can have a sense of fulfillment and realize that they CAN get things done independent of you.

Give feedback:

I love to use the phrase "teachable moments" here.  A little cheesy for certain, but as opposed to letting on about what they did incorrectly it is important to spin mistakes into a positive as "teachable moments".  After all, you are supposed to be the ultimate teacher right?

Analyze productivity:

Be careful not to rely too much on numbers in evaluating how things went when you were away.  Instead, shift the focus on encouraging employees achievements.  Trust me this goes a long way, especially with younger or newer workers.



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Business Productivity | How to Promote Personal Responsibility When the Boss Is Away

Written by: Brian Daniel Young Published by: Cerilene.com Copyright holder: Brian Daniel Young on 2013

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