Supporting others to achieve goals
As a manager, leader, supervisor or team members it’s a valuable approach to provide support to others in achieving their goals.
Benefits of supporting others
Supporting someone else to achieve their goals has a range of benefits. These include:
- Feel good that you have helped someone. Learn more about the science behind altruism in this Wall Street Journal article.
- Gain insight into the journey it takes to make a change
- Help to build their resilience
- Build and strengthen your relationship by communicating on a different level, regarding different topics. You may find out that you have things in common
- Develop trust
- Benefit from the changes they make
- Achieve some of your own goals by aligning goals and objectives with theirs
How you can support others
- Listen when they want to share with you. Ask follow up questions to show your interest
- Be a mentor – a sense of accountability may help to motivate them
- Check in regularly to see progress
- When there seems to be a blockage or challenge, talk about it to work out how to get through it. This is similar to the role of a mentor or coach.
- Let the other person know that you are flexible – there is a difference between wanting to share your progress with someone and feeling like you have to
- Offer to teach them new skills
- Connect them with other people who you think could help them
- Read through plans or other documentation and provide constructive feedback
- Invite them to share their progress with you or the team
- Celebrate their achievements
- Adjust their work load / type / structure to suit the goals they are working on
Supporting others to achieve their goals is an important part of developing strong, resilient individuals and teams.