Why is it that most leaders are not effective at fostering independent thinking for their people? How do you instill accountability and the drive for self-improvement and development for your team? Think about it – can you truly motivate others to exhibit these types of behaviors?

You can’t motivate people any more than you can empower them. Employees have to motivate and empower themselves. However, you can set up an environment to make this possible. The key is knowing how to do so for each of your employees.

It starts by creating a human connection with individuals on your team that allows you to gain a deeper understanding of what makes them unique and how you can do a better job in supporting their needs and potential for success.

I often ask people who attend our leadership programs, how could you possibly motivate and encourage individuals on your team if you know very little about them as a person? What are they interested in? Do they have a family and responsibilities that need to be balanced with work? What are they passionate about? What does success look like for them? What is it that they want to achieve inside or outside the organization?

Taking it one step beyond creating a human connection, there are three simple things you can do to set up an environment that will challenge people to think, grow and take action.

#1. The most successful leaders understand how to connect with individual’s mindsets, capabilities and areas of opportunity for growth.  They use this knowledge to challenge their teams to think and to stretch them to reach for more.   They ask questions to stretch others thinking even if they have already figured it out themselves. Highly impactful leaders listen and ask questions while managers have a tendency to tell which disempowers others from taking action.

#2. Highly effective leaders excel at asking empowering questions so people can think independently, and are not afraid to make decisions and take action. An empowering question begins with, “if you knew that you could….” An example, if you knew that you could exceed your sales objective, what is the first thing you would do? Or, if you knew that you could establish a high performing team, what is the first thing you would do? If people are stuck, give them the air time they need to think and pause after asking an empowering question. If they are having a tough time, then ask another empowering question or phrase it differently and give them time to process their thoughts.

#3. Successful leaders hold their people accountable to their objectives and commitments by following up and asking questions in a way that is non-offensive and supportive versus a command control style of management. Do you have formal and informal one on one discussions with your team in order to stay up to date on their progress? Sticking to a regular schedule is critical, as it sends a message of value to your employees that you care. Continuously cancelling one on ones and having them infrequently sends a message that they are not important. Commit to regular discussions, as it will establish a culture of accountability.

Being inquisitive is an overall skill underpinning these insights that you can put into action in order to challenge people to think for themselves, grow and take action. Your behavior sets the tone for this type of environment and culture, so be the change you want to see in others.

Try out these suggestions and let us know how your team reacts to your approach. Please share your ideas and experiences, we would love to hear from you.