Winter ’15
7
FEATURE
as gifts. And the reason for that is
important. You can’t pick and choose
whom you as a leader will engage with.
Leadership isn’t something you do –
it’s someone you become. When you
as a leader or agency owner build the
reputation that your staff matter to you,
then you instantly gain a competitive
advantage in the marketplace.
How do you do it? First you must
create openness with your staff. From
applicants to long-term employees, they
must believe that they matter to you.
This means being open to their ideas
and their opinions. In fact, an open
door policy without an open mind
leads to a lost opportunity.
An open door and an open mind
result in conversation, cooperation,
and collaboration. And those are
the traits of a growing and profitable
home health agency. Nothing creates a
sense of ownership among employees
like treating them like owners. At
you can watch ten
short videos where I go into much more
detail about how to use these five gifts.
Second, you have to invest time in
your staff. Every business owner, every
leader, and every supervisor have one
thing in common – they all have
the same amount of hours, minutes,
and seconds in a 24-hour day. Brian
Tracy, the legendary business leader
and writer made this point, “The very
best question you can ask yourself as
a business person and repeat over and
over is this – what is the most valuable
use of my time right now?”
When you consider the cost of losing a
good employee and the time to recruit
and replace them, it’s easy to conclude
– I have to invest time in my employees
today! And that time should be spent
with the third critical success factor –
the gift of listening to others.
Nothing makes us feel more valuable as
an employee than when we sense we are
genuinely being listened to. And that
means as leaders (managers or owners)
we have to create an environment where
our employees can tell us what they
are thinking without us losing our self-
confidence, self-esteem or self-control!
When is the last time you sat with your
administrative staff or sales team and
just listened? Not making decisions
or pronouncements but listening and
inviting them to share examples of what
they are saying? In the book I give you
concrete ways to help staff trust you
with their thoughts. And those are the
thoughts that will ultimately drive the
growth of your bottom line!
The fourth gift that will drive engagement,
satisfaction, and financial growth is the
gift of continuous encouragement.
After being the lead consultant on over
400 engagements to improve business
leadership and financial growth, I am
convinced that a leader’s words far
exceed the power of a leader’s budget.
That thought is not mine, it actually
was uttered by one of the founders of
our nation, James Madison. Madison
is credited with building our monetary
system. He put that in perspective when
he wrote, “The circulation of confidence
is better than the circulation of money.”
Encouragement breeds confidence in
staff, and confidence is the root of all
proactive patient-centered care. But this
is not the kind of encouragement at the
end of a grueling task. To the contrary,
the most effective encouragement
occurs in the heat of the day. It’s the
words you say early in the morning and
in the middle of the afternoon that lets
your team know you believe in them.
And believing in them is ultimately
expressed in the fifth critical gift – the gift
of appreciating the strengths of others. At
least once a week, your team needs to
hear you say or read the words you have
written that let them know you see their
unique and individual contribution to
the success of every patient interaction.
You can be appointed someone’s boss
or business owner, but you have to earn
the right to be followed. When you
implement these five gifts, you create
a team of more than just satisfied staff;
you are building confident and engaged
employees at every level, and the result
will be right on your bottom line!
Barry Banther has been a trusted advisor to
business owners and leaders for over three
decades. This body of work has earned him the
highest accreditation as a Certified Management
Consultant from the Institute of Management
Consultants. Barry is a best selling author whose
latest release,
A Leader’s Gift – How to Earn
the Right to Be Followed
reached number
one on Amazon the day of its release.
