by Raghu Nandhan | Mar 8, 2022 | Company, Company Insights, Leadership Skills
The concept of servant leadership has evolved extensively over the years, as leaders have
started realizing that the servitude philosophy is more beneficial for the company’s growth and
success. Organizations are constantly analyzing and improving the relationships between the
leaders and their followers to develop more profitable leadership styles.
Even today, the concept of leadership reminds us of a pyramid structure in which the leader sits
at the top and passes orders to the subordinates, telling them what to do. However, it’s time to
change our practices and have a more people-first attitude. This is the only way we can actually
help others grow and build more such submissive leaders.
Role of Servant Leadership in the Organization
Servant leadership, as the name implies, is a management style that gives importance to the
personal as well as professional growth of the team. The theory focuses on the development
and well-being of each team member and puts their needs and preferences first. In the servant
leadership style, it’s the leader who serves the employees and not the other way round.
In this theory, the manager or the leader believes that unless each team member is able to grow
and feel fulfilled in their own personal and professional areas, we should not expect efficiency
and high-quality work from the team as a whole. To boost the company’s growth and success,
we need to focus on employee satisfaction and develop more collaborative and engaging work
cultures.
Servant leadership is necessary for every business as it creates a positive and healthy work
environment, wherein every employee feels fulfilled both professionally and personally. It further
helps to boost employee morale by ensuring that they feel valued and appreciated at all levels.
Such a healthy work culture creates more engagement and motivation in the workplace, which
are the key factors contributing to the organization’s prosperity.
Characteristics of an Ideal Servant Leader
Now that we know that servant leadership plays a crucial role in the organization, let’s have a
look at the characteristics of ideal servant leaders –
- They have an employee-first attitude and put the needs and pain points of the
employees first. - They share and distribute the power equally among team players, thus developing a
tighter and more collaborative team. - They are good listeners and let their team members speak up about their issues. This
creates a sense of belonging among the employees. - They give importance to the individual opinions of every team player, building a positive
work environment. - They practice awareness to understand the pleasure and pain points of their employees.
- They empathize with their personal or professional challenges and try to help them cope
with bad times. - They are able to define the short- and long-term goals and communicate them effectively
among the team to bring all the team members on the same page. - They practice stewardship to take the responsibility of guiding the team towards the right
path. They are responsible for building trust and upholding confidence among their team
players. - They care for their team members and pledge to protect their physical and mental health
and well-being.
So, if you are willing to follow effective servant leadership practices in your organization, make
sure to –
- Be an example of a great leader and humble human being first.
- Encourage employee engagement and collaboration to build a healthier work culture.
- Show your team members their importance and the vital role they have in their particular
job. - Take care of the personal and professional challenges of your team members by
allowing them to voice their concerns individually. - Encourage the personal and professional growth and development of your team players.
- Ask for feedback from your employees about how they feel at the workplace, and
whether they have any suggestions for creating better work cultures. - Help them contribute and share their own opinions without hesitating. Show them that
their opinions are valuable to the organization. - Make your employees feel that you are always there for them.
Benefits of Efficient Servant Leadership
Here’s why every organization needs to practice an efficient servant leadership theory.
Boosts the Self-Confidence and Motivation Among Employees
According to studies, 47% of Americans feel that they are doing a particular job for the sole
purpose of earning a living. It’s sad how a vast majority of the country’s citizens feel unfulfilled or
unsatisfied in their current positions.
This is where the role of servant leadership comes into play. As mentioned earlier, a servant
leader helps employees to focus on their self-growth and self-development by acquiring new
skills and knowledge. As opposed to carrying out the same old monotonous tasks every day at
work, developing additional skill sets will help them take up more responsibilities and work on
more interesting projects.
It will not only enhance their self-confidence and motivation but also boost the overall efficiency
and productivity of the teams. The very thought of trying and learning something new at the
workplace is exciting for them, which will encourage them to accomplish their tasks faster and
more efficiently.
Increases the Growth and Productivity of the Organization
With a serving attitude, leaders can help their team members feel more respected and valued. It
will further boost their willingness to give back to their caring leaders with high-quality work, thus
enhancing the productivity of the organization as a whole.
The best thing about servant leadership is it doesn’t support micromanagement policies, as they
tend to bring down the morale and confidence of the employees and create trust issues
between the employees and their leaders. Servant leaders help their group members to learn
flexibly and have the freedom to explore new things.
