Drive Performance and Achieve Great Results

(CLICK HERE to access Skills Analysis Template)

How do you drive performance and achieve great results consistently? 

During my tenure as a front of house and operations leader, a major component of my role was to regularly assess, analyse, review, and change competing priorities at a drop of a hat. I was responsible for developing a structure for my team so that they could achieve great results consistently. 

One of the contributing factors to helping my team achieve great results consistently, was my ability to be able steer and redirect change as needed while dealing with the day to day challenges and uncertainty in such a fast-paced, ever changing environment.  

Influencing others to perform and excel at necessary requirements and tasks, can be quite the challenge, particularly if people are feeling stressed, under pressure and exhausted. To do this well means having the right skills, knowledge, attributes and competencies as a leader. 

To ensure that I led my team effectively meant stepping back and assessing my own skills gaps, before I went ahead and did the same for my team. 

I needed to be sure that I was making the most of my strengths and learning the necessary skills to achieve great results, all of the time. To do this, I knew that it was important for me to get crystal clear on: 

1. What skills, knowledge, attributes and competencies I needed in my role as a leader
2. What my current skills, knowledge attributes and competencies were

Self assessment and self-awareness is key. The starting point is to be able to take a step back and identity the skills, knowledge, attributes and competencies needed for any given task: These include:

• Position description
• Quality standards
• Competencies
• Personal and workplace standards 

To be an extraordinary leader, one who is agile, one who continues to progress and one who is fluent with great people skills starts with the ability to better understand ourselves and identifying what skills we may lack and where specifically we need to develop as leaders. 

The best way to do this is to perform a Skills Analysis regularly, using the descriptions or statements of your current role. These can be found in:

• Work standards
• Job or Position Description
• Competency statements.

These are all describe different facets of a particular role so, if you put them all together you will get a detailed picture.

CLICK HERE to access an example of a Skills Analysis template. Feel free to use it for yourself, for your team. Tailor it to suit.