 Consistency is key to success for both leading successful teams and building people management skills. The power of consistency and leadership is about consistency of goals, consistency of actions and consistency of decisions and more. Why consistency is key to success in improving team performance is because consistency creates confidence, trust, belief, safety and ensures team members understand exactly what is expected. This consistency gives them the best chance of delivering against those expectations. Great people managers and leaders are consistent in how they communicate the goals to achieve and they are consistent in maintaining the best environment for team members to focus and deliver their best work. There is work involved in being consistent in your decisions, actions and behaviors as a manager. Increasing team performance a key goal for any manager delivers huge rewards for the company and as a result rewards on a personal level for the manager too. I'm covering firstly why consistency is key to success in people management, secondly how consistency builds confidence with teams and third how to master the art of consistency in people management using five steps. Great people management starts with a mindset and approach focused on personally doing what is best for the team as a whole and can consistently apply in this team focused approach. Secondly use the five steps to improve your consistency of direction, action and decisions so that you are in a great place to help improve team performance. My name is Jess Coles and if you're new here enhance dot training shares people management expertise resources and courses teaching you how to build higher performing teams. I've included links to additional videos and resources in the description below as well as the video timestamps so do take a look at these and if you like this video please give it a thumbs up and subscribe. So let's start by understanding why consistency is key to success in people management. In the workplace the majority of team members need some structure clear goals and consistent expectations. If they don't have consistency in goals and expectations how do they know which tasks to practice getting good at or which skills they really need to build. Successful companies and managers help their employees get as good as they can in their roles so they can contribute as much as possible to a successful business. Success is all about consistency. The power of being consistent applies equally well to projects being undertaken. It remains fairly rare for leaders to consistently focus on completing the current project before moving on to the next initiative. In our fast changing world too many leaders chase the latest shiny object or initiative while leaving multiple projects half finished behind them. Increase team productivity and reduce wasted effort by consistently focusing the team on finishing the project started. For people managers consistency of their behavior actions and decisions is the most powerful way that I know to reinforce and re-communicate the expectations they have been set within their teams. Actions speak a lot louder than words. Consistent actions create clear expectations of certainty and trust. Inconsistent actions create confusion, fear and uncertainty. The manager being consistent in their behavior actions and decisions prevents a lot of issues arising within their team and helps drive improved team performance. Next I'm covering how consistency builds confidence with teams. When managers communicate consistent messages to team members again and again the importance of those messages increases. Team members think if the manager is keeping their focus on this area it must be important and so I will focus my efforts on making sure that I deliver in this area. With more team members focused on achieving a common goal with less distractions the chances of achieving that goal increase significantly. Increasing the number of goals achieved is a common measure of success. There is nothing like success to breathe confidence in every team member and the team overall. And team members build a lot of confidence in managers when they see the manager protecting them and giving them the opportunity to consistently work to complete tasks, activities and projects. And managers that keep teams consistently focused on goals until they've been reached also earn a lot of confidence from the team members. Consistent goals means the manager is choosing the important goals and is able to protect those goals both help improve team performance and team success. Next I'm covering how to master the art of consistency in people management using five steps. How to be consistent is key to successfully managing people and teams. It being consistent prevents a lot of the people issues arising and creates really clear expectations which keeps the team very focused on the goals that you've set them. The five steps I use to keep myself as consistent as possible and therefore be consistent with my team are firstly use values as references. Secondly communicate a clear vision you believe in. Third always check alignment. Fourth behave to reinforce expectations. And fifth do adjust and repeat. So let's go through each one a little bit more detail with tips on how to implement. Firstly use values as references. Your personal values are really important for several reasons. Firstly to use as a reference point to maintain consistency because your values don't change quickly. And second when managing others it remains very important to be authentic to be the real you or at least part of the real you. Act in a way that is aligned to your values will demonstrate your authenticity to your team. Secondly create a clear vision that you absolutely believe in. Setting an instilling team direction starts with creating a clear vision of where you want to take the team. You can do this on your own with your boss or with a team or a combination. Keep it simple and keep the main thing the main thing. Be clear on how your team creates value for the business and work on the top projects and activities that you can do as a team to increase the value you create for the business. Communicate this to the team with the why. Be 100% personally brought into your vision for the team. If you don't fully believe it then your team won't either. Third always check alignment. Checking alignment of actions and decisions is hard to do consistently. There are always so many requests that contradict or confuse the direction you want the team to travel in. Do your best to say no to these or if you can't acknowledge to the team the conflict and explain why we have to work on the request. Communicate and do the actions and make decisions that are aligned to the team vision and try to avoid those ones that are not aligned. The more your actions and decisions are consistent with the goals the more confidence and trust you build with the team and the more focus they will have in the right areas. Fourth, behave to reinforce expectations. Developing good self-awareness helps a lot in managing your own behaviors to reinforce expectations. It is all the little things that count. Being energetic and enthusiastic when describing the expectations you want. Another is consistently praising those team members that meet the expectations you've set. It is discussing in private when team members miss expectations and teaching them how to get back on track. It is holding yourself more accountable in meeting expectations than you do the team members. Consistently keep aware of how you behave and what you are communicating to the team through how you behave. This takes effort and work, yet the improvements in team performance from consistently behaving to communicate expectations will make every second spent well worth it. Fifth, do adjust and repeat. If finally be consistent in how you try to improve your people's management skills and how you help your team be successful. In managing others is not easy. Demonstrating that you are learning and improving how you manage others is a brilliant way to keep getting promoted. You'll start off being okay. Invest in learning what to do so you're practicing the right techniques and you're using the best approaches to support and lead your team. Be sure you believe in the how you're going to get to good. Keep practicing your skills and over time you'll go from okay to good to great and beyond. Keep adjusting what you do and keep looking to work in service to your team so that you can build a higher performing team. So in summary, you've learnt why consistency is key to success in people management. Consistency creates confidence, trust, belief, safety and ensures team members understand exactly what is expected and how they can deliver against those expectations. To recap, we've been through firstly, why consistency is key to success in people management. Secondly, how consistency builds confidence with teams. Third, how to master the art of consistency in people management using five steps. Please do your best to be as consistent as possible in setting and maintaining goals and expectations consistent in your actions, behaviours and decisions so the team can gain confidence and consistent in how you work to improve your management skills so that you can deliver more for your team in the business. If you have any questions on people management, why consistency is key to success and five steps to achieve consistency, please leave them in the comments below and I'll get back to you. Thanks very much for watching and I look forward to speaking to you again soon.