Episode 66 - A Leader’s Role in Removing Frustrations

<h2 data-pm-slice="0 0 []"><strong>Summary</strong></h2> <p class="">Aaarrgghhh! This week we look at the leader’s role in removing frustrations.</p> <p class=""> </p> <h2><strong>Transcript</strong></h2> <p class="">Hello and welcome to episode 66 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we look at a leader’s role in removing frustrations. </p> <p class="">When you think about the role of a leader, it’s easy to focus primarily on their ability to manage upside potential. That upside potential might include providing meaning and purpose, clarifying roles and expectations, and providing development opportunities. We tend to first focus on the leader’s ability to tap into the motivation of their people. Each of these areas are really important, however an equally important and often overlooked part of leadership is reducing the things that get in the way of performance. That includes removing frustrations and other barriers to success for individuals and teams. </p> <p class="">Let’s take IT as an example. As I work with a broad range of organisations it always amazes me the variety of IT setups people end up using ranging from cutting edge through to museum-grade antiques. Even when things look brilliant to me as an outsider, few people rave about their IT systems. However I’ve heard plenty of complaints about long boot up times, tricky remote login processes, slow response times, clunky data entry, and systems that don’t speak to one another. As the technology we use at home continues to leap forward, people have increasingly high expectations of the technology they interact with at work. And if the technology gets in the way of delivering work, it quickly impacts job satisfaction. In fact a study released just this month shows that workplace IT satisfaction accounts for 38 percent of the variance in job satisfaction. If IT is getting in the way for your people, there’s a high chance that it’s impacting the way they experience their job and