George Marcou

It's always a very welcome trick when you can ensure that the client experiences a return on their investment in your service within a few weeks of being engaged. This tends to reward the trust placed in you by the client. If the return outweighs the total investment required to pay for your service, then the financial pressure on the client is also immediately eased. Quick wins such as these are often very welcome while you continue to build the foundations and structures for longer-term value and growth.

Starting with agreed organisational objectives and progressing to a plan will generate a set of tasks for the leader. Ego and self-consciousness can take a backseat to a focus on tasks. These tasks should turn into achievements as the number of completed tasks starts to add up. Difficult tasks can be solved through appropriate collaboration, delegation and outsourcing, cementing the role of active leadership within your teams. One step at a time and one day at a time can create a solid track record that a leader can reference when they make time for a little introspection. This can set a foundational understanding that leadership is something you do, rather than a title you have to somehow try to live up to.

In almost every role one of the 'hidden' motivations for employees is to be in a role where they can continue to learn and grow their knowledge and capabilities. Microlearning delivers this ability in very easily accessible portions. It doesn't require the commitment of a formal certification and can still feed the needs of the most educated members of the workforce. An organisation that offers access to a microlearning platform should expect to see more engaged employees. Couple this with incentives for easily-achieved goals and you can expect to see ever-increasing capabilities from your workforce. Try targeting additional skills that leaders would like to see from their team and introducing rewards for achieving them.

You ensure that your current workforce can adapt to the culture you want to promote. You want your people to be good enough to embody the most positive culture you wish to promote. You have to have already hired accordingly and continue to do so. You don't want to promote a vision for your organisation's culture which immediately alienates the majority of your workforce. If you want to make the whole process a conversation, you can start by engaging your workforce and gaining their feedback. Publish, update and finally distribute the finished vision. This then becomes a tacit contract. You're held to this standard and have to embody and demonstrate it, just as you expect your workforce to. Identify and reward great examples.