It is rarely a requirement in job postings, it is rarely talked about in the workplace and it has a different meaning for everyone: inspiration. Nevertheless, inspiration is very often the reason why employees stay or leave. It is indispensable as a manager to inspire your employees, and the only way to do that is by being and staying inspired yourself. Klaartje van Gasteren and Kathelijn Loos take you on a quest for the answer to the question: how do you do that?
When, as a manager, you are not inspiring your employees, they go. This is something that director Kathelijn Loos, who has been with Solid Professionals for ten years now, and partn er of De School voor Transitie and leadership coach Klaartje van Gasteren, wholeheartedly agree on. With The School for Transition, Klaartje organizes trainings on how to become a secure base as an organization. During the trainings, she invites you to go in search of how to keep yourself and colleagues inspired. The same way she does with us. A secure base culture is a safe working atmosphere where you feel that making mistakes is allowed, in the knowledge that this is even a must in order to grow and develop together. At the same time, there is room for challenge. Only with a secure base culture can you, as a manager, open the conversation about inspiration - and the lack thereof - on the shop floor.
"Employees don't leave their job but their supervisor, research shows," says Klaartje."They leave when they no longer see you and the organisation as a source of inspiration from which they can learn and develop. This is even more true for the younger generations. Employees used to find inspiration more in other places, such as an association or church. With the de-pillarization there has been a shift and the work environment has become much more important,' Klaartje explains. With younger workers, this is very clear, Kathelijn observes. "It's even conditional. If you no longer give the younger generation the feeling that they are learning and developing, it's finished. "
Inspiration occurs when you are in connection with your employees and is in everything who you are, what you do and how you do it. It can be very small (such as while listening intently to someone's story), or very large, such as at an immersive event with energizing speakers. But important to remember is that inspiration is a little different for everyone. "There is no one size fits all," Kathelijn says, then adds "unfortunately." As a result, inspiration is not something you can "do" or "apply. Rather, it is a basic attitude that translates into curious behavior, looking for connection.
"To know if you are inspiring, you will need to specifically examine the ways in which you inspire your team members," says Klaartje. She often emphasizes this tip in her trainings, too. It is precisely this diversity that makes it so difficult: because how can you inspire everyone separately ?
Be inspiring yourself
The first step is to keep inspiring yourself. "If I've had a special conversation outside the office, I try to take that energy inside," Kathelijn explains."That way, as a manager, I share the inspiring learning moment with my team and surroundings." She herself gains inspiration by being in conversation with other people. "Their experiences, what they can do, their passion for something I can't do. That triggers the Pippi Long stocking effect in me: I've never done it before, so I think I can do it. Then a flame goes on." For Kathelijn, working with The School for Transition is also valuable. "I get inspiration from the trainings I take there, because they take me out of my comfort zone. "
Klaartje - who is inspired, for example,by meeting others, reading, role models and culture - mentions that you can be inspiring in who you are. Klaartje: "Do you know what you stand for and what you really care about?Inspiring people are those who know who they are and what they want to put into the world with it." You radiate that energy, which makes you inspiring and serves as an example to your employees. As a result, experts say, they will stay your employee longer, be more motivated, have less absenteeism and better reachtheir full potential.
Dare to ask: How inspiring am I to you?
To find out if you're still inspiring, there's nothing else you can do. As a manager, you will have to open the conversation about it, so be curious and ask the question. During The School for Transition's trainings, there's a prompt for this, but how do you do it on a normal workday?
"There are many managers who are afraid to ask the question 'how inspiring am I to you anymore?' Because they don't know what to do with the answer," says Kathelijn. "Those people need to ask themselves if they are still in the right place." In this regard, the higher up you are in the company, the less feedback you get. And the better you have to organize your own feedback.
In her role as director, Kathelijn tries to start the conversation about inspiration by asking her employees what they would like to learn and what would still make their work fun in three months. "I could do that quite a bit more," she admits. "When you start talking about inspiration, nice conversations actually always arise." Klaartje adds, "It's about caring and daring - what do you need to challenge yourself? As a manager, you want to challenge the other person to take action and ask the question of what it takes from you as a manager. That piece of daring is where inspiration comes in. "
But aren't you putting yourself in a vulnerable position if you start asking employees how inspiring you still are to them? "Definitely," says Klaartje, "But you have to want that. And that safe base has to be there to explore that with your employee." Also, imperfection is allowed again. Kathelijn: "People also get inspired precisely when someone is honest about something not succeeding."That way there is recognition and space to explore when something is not going as hoped.
Keep the focus on inspiring yourself
To apply this, it is all the more important as a manager with a busy life to keep "inspiring yourself" constantly in mind. "Schedule it in," advises Klaartje, "Not as a 'thing' to do once in a while, but something that belongs to the foundation of your day. It takes attention to keep yourself inspired." At the end of the day, ask yourself what touched you that day. That keeps you curious, and aware. Kathelijn says it all doesn't have to be too big. "It's just in the little things. That's how you grow." Because a manager makes sure everything gets done, but a leader is someone who inspires employees to think and develop further, in their own strengths.
