Celebrate and Model Personal Responsibility

As the boss, you shoulder incredible freedom as well as incredible responsibility. You get to set the rules and determine best practices, but you also have to be the leader when it comes to following the rules and living up to best practices. If you want all of your employees to function as a team without in-fighting and other inefficiencies, you will have to celebrate and model personal responsibility for your business as a whole.

Planning for Responsibility

Each project should come with a project plan. These plans should clearly set expectations for every member of the team while establishing deadlines for all phases of the plan. Each member of your team will see where they fit into the overall plan, so they can take personal responsibility for their work. This will require effective communication and coordination between team members, but if each team member lives up to their deadlines the plan should prove effective in the end.

Team members should be created to develop their own project plans based on their responsibilities for the larger plan. Encourage team members to keep one another accountable in a friendly manner. With everyone living up to their personal responsibility and sending out friendly reminders to help others, the overall plan should progress without problem.

Manage without Micromanaging

You do not want to stand over your team member’s shoulders and question everything they are doing, but you should check in to see how things are progressing at scheduled milestones. If you find that a member of the team is struggling or causing problems for the others, you can meet with them personally and discuss the issues.

This is not a time to speak down to or belittle a struggling employee. It is a time to figure out what they may not understand or what may be causing them problems. This gives you the opportunity to clear things up so the team can continue to work the plan.  This is always a great time to develop your leadership skills.

Model Responsibility

If you want your employees to do something, you must do it first. This means keeping your workspace tidy if you want other desks in the office to be tidy. This also means keeping to your deadlines so others will see that they are expected to keep their deadlines.

You are the boss, but you cannot abuse your position. If you cut corners, break the rules, and ignore best practice, you should not be surprised when other employees do the same thing. If you are creating effective project plans and doing your part to implement them efficiently, then you can expect your employees to fall in line around you and do the same.

First set clear expectations through your project plans. as the leader, you define business success for your own company.  Then lead by example so no one questions how they can live up to those expectations.