If employees aren’t given the required flexibility to acquire new knowledge and skill set, they
won’t be able to provide valuable inputs or explore better ways of accomplishing a certain task.
This, in turn, will give them the confidence and freedom to solve challenges on their own without
having to depend on their leaders every time, thus saving time and effort.
Enhances Employee Loyalty
Since servant leadership, unlike the traditional management styles, enables employees to feel
more engaged and motivated in their work, they feel more confident in making better decisions.
This develops among the teams a strong sense of personal and professional fulfillment, as
every member’s efforts are appreciated and recognized.
Since the servant leadership theory focuses on putting the needs and accomplishments of the
employees first, it encourages them to work collaboratively towards achieving a particular goal.
Further, it develops employee engagement and loyalty, which can escalate the organization's
success. Besides, loyalty among the team players also increases the organization’s employee
retention rates and brings in more talented people on board, thus developing a healthier and
more cohesive work culture.
Creates More Agile Organizations
An agile organization includes a comprehensive and condensed network of highly-empowered
teams, working collaboratively with high standards of expertise, accountability, collaboration,
and transparency. To be able to create such an agile team, leaders need to ensure that their
employees are able to work in a positive, highly-motivated, and stable environment.
To create more agile teams, servant leaders work towards building authority and credibility
among team players through positive influence rather than through hierarchical powers. They
facilitate efficient communication and team engagement among the workers and coach them to
work together towards a particular goal. By creating better employees and expertise, servant
leaders are able to boost an agile transformation for the organization.
Final Thoughts
Servant Leadership plays a significant role in the growth and development of every team
member, as well as the organization as a whole. With an employee-first and serving attitude,
ideal servant leaders are able to put aside their own needs and egos for the welfare of their
teams. It’s time to chain down the age-old dominating management styles and adopt a more
serving attitude for the growth and welfare of the organization and its employees.
Pragna Solutions is a reliable staffing consultant that has helped organizations strategize and
develop servant leadership. With innovative data driven insights and human expertise, we can
help you overcome any challenges in your business to help you maximize business productivity.
To know more about our wide range of consulting and outsourcing services, you may visit our
website.
Pragna Solutions has been an active recruiter over the past many years. There has been increased remote job posting since 2019. Not only the employees but the employers are welcoming remote work culture as well.
by Raghu Nandhan | Oct 6, 2021 | Blog, Company, Industry Trends
Lead generation is a method of obtaining a targeted audience for a business’s merchandise or services. The business ought to then be characteristic these leads that are generated then the sales team are taking them through the business’s sales structure to show them into procurement at the tip. And to confirm that leads don’t seem to be been wasted that why the sales team ought to foster every lead.
Value of Lead Generation
Lead generation will be pricey however it’s cost-effective too. Although, it generates qualified leads that are strictly inquisitive about your business’s services or merchandise.
By having the next quality of lead generation (through PPC , SMO, SMM, etc), It’s possible to seek out potential customers UN agencies need to buy. while not these sensible leads, the business won’t be creating sales or obtaining new valuable customers. It ensures that contacting the correct those that are strictly inquisitive about the merchandise. Lead generation is cost-efficient. It provides an answer to a business that’s troubled to form sales. Email selling is that the most cost-efficient means of generating leads; it’s thought of as the best come On Investment (ROI).
Importance of Lead Generation
Lead generation is extremely vital to most the business. a business won’t create any sales and not even expand more, It ought to have an honest lead generation strategy. If ready to} browse the customers’ minds we’ll be able to target the correct form of customers and sell to them the merchandise or services effectively.
Businesses nowadays are absolutely keen on Lead Generation because it generates an honest quantity of traffic to the websites wherever the t leads n be regenerate into potential customers. Google has created the method of connecting individuals to businesses easier, thence individuals currently grasp the distinction between totally different merchandise and. It shows the correct customer’s UN agency ar perpetually checking out the merchandise and services through totally different search engines. And by taking the lead redirecting to the web site and thence will increase the possibility of commercialism the merchandise or services from the business
It keeps the website engaged by grabbing the eye of the correct client UN agency is searching for one thing specific. It ensures that the business appearance totally different from the competition and will increase the probabilities of product conversion. the correct client is a lot of possibilities to allow contact details to an enticing website instead of a less engaging website. It may enable building relationships at intervals the departments like sales and selling to allow productive results. in order that these departments work along to urge an efficient lead generation strategy. this can result in qualified leads. This will, in turn, end in a lot of customers and sensible sales
Why Lead Generation vital
Lead production is that the winning purpose for each vendee and trafficker of each party. Shoppers will provoke data from many businesses that supply the merchandise or service they require, and also the trafficker is given the chance to form his or her pitch to those who have given their consent. These are a number of the most popular tracks. Conversion rates obtained during this means sometimes have a way higher success rate than non-functional contacts.
