Tips For Improving Instruction Giving

By Ruth Graham


As a leader, one has to know how to properly give instructions to his subordinates otherwise they will not be able to deliver the desired output. Often times when the output is not up to standard or simply not good at all, the fault lies within the instructions that were given to the subordinates. As a leader, one must reflect on himself and start improving instruction giving to make it clear.

The art of delegation first lies in the subtle art of proper communication. One has to know how to properly communicate the message to the people under him in a way that is clear, concise, and understandable. This will make him be able to do better in work and also avoid miscommunications of any kind with people.

When one becomes a leader, he has to first stop being in the mindset that his employees or his subordinates are there to serve him. That said, he should put a lot of emphasis on training his employees. He should never assume that his employees know what he wants them to do even if he has not given them proper instructions or trained them yet. One of the ways to do this is to avoid jargon for newbies and create a good training program at the onset.

Second, one has to focus on training and orientation. As early as the start, leaders or bosses already have to start training the subordinates of what is to be expected of them so that they will understand instructions in the future. As stated above, do not assume that subordinates know what to do even before being oriented or trained.

Next, one has to break down instructions in bullet or number form so that his subordinates can see the steps. This is to ensure that everything is featured step by step and that there is no confusion whatsoever. Also, do not speak too fast otherwise the subordinate might not understand.

It is also good if one can make a copy of the task and the instructions so that there will be no pinpointing if the task is not done. For small tasks, one does not need to shoot emails or anything, but for the bigger ones, emailing the nature of the task and instructions is an SOP. This ensures that the boss will know who takes responsibility.

Lastly, encourage a culture of openness so that the subordinates will not be afraid to ask any questions. One of the failures of most leaders is that they make their subordinates scared to ask questions. In fact, questions should be encouraged so that the subordinates will have a clearer understanding of the task on hand and will yield better results.

If one wants to be a leader, then he cannot just think about telling people to do this and that. Instead, he has to think about communicating his ideas in a way that will make it understandable and easy to do to his subordinates. If his subordinates are able to translate his ideas into actual actions, then he has given them the right instructions and has succeeded as a leader.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment