Leadership and performance management

Leadership and performance management

Leadership and performance management go hand in hand. There are many ways of defining leadership. In simple terms, leadership entails getting things done using the available resources and organizing the human resource to achieve the set goals (Shein &Shein, 2016). Leadership structure differs between different organizations based on industry, employees’ characteristics, and the individual leaders’ traits.  Leaders work with the people as they combine resources and skills to achieve their organizations’ optimum benefits. Performance management can be described as all the efforts to improve employee performance resulting in higher company performance. Performance management is leadership’s responsibility.  The management tools employed by leaders establish the link between leadership and performance management. These tools create a healthy working environment, cultivate good relationships between employees and leaders, and motivate employees to work more efficiently, thus improving performance.

One of the critical links here is effective communication. In simple terms, effective communication can be described as passing the right message through the right channels and in the right form (Williams & Galden, 2015). For leaders to have a positive effect on employee performance, they need to be good communicators. Also, they need to be good listeners, giving employees opportunities to air their views. The democratic leadership style fits well with this explanation. The second vital link is the compensation strategy. Workers are more likely to perform better when they are well rewarded. Compensation entails basic salary, commissions, and other benefits such as insurance and child care. The compensation needs to be in line with industry trends. Although the leaders should not over-compensate their employees, they should be considerate enough to ensure that the compensation is sufficient to ensure that employees are motivated rather than coerced to work.

Performance appraisal is another close link between leadership and performance management. It entails evaluating how well employees meet the organization’s objectives and rewarding them accordingly. Performance appraisals can be done for several reasons: promotion, pay increase, retention decisions, or other organizational changes. Performance appraisal needs to be properly conducted, lest they cause conflict. Leaders have to ensure that they are following the properly laid out guidelines on performance appraisal. Effective performance appraisal can be a source of motivation, thereby facilitating improved employee performance (Williams & Galden, 2015).

The industry is changing, and leaders need to be innovative in their leadership strategies and management tools. Innovative leadership entails responding appropriately to industry trends by developing new techniques to motivate employees to perform better. For instance, an innovative leader can develop an empowerment program that motivates employees to work independently and carry out small leadership roles. Innovative leadership motivates leaders to adjust their traits and develop new skills to perform better in the present and future.

References

Shein, E.H. & Shein, P.A. (2016). Organizational Culture and Leadership, 5th Edition

Williams, B., & Galden, D. (2015). Leadership and performance management. In Open for Business: An Introduction into the Real World.