Lead generation helps businesses to see the subsequent factors:
- Determine the costs of a one-lead generation
- Choose the merchandise or service that to get lead
- Select the region within which the business is interested
- More effective lead engagement by targeting demographic space
- Lead generation for one month should be checked
- Pay for the leads that has been generated
Methods of Lead generation
Some agencies target providing relevant leads for businesses. The method of making a lead generation is truly terribly easy – however, just like the simplest things, it’s arduous to try to do well.
First, the workplace develops an internet site or partnered with websites wherever they develop and market your product or service. The customer finds these references or data sites and hopefully completes the web quote request type. Shopper details are verified and matched to relevant suppliers. These concomitant pointers, with full contact details and procure necessities, are emailed to international inspectors and other UN agency is also within the sales method.
Conclusion
Lead generation is extremely vital for the business. It creates sales and will increase potential customers.
- website engagement can increase the probabilities of a lead changing into prospects.
- We ought to make sure that the standard of lead generated ought to be effective in order that it’ll scale back the time and cash pay on that
- Use totally different modes of Organic and Inorganic means of generating ends up in the advantage and rank higher within the program in order that it’ll reach the correct customers at the correct time
Lead generation firms give your company the new leads you’d prefer to amass new purchasers, whereas emotional up it slow to pay on various tasks, like development or quality assurance. Conversely, you will double down on new leads, percussion up business in bike with leads provided by generation firms.
Lead generation is not a replacement form of obtaining a business, but business trends and time necessities have found the next because of obtaining new purchasers. rather than sitting at a display table for hours on end, or fitting a show in hopes that targeted shoppers will complete a sort, you will be able to have leads generated and sent to you victimization available technology, all whereas you will be able to direct it slow elsewhere.
Finding leads is long. Lead generation frees up substantial time, all whereas recollective identical gain opportunities.
by Raghu Nandhan | Jun 3, 2021 | Blog, Company, Sales and Marketing
Sales prospecting is an essential activity that highly influence your sales growth. Building market strategies to develop effective sales prospecting involves Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning. While segmentation of target groups provides you a broad overview of the market, targeting narrow down your focus to specific target group to position your product or services. Targeting is the process that makes your sales prospecting more specific by building a solid ‘Ideal Customer Profile’ or ‘buyer persona’.
Importance of Specificity in Sales Prospecting
Sales prospecting is the most challenging part of marketing process. The effectivity of sales prospective forms the basis of success or failure of further stages of market process. Specificity in prospecting helps in gaining more successful leads.
For instance, if you are selling a set of knives, you can segment a group based on age, say 18-40 years. But if you are specifying the target group, say, men and women between the age of 18 to 40 years and having cooking as hobby, you are likely to get more effective leads through this sales prospecting group.
Marketing people know that all sales prospect does not convert. But building specific buyer persona while sales prospecting enhances your chance of better conversion rate. It helps you prioritize and determine the effort of pursuing leads that fits in your ideal customer profile. Therefore, specificity in sales prospecting helps you develop effective sales funnel to maximize leads.
How to build specific Buyer persona?
Developing a buyer persona is easy but building specific buyer persona requires research and clear understanding of the product/service you are selling. To simplify the process, you can build a buyer persona by answering to these questions.
- What are the characteristics and qualities of the product or service?
- What specific problem will your product/service solve for your buyers?
- Which emotional aspect can your product/service trigger?
- Is your product/service designed for a particular economy group?
Things that affect sales prospecting and buyer persona are follows.
- software or sustainability of the company
- Industry: The ideal customer profile usually overlaps with you competitors in the same industry. Therefore, a thorough study of the industry will help you develop more specific buyer persona.
