Leading the people is not just for creating a “feel good” atmosphere all around, it is about infusing the right attitudes and behaviours required for winning fair and square at marketplace.

Leaders communicate the organizational values to influence people behaviours. Communication is the keyword here. And what better way to communicate the values than making the values visible through their actions. In other words leaders create coherence between their words and behaviours. The clarity on values enables people to live by them too. It is through these values that leaders influence organizational culture.

The foremost responsibility for leadership towards people is to create shared vision and values and inculcating a high performance culture, which undoubtedly rests on the foundation of trust, transparency and teamwork.

Second step after instilling the high performance culture, leaders’ next role is to inspire the people to unleash their potential and reach beyond limits. Leaders inspire people in many ways, by leading by example, clarifying the vision and role of individuals, assigning challenging tasks and by rewarding positive behaviours. Leaders make people feel important and appreciated.

That takes us to the most difficult task of differentiating people based on their performance and behaviours and follow up with rewards and development. A transparent performance management system ensures that rules of the game are understood by everyone. Leadership facilitates alignment of individual needs and company goals through:

• Setting clear performance standards
• Implementing objective measurement system
• Providing fair and accurate feedback
• Rewarding positive behaviours

Leadership should ensure that top performers are duly identified and recognized. These are the people who are most initiative in the organization and are always willing to walk that extra mile and take their people along in the interest of the company. This is extremely important for leaders to personally intervene to support and encourage this group as the organization needs them badly. To do so, the leaders must suitably reward (promotions, hike in pay etc.) star performers – manage and meet their expectations. In the absence of such a system, for all the best efforts and success in turning people into star performers, they will opt out for other organizations. Leaders should carefully analyse each case of best performers leaving the company or attempting to so – this provides wealth of information on pitfalls of people management. Leaders must realise that great performers are not loyal to organizations or departments, their loyalty is to the job they perform, so utmost care must be taken in designing and assigning jobs that challenge the existing capability of the people and enrich their experience.

Average performers need the leadership assistance the most as they need more coaching and mentoring. Leaders should develop trust and confidence among average performers, so that they eventually are transformed as top performers.

Leaders must be frank with people with low levels of performance, thus helping them to choose jobs that suit those most. This is a tough decision on the part of people, but is an essential step for both the company and the individual. Leaders should try to separate out slow bloomers from the rest. Slow bloomers are those people who take time to establish themselves, but once established they quickly turn out to be the star performers. Leaders can support them through relocation, mentoring and coaching.

Some important points to remember for leaders:

• Reward in a manner to meet expectation levels and maintain inspirational levels
• Coach rather than boss around
• Coordinate teamwork rather than supervise
• Provide the big picture rather than further personal agenda
• Promote trust rather than encourage politics for short term gains