In today’s Home care Post that will take 3 minutes of your valuable time to read. I will show you how becoming a better leader will help you build a better home care agency.
I will show you how I did things at the start of my home care journey and how I was leading before my exit from Home Care.
The Good Old Days
I entered care after being self employed and responsible for just myself. I’d never managed people before and to be fair managed myself quite poorly. Before care I had an easy life, I did what I wanted when I wanted and enjoyed my days immensely.
What a Shock I had entering the care industry. From gym visits, saunas and daytime naps to being responsible for people’s lives and employment. It was a sharp shock to my system and one I struggled with.
I didn’t enjoy managing people to start with. For many years I let staff manage me. I did what everyone else wanted and hated my business. I did most of the work for Zero pay. As I gained experience and out of desperation managed to move certain staff on. I employed better staff who I felt I could manage. However I still got it completely wrong.
What did I do wrong?
I remember calling meetings a lot. The Staff would gather round and like a football manager at half time I would dictate what I wanted done. I would talk and talk while my staff pretended to listen and agree. I would tell them about the next big plan and explain how great it would be.
The meeting would close, they all agreed my idea was brilliant and went back to work. I would go to my office happy and do what I needed to do. But the staff never did what I asked. They never 100% bought into the ideas. They didn’t feel part of the process so never took responsibility. I would forget about the plan and nothing ever changed.
So I’d gone from being run ragged by the staff to getting better staff and letting them make it up as they went along. It was an improvement but not great for building a business.
So what did I do to improve the situation?
I started to involve my staff in the planning process. I stopped being the Football manager and I started to be a team player, the captain but still a team player. I asked open ended questions and sought solutions.
I set goals but asked the staff how they would get there. This was amazing because the staff felt included and part of the vision.
It was different because no-one minded if my idea failed but no-one wanted their idea to fail. When staff come up with plans they follow through. It was their idea so they had a vested interest in its success. Just this one switch to include them changed my business completely.
I stopped dictating and getting frustrated and started nurturing and rewarding. By letting staff work out solutions on their own made me a better leader and businessman.
It takes a little courage but I promise you, if you include your staff with every decision they will love you for it and work twice as hard to achieve what you agree together.
So why not give it a go?