Respect can sometimes be imposed, but loyalty is earned. The work environment has always relied on the team, employees, leaders, and even clients who share a common goal - to build a winning team. You might see people who enjoy working for their company, yet they still leave as time went by. It’s not some sort of spontaneity that this harmony happens.
As a leader, you might ask yourself, “Why do people love to work for a certain person or a company? What do I need to do to encourage my employees the same way?” Here are the qualities you need to develop in building a winning team.
View them properly
Who wants to be a slave for someone? If you want to build a winning team, you need to have a proper view of the people working in your team. As an entrepreneur, it’s a shame to think that you are higher, far more high-leveled than your employees and partners.
Creating a strong team requires a leader to see every member as people, as human beings, having different potentials and capabilities that are equally important for the company’s growth. Besides, a team is not a single individual. You should reach out, resist the “that’s me,” “I’m the reason,” “It’s none other me,” viewpoints that lower the morale of your people. Just like a child growing in a family, love and support are vital for that child to achieve the identity he/she wants to build.
As for every other person, everyone wants to build an identity, an image, credibility, not just behind someone’s shadows but in a spotlight deserved based on effort. Most commonly, you say what you think! It happens unconsciously most of the time. Good commendation and feedback are a manifestation of your good perception of people, which positively impacts your relationship with them.
Viewing your people in a way they want themselves to be seen by others boosts their confidence and impacts a winning relationship.
Show you interest
Loyal people would want to do business with you for years and for several years to come. According to a psychologist and marriage therapist Roxanne Emmerich, marriages that work the best have a husband that provides undivided attention to the wife and parents doing the same to each of the children.
Implying this basis means having a loyal team demands a one-on-one relationship with each of your people. In any form, you should know your people personally. Instead of just talking all about business and work and performance, be interested in them. By spending time with your people individually, show that you really want to know them better. Who knows, by doing this, you can get along with your employees.
The idea of professionalism must never be overapplied every time. If you really want to gain your people’s loyalty, you should realize that not everything is about work. Engage with a person in a one-on-one conversation, converse about the family, goals, and dreams by taking a lunch, a coffee break, or casual talk.
How undivided attention to something makes the outcome the best, paying attention to your people would dig a deep, healthy, and lasting relationship with loyalty.
Sincerity is not Mechanical
While it is good that you try to build rapport, sincerity is not mechanical. The relationship should have a transactional, real, and pure intention for team building. Engaging with people should come out naturally. Well, the difference between “Hey Mark, how’s it going? That’s great!” and “Hey Mark, how’s it going? That’s great!” is if you would really want to say it or you want them to hear it.
Your purpose serves as the driving force for gaining people’s loyalty. People would feel it. While knowledge about showing interest, what to say, and what to know is an advantage. Everything is useless if it is not what you really want, what you are interested in, and what you actually want to do. A mechanical way would sound fake, and these people in your team might be diverted in the opposite way you wouldn’t want them to be. If you want to be effective in gaining the loyalty of your people, sincerity is a necessity.
Trust is the Head Start
As what is emphasized, relationship with your team members matters. The most important thing is the trust of your people that gives way for loyalty development. Trust is the head start. It comes first, and act as the anchor of loyalty that you are aiming to get.
Have a clear picture of this trust because it will stir up the proper mindset. You don’t just “need to,” but you strongly “want to.” You are not engaging for no reason nor spending time just for the sake of having a good image. It would be best if you do things leading towards this path, this direction, the pathway to your people’s trust. When you have trust, loyalty will exist; loyalty exists in trust.
Don’t Give Up!
After applying all that you have learned, there may be a time wherein you stumbled on the fact that still, no loyal people remain on your team. Too cliche to mention but “Never give up, don’t stop” applies directly in this situation. Remember, there are many loyal people in this world. You just got to find one. Just like a building that needs careful, conscientious, and comprehensive planning to be constructed, building a winning team might demand an effort that may take a couple of years.
Learn to cultivate their trust through proper perception, treatment, and intention to the people in your business. But don’t forget to motivate them as well. Business is possible with the right people working in harmony for a common goal. It would help if you strengthened the bond between you and your people to earn their priceless loyalty, the foundation of a lasting entrepreneurial venture.
No matter how fast a business takes off, it will collapse if the main foundation is not strong. Keep in mind that taking time to build a strong foundation, loyalty will keep your business standing with your people’s support. What about you, do you have other suggestion in mind?
