As we continue to welcome members of our leadership team who would like to share their thoughts on our blog, we would be remiss if we didn’t highlight the insight of Cheryl Houy, Director, Training and Development.
We asked her to share her top 4 tips on how to become a great leader. Check out her expertise below!
1. Share the glory
For me, this is one of the many key things leaders should be doing. We’ve probably all had a boss who took all the credit for the team’s hard work and success, right? But we’re all excited when we have the opportunity to instead work with a leader “who is team-oriented and more than happy to share the glory and credit for a job well done with the team.”
Any company growth is a group project; there should be no “I did this… I did that…” by any members of leadership. Any and all victories and defeats should fall on the organization as a whole. After all, we cannot survive without each other. “Look what WE did!! Look what YOU did!” Those are encouraging and supportive messages!
2. Know how to develop a team
As a leader, it’s crucial to get to know your team members. An effective leader can build people up and create a stronger team, which benefits everyone involved. Everybody learns differently and has different motivating factors. We all have different strengths and weaknesses. For leaders to be great, we need to be able to coach people on how to accentuate their strengths and to strengthen their struggles.
Here at Harmony, we try to pair up Account Executives and Recruiters so they are sitting by people who help strengthen and teach. It is our collective responsibility to develop the team – not just as leaders but also as senior staff members. Leaders are doing a disservice to our teams and to our companies if we continue to follow the “This is what worked for me, so it has to work for you” mentality.
Check out 6 tips on building team unity here:
3. Experiment with learning methods and styles
We recently began using Cerego here at Harmony Healthcare. Cerego is an online learning platform that helps with repetition and retention. It personalizes the learning experience and helps people learn at their own speed. They spend less time but learn more, helping organizations not waste valuable in-person time covering the basics.
We also do continued education here 3 times a week. We have pre-lunch sessions with both the new Account Executives and Recruiters. Our pre-lunch scheduling allows our new team members time to process the material over lunch and then try the new material during the afternoon sessions. This is shown to be beneficial to learning and to retaining information.
We also have a book club that meets bi-monthly and early morning think tanks where we share industry trends, collaborate on deals, and do group brainstorming.
4. Challenge yourself to better manage training time
This is one of the biggest challenges we face as trainers: managing how much time is removed from the call floor while providing the best education we can. As anyone in sales can tell you, it’s a numbers game. Our goals are quite demanding and require time to be hit.
My fellow members of leadership and I try to be hands-on during the day to get as much training in on the fly as possible. With this in mind, we instituted a microlearning approach that allows us to deliver useful and relevant content in bite-sized bits. It’s a team effort for sure: each member of management is tasked with helping the different divisions in cross-training. But with this approach and our new digital modules via Cerego, our sights are set on a successful training future!
