Supervisors and Leadership: Helping Your Employee Generate and Act on Great Ideas

You have many employees with great ideas. These ideas might be for new products, new processes, or even management ideas you can employee as a supervisor. Can you do anything as supervisor to help your employees not only consider great ideas, but not forget about them? Imagine the ideas that float around in your employees minds. Here's how to empower these workers to win for themselves and the work organization.

Let's assume therefore that you have had employees with amazing ideas in the past but

they didn’t act. Start with awareness for why employees give up on their great ideas. New ideas often challenge the status quo and, when examined, feel as if they are outside one's comfort zone. Help employees to feel comfortable challenging their comfort zones. And don't forget you told them to do so!

Remind your employees that it is not you that is holding them back. It's them, more than likely. In fact the following issues typically undermine great ideas. 1) Fear of failure – what you imagine will happen if the idea flops; 2) Fear of success – apprehension about what will be different if you succeed; 3) Procrastination – this postpones or avoids the pain of #1 or #2; 4) Depression and anxiety – these conditions undermine excitement (seek evaluation/treatment if you suspect that they are holding you back); and 5) Inertia – the tendency to do nothing or have things remain unchanged is its own force for inaction. 6) Erosion of excitement - employees with great ideas get excited, but the mind will maintain this level of excitement unless action is taken. So encourage employees to act.

Inspiring employees, praising them, and motivating them to take action by giving them a vision that they truly covet -- one that let's them see what's on the other side of the mountain top is a critical supervisory skill. You train all the supervisors in your company to think in these dimensions with 14 Vital Skills for Supervisors, our worldwide appreciated and celebrated course for any corporation. Go here to see the entire program.