There is more to strong leadership than the ability to command a room with charisma and communicate well with your team. You must create a safe, supportive, and legal environment that allows people of all levels to feel happy, secure, and comfortable at work.
If you’re committed to becoming a better employer or manager of your team, you must focus on becoming an ethical leader. Keep reading to learn how to create a safe, respectful workplace for your employees.
Offer Fair Pay for All
Every employee has the right to fair pay. If you want to stop your top talent from walking out the door, you must offer a competitive salary for their role. Start by aiming to provide salaries based on the current market value, rather than slowly building on their previous salary.
It’s also recommended to routinely review individual staff members’ salaries to avoid racial or gender pay gaps. Anyone who believes they have been a victim of discrimination has the right to seek legal representation from an employment lawyer like Baird Quinn.
A Zero-Tolerance Approach to Harassment
There should be no place for harassment of any kind in the workplace, even if the perpetrator is a top performer who adds much value to the business. It is your job as a leader to eliminate toxic behaviour and legally dismiss those engaging in harassment.
To prove to your staff that the company has a zero-tolerance approach to harassment, you must educate employees on how to report misconduct at work, ensuring they never fear retaliation for coming forward.
Ethically Dismiss Staff
There will come a day when you need to dismiss an employee, which could be due to gross misconduct, performance issues, or layoffs. Whatever the reason for terminating a member of staff’s contract, you must ensure you do so ethically and legally.
For instance, if an employee is struggling to perform well in their role, use a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) to provide them with a chance to improve. If they fail to reach the business’s expectations, it will offer a paper trail that the company took all the necessary steps to improve a staff member’s performance before letting them go.
You must never fire an employee because they aren’t a good cultural fit or because you simply don’t like them. If you do, they have every right to make a wrongful dismissal claim against the company.
Practice Active Listening
The best leaders listen more than they speak. While you might want your staff to hang on your every word, you must remember that respect is earned. If you actively listen to your employees and act on their needs, they’ll feel more valued and appreciated by the business.
80% of your time should be dedicated to active listening, and the remaining 20% should be spent talking to your staff. You might be surprised by the difference it makes to the company culture and employee turnover.
Respect Your Employees’ Work-Life Balance
Your staff has a right to a good work-life balance, and you must respect that they have lives outside of the workplace.
Your employees will have varying circumstances, from raising children to caring for an elderly parent, which is why you must give them time to focus on other responsibilities in their lives. If you demand an employee to stay late, you run the risk of them finding a job elsewhere.
You must also serve as a role model for a healthy work-life balance. For instance, if you send an email at 11:30 pm, your staff may feel they need to be online at the same time or available to reply to your messages.
If you have a message you want to send before going to bed, schedule an email to arrive in their inbox the next morning. It will allow your employees to switch off at the end of the working day, ensuring they feel happier and less stressed when they return.
Introduce an Open-Door Policy
A good leader is always open to new opinions and ideas and listens to their employees’ worries or issues at work. If you appear cold, abrupt, or unhelpful, your staff will feel they cannot come to you with a problem, an exciting opportunity, or an important question.
Always keep your door open to encourage staff to talk to you when needed. Also, project a friendly, helpful, and professional demeanour that makes your team feel comfortable sharing their concerns, obstacles, or new ideas.
Always Protect Whistleblowers
It takes a great deal of courage for an employee to speak out against management. After all, standing up for yourself or others could come with professional risk, which is why you must protect your staff and prevent a culture of silence.
Silence is dangerous in any industry. For instance, ignoring abuse by a predatory manager may lead to ongoing harassment of various staff members throughout the years. Also, if an employee feels they cannot flag a staff member’s mistakes on a construction site, it could potentially result in a life-threatening disaster.
Your goal should not only be to encourage staff to share concerns or problems with you, but to protect them afterwards. Never dismiss, ignore, or attempt to disprove their complaint. Instead, look for the truth and keep them in the loop throughout the process to ensure they don’t feel ignored.
Understand the Reality of Entry-Level Roles
Ignorance isn’t bliss in business. To become an effective leader and for the company to thrive throughout the years, you must listen to staff at every level. While it’s essential to host meetings with senior management, you mustn’t ignore the thoughts and feelings of your junior staff.
For this reason, you must routinely connect with members of staff a few levels below you, without management present. This allows you to understand the pressures and problems they’re experiencing in their roles. It’s almost like reverse mentoring, as you’ll gain a greater understanding of the challenges entry-level and junior staff face, helping you identify solutions to make their working lives easier.