- Company size: A SME will have a lower budget assigned for marketing than a large organization. Therefore, it is essential to customize your sales prospecting plan according to the requirement and budget of your company.
- Social media image and engagement: In this digital world, you cannot build effective sales prospecting without the use of social media platforms. Consistent engagement through social media posts or comments can help you to step up your prospecting game.
- Following up: The importance of following up your prospect is immense in marketing. However, there is thin line between following up and irritating your client. Therefore, one must be aware of the frequency and approach of following up your prospect.
- Cold mailing: Most people use personalized cold mailing to reach out to their prospects. Email marketing is an effective marketing tool that has huge impact even today. Use attractive and catchy copyedits to engage your prospects and thereby leading to conversion.
The Bottom Line
Sales prospecting is a vital function in marketing. You have the capability of generating quality leads if you can build buyer persona or ideal customer profile with specificity. Effective sales prospecting becomes easier if you know where to put in your search efforts. Do visit Pragna Technologies website for more blogs.
by Raghu Nandhan | May 26, 2021 | Blog, Company, Sales and Marketing
Soft skills, such as communication, empathy, critical thinking etc., play a significant role in any professional career, especially when it comes to sales. Even though you may not find these as eligibility criteria in job descriptions, these soft skills serve as an important parameter in recruitment as well as in retaining the job. Emotional Quotient (EQ) or emotional intelligence is one of the most critical elements that can impact your performance and career drastically.
EQ refers to the awareness of one’s own and others emotions. Empathy has come to the limelight in this pandemic situation as one of the essential values in professional life. EQ is just the parameter of empathetic behavior. In sales, it is important to adopt an empathetic approach to understand the buyer and close the deal. Therefore, EQ has been recognized as an essential parameter to judge performance in sales. Fortunately, EQ is one of the rare soft skills that can be developed with the help of guidance. Most sales leaders are instructed to teach their teammates the virtue of emotional intelligence in order to drive productivity.
5 Ways Sales Leaders can strengthen EQ of their team
Emotional intelligence has been forecasted as one of the most significant job skills for the near future. It has been observed that higher EQ has proportional relation to high performance. Sales leaders can help their teammates develop EQ to drive performance.
Emotional Awareness of Intelligence
Most employees hardly know the definition of EQ. It is important to make the sales reps understand the meaning and importance of emotional intelligence. Sales leaders can organize online training or provide useful links to their teams to acquaint them with the concept of emotional intelligence. Leaders may also purchase some popular books on EQ. Some of the popular yet pocket-friendly books on EQ are Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ ( Daniel Goleman), Emotional Intelligence: Mastery – A Practical Guide To Improving Your EQ (Eric Jordan) and EQ Applied: The Real-World Guide to Emotional Intelligence(Justin Bariso). These books will help your sales team articulate the fundamentals of EQ and how it can affect their performance.
Teach Through Application
Tough challenges can invoke an emotional response. Building scenarios to bring forward emotional response is a great way to develop EQ. These scenarios can be rejection or objections. Sales leaders can demonstrate the importance of EQ and how to apply it to deal with such situations. It is undeniable that the EQ application can help when a client is derailed from the buying journey. Therefore, sales leaders must pinpoint where EQ comes into play in their sales process.
Show your EQ as an example
Sales leaders are great when it comes to leading by example. Leaders should keep practicing what they preach. You cannot teach someone something that you don’t master. Analyze your EQ skillset gaps through stress tolerance, reality testing, empathic approach and decision making. Sales leaders must know their EQ skill gaps and work to improve them. Sales reps learn from how sales leader handle or deal with specific situations.
Assessment of EQ through relevant metrics
If you do not measure a skill through appropriate metrics, that skill cannot be analyzed and improved. Build metrics to judge the EQ of your team through actions and outcomes. Quantifying EQ-based actions will help you in setting the correct metrics. Keeping a scoreboard open to your teammates can help develop EQ, improve sales behavior and enhance buyer experience. Consequently, this will contribute to revenue generation.
Develop a Sales culture that prioritizes EQ
Company culture plays a significant role in driving employee productivity. Similarly, sales culture in a sales team is undeniably important. Prioritizing EQ as an integral part of your sales culture will help your team develop EQ and apply it to enhance their performance.
