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There is saying that 'people treat you the way you treat yourself'. The reverse is equally true and more applicable for leaders 'An employee becomes the way you treat him'. If you treat an employee as he is responsible, he will become one. If you treat an employee as being intelligent, he will end-up demonstrating the same. If you expect people to do more, they may end up doing more.
The fundamental idea is that people love it if you trust them or expect more from them. Deep in their conscience, they want to be put into a situation, which takes them to the border of insecurity and anxiety. They want to be put into the deep-end of the swimming pool as long as they know that there is a safety rope. If your employees don’t have that fire, one has to look at the leadership practices or the recruitment practices.
As a leader, you can keep on looking for opportunities to inculcate that feeling of increased self-worth. As an example- Let’s say that the true potential of an employee is 120% of what he is doing as of now. A true leader will expect an employee to do 140% (while being careful that the employee is not set for failure), and an employee will end up doing 130% of his current role. This is what you call 'making an employee discover the limits of his true potential and pushing those limits'
To see it another way, most of us do not insist enough from our employees. A human being is wired to perform better when he is challenged. Some interesting way to expect people to do more is-
Challenge them to think next level
I have a standard question which I have used often when my direct reports used to come to me with a problem ' what you would have done, had you been in my place?’ Surprisingly many of them come-up with a good answer. My response is 'just go ahead and do it'. People sometime avoid doing things, because they feel it is 'not appropriate for their level'. I do tell my people 'think like next level and you will soon rise to the same'.
Place the buck on them
Take away the mentality that buck stops with the boss. Make the people accountable and create rewards and penalties, as if they are on the hot seat. Move from 'leader is responsible and employee needs to be told what he has to do' to 'employee is responsible and boss needs to be told, what he has to do'. Let an employee come to you, when he needs a solution, or money or escalation support. If you move the sense of ownership to the employee, he will start building the same at his end.
Give the cues to the employee and not to do his thinking for him
Everyone loves cooked, ready to serve solution. As a leader you need to make an employee do that cooking and help him where he needs it. When an employee comes to you with an issue, give him cues to stimulate his thinking and its direction. Questions like 'what have you thought so far?', 'what do you think are the alternatives?', ‘have you explored that option?', ' lets assume that this solution will not work, lets limit our thinking to these three alternatives'..
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