Vendor Management

 A recent study at Harvard Business School identifies 5 leadership behaviours that are correlated with increased motivation, creativity and performance of team members. There’s nothing ground-breaking or even surprising in the results, but it serves as a useful validation of the importance of day-to-day management activities.

“The team leader’s behavior is critical. I found that there are five leader behaviors that have a positive influence on people’s feelings, and the daily diary method allowed us to identify these behaviors at a very granular level. One of these is supporting people emotionally. The second is monitoring people’s work in a particularly positive way, and that has to do with giving them positive feedback on their work or giving them information that they need to do their work better. The third behavior is just plain recognizing people for good performance, particularly in public settings. The fourth is consulting with people on the team—that is, asking for their views, respecting their opinions, and acting on their needs and their wishes to the extent that it’s possible. And the fifth category was a grab bag of things. But the most important aspect here was collaborating—that the team leader rolled up his or her sleeves and actually spent time collaborating with somebody on the work.”