Final Thoughts
Emotional Intelligence is such a soft skill that can fetch profits more than you can expect. This skill can not only help sales reps to bounce back from setbacks but also help in building strong internal and external connections. Sales leaders can strengthen the EQ of their teammates through simple exercises to make them resilient and top performer.
by Raghu Nandhan | May 24, 2021 | Blog, Company
Trust means working in a team of people to constantly work on their skill set to reach the goals of the company and to find their roles. Everyone tries to work hard to fill the roles effectively to know “if everyone is aligned, everyone succeeds”. Trust is also freedom and motivation to put your imagination, creativity, and passion at work.
One word: trust. It is absolutely necessary to establish not only your reputation but also a strong network of people who will assist you in all your work. It is clear that: No one is responsible for the success of the company; it is a team effort. “There are a number of woven events that need to happen in any organization in order to achieve results,” said Kathy Robinson, founder of Career Advisors Network, a national nonprofit organization. “People are honest at work. “But that dependence cannot exist without trust.
Most of the important projects take more manpower to complete the task, while the urge is to stay strong and motivated by trusting your teammates. It is one of the ways to let go of the urge in you. Some important projects require multiple teammates’ effort; oftentimes you must rely on other teammates to accomplish their tasks for you to complete yours. This creates a lot of stress in most of the workplaces, because of less visibility.
Cases in Businesses to Trust:-
- Teammates trusting each other doesn’t expand as much as their time and energy watching their backs because they often redirect their time and energy toward innovation and Productivity.
- When the teammates are given the trust to execute, they are more likely to become engaged with the organization and align more with their goals. A team with high trust inspires its members to retain that trust through excellence.
Reliance on work has a profound effect on how employees work together and work together on similar projects. With the majority of workers still working from home these days, employers are beginning to see the importance of building trust.
In many cases, poor employee communication is the first reason for poor co-operation. The first step in building reliable and cooperative workplaces is to promote transparent and honest communication in the workplace.
C o-operation and trust in the workplace
Self-confidence enhances organizational alignment, When employees trust their employers, they are more likely to work together to achieve common business goals. However, such corporate coordination is not easy to achieve, especially in large corporations with offices around the world. In order for all employees to be on the same page, organizations must make every effort to communicate with their companies, their policies, and their opinion of their employees.
Trust is built through employee loyalty and retention
Workplace fatigue is often followed by employee benefits. In addition, according to an Accenture study, the likeliness of fired employees to leave their current employers is 2.5 times more. The same study shows that 67% of US workers feel burned out sometimes, often, or often, and have a 63% chance of taking a sick day. Such feelings are often triggered by fears and anxieties about their job, and employees may not feel comfortable talking about them. In addition, one-third of employees said they would stay longer at the employer if their leaders kept their promises, and 28% said they would extend their working hours if made public at all levels.
Four Things to TRUST
- Display (T) with your group. Demonstrating this indicates responsive communication. Honesty, risk-taking, accountability, and expectations for all forms of public display. Without being visible, people tend to build their truth around something. For example, if you don’t provide feedback after they make a mistake, they believe it’s okay to repeat that same mistake again. If you don’t mind saying, “good job,” they think you didn’t like the results they gave.
- Respect (R) Respect your work time, their ideas, and their opinions. If you say your meeting is at 9 am, do not show up at 9:15. If you say you have an open-door policy, do not close the door just because you do not agree with someone’s opinion. Remember, great leaders, are great listeners. Showing respect does not mean that you have to agree with everyone, but when you respect their feelings, it builds trust, and they feel safe to open up often. Respect is a simple golden rule: “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”
- Join (U) your team. The first step here is to let people know that you will not tolerate groups and gossip within your group. Gossip is like cancer; it kills the character of the group. Trust, however, is a solution. The second step is for them to work toward a single point of view. Give them a group project that they should complete together. If they fail, they all reap consequences, and if they succeed, they all reap rewards. A team that fights together and wins together with a team that unites.
- Trust-building activities(T) build character. It has been proven that when a person enjoys his fellow workers, he is happier and more productive — and that does not happen by accident. One of the best ways to build morale and build trust at the same time is to provide services that build team-based trust. When I was training for Princess Cruises, I put in a few tests of confidence. When we finished, each team member carried an index card full of compliments that they did not know their colleagues were thinking about. The group said that there was one job that brought them closer together than before.
