Page 188 - Retaining Top Employees

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176 Retaining Top Employees

In dealing with top
Leadership for
employees, leadership is a
Managers
For a full discussion of the delicate matter, because
role of leadership in management,I those employees have at
strongly recommend Leadership Skills least some leadership
for Managers by Marlene Caroselli qualities. Leading top per-
(McGraw-Hill,2000). formers is more a question
of “Try this” than
“Chaaaarge!” The best employees have their own agendas, they
want to meet their own goals, and they aren’t always great
when asked to hook their star to someone else’s.
There are, however, three areas in which high performing
employees typically respond positively to leadership:
• When they’re encouraged to set stretch goals
• When they need a broader perspective for making deci-
sions
• When they’re encouraged to think “outside the box”
Stretch Goals
As strange as it may seem, top performers are not great at set-
ting stretch goals for themselves. This is the flip side of their
tremendous ability to focus on operational goals.
As an example, take a
top sales rep meeting with
Stretch goal A goal that
exceeds the established her manager to set goals
operational goals for a par- for the incoming year.
ticular person,organization,or event, After discussing overall
a goal that extends people’s abilities. objectives and agreeing on
clear sales targets, she’ll
usually adopt those targets as if they were written in blood.
There is no question but that she will attain her sales target.
There’s no alternative: “failure is not an option.” She carries the
target around in her head and benchmarks every sales call,
every conversation, every meeting, and every event against her
absolute resolution to meet that target. She mentally tallies
every sale against that goal until she can say, “Done!”