The company culture of a startup can be different in so many levels and ways from the company culture of all big organizations and large companies. Entrepreneurs are fully responsible for the success or the failure of their company and one of their biggest assets is the strong and highly motivated team. Hiring the right people is just not enough, entrepreneurs must know how to manage, lead, inspire and motivate their employees in order to build strong team with devoted members.
Leadership has become essential factor for the success not only of the small and newly-created companies, but at the big organizations as well. The term intrapreneurship is related with the work of someone acting as an entrepreneur within an organization. Employee intrapreneurship gives the opportunity to employees, working for big companies, to act like entrepreneurs by using their creativity and enthusiasm and implementing these qualities into new projects and tasks without being asked to. Intrapreneurship proves the importance of inspiring the employees to take the work to new heights and act towards the company’s success, without limiting themselves.
There are many things that entrepreneurs must do to inspire and motivate their team members and the approaches they use can be very individual. Here you can find some great key points to inspiring and motivating your employees and waking up the intrapreneurs inside them.
Transparency
You, as a leader, must know how to connect the dots and keep your employees informed about what is happening in the company. Startup employees are more likely to be inspired by the company’s mission and vision and they need to know how the company is moving forward and towards achieving the set goals. Be transparent and share with your employees not just the good news, but the bad news as well. Nothing builds better teams and inspires more than transparent relationship.
Honesty
We have talked about the importance of honesty in entrepreneurship. It is essential to be honest with your employees and to share with them what you really think of their performance. Honesty is key element for better startup management not just for the employees, but for you as well.
Communication
Ask and listen what are the needs of your employees. Don’t try to figure it out when you can actually ask them and expect clear answer. They know that you are honest with them and must know that they should be honest with you too. Good communication is essential and you should make it clear for your team. It will help them communicate with you in a better way, but will improve and the communication between them as well.
Set examples
Make sure that everything you require from your team, you also require from yourself. The leader is someone the employees look up to and by setting the right examples you will encourage your employees to be more devoted. Make your passion their passion.
Stick to your word
When you make promises be sure that you can meet them. Don’t mislead your team members by promising them things that you are not sure you can make true. Nobody is inspired by empty words and you, as a good leader, must stick to your promises and undertakings.
Help
Your employees must know that they need to be confident in their decisions and not to be afraid to admit their weaknesses. Sometimes a project is not going so well and they will need your help and the help of the other team members. Make it personal by establishing the clear statement that help will be provided when it is needed. Bad leaders make their employees afraid to admit that they couldn’t finish a project, but you are not a bad leader, right?
Teach
Helping your employees to be more successful is essential for the startup team. Teach, mentor, advice and lead them into becoming better experts, better leaders, and better innovators. Invest in them your time and effort and you will have strong and motivated hard-working team, not just a number of workers.
