Basic training for leaders

The Life: a leader's job description should read: "helping others to perform at their best and achieve group success."

The line leader has the most direct impact on performance in an organisation. Istockphoto.com

It is the ambition of every leader to influence performance, but it should be more than an ambition. In short, a leader's job description should read "helping others to perform at their best and achieve group success".

Even though it is the aim of leaders to influence performance, in our research we discovered that most leaders rate the level of performance of their employees to be a maximum of 6 out of 10.

This left me wondering "if so much attention is given to employee performance, then why is it lacking so badly"?

One problem is that many organisations confuse monitoring performance with making positive steps towards improving it.

When organisations institute a robust performance management system or invest in a performance program, they are really putting in place a performance-monitoring system. They are not making a change in the management of performance. Repeatedly, I have been asked: "My organisation has put in place a new performance system, but we still are not getting the desired results, why?"

Well, the answer is quite simple. If you do what you did yesterday again today, you will most likely get the same result today as you got yesterday.

By just instituting what is commonly known as KPIs - key performance indicators - we are still doing what we did before when it comes to leading performance.

While those indicators are important for monitoring performance progress, we need to keep in mind that they are only that - indicators. To change the performance output we need enablers as well.

The primary enabler is the line leader. The line leader has the most direct impact on performance in an organisation, resulting in increased customer engagement and overall organisational success. Having a high performing workforce is a necessary condition for maximising success.

The answer to positively influencing performance lies in what leaders do and how they behave.

To increase performance leaders' actions should support several key areas: customer focus; quality and improvement; growth and development; and managerial essentials.

Simply stated, leaders need to make clear what the employee is to do, then they need to monitor it, give feedback on progress, coach for improvement and reward success - all while removing obstacles to performance and ensuring proper resources are available.

The other aspect of influencing performance is how the leader behaves. Even if a leader does all the right things but they are done in the wrong way, it will not have the desired outcome.

Influencing employees requires leaders' behaviour to reinforce: confidence and trust; open and honest communication; belonging and opportunity; and collaborative success.

Since the focus is on making a positive impact on performance, leaders' need to monitor their own behaviour to ensure it is a performance enabler.

While the above may sound rather simplistic, we need to remember that it is the basics that win championships.

If you want to influence performance, be a performance leader not a performance monitor.

Tommy Weir is an authority on fast-growth and emerging market leadership, author of The CEO Shift and the managing director of the Emerging Markets Leadership Center.