Building and Improving Celebrations

Building and Improving Celebrations

Celebrating achievement within an organization is critically important to the overall morale and environment of the team and the workplace. In order to properly motivate and inspire others to do their best, leaders must be able to recognize positive contributions and reinforce key achievements. Recognition is about acknowledging good results and reinforcing positive performance (Kouzes & Posner, 2008, p. 281). It is about reinventing and fostering an environment in which every individual is celebrated for their personal contributions.

In order to create an environment that creates a culture of celebrating personal contributions, there are two key practices that leaders must do: expect the best and personalize recognition (Kouzes & Posner, 2008, p. 281). Both of these key initiatives are critical when creating an environment of openness and appreciation of individual contributions to common goals and objectives.

A leader that expects the best of out their team will better motivate them and inspire them to do their very best on a consistent basis. Successful leaders demonstrate and show high expectations of both themselves and their teammates (Kouzes & Posner, 2008, p. 282). They understand that in order to achieve and excel expectations, they must successfully communicate high potential and hold everyone to this level of performance. A leader must also be able to bring the best out in their team members. All team members have potential and it is the goal of the leader to be able to tap into this potential and recognize the skills and qualities that the team member can implement into the workplace. Leaders have a way of identifying potential and bringing it out of their team.

Anot...

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...n represents all of the key areas that my organization implements into the business in an effort to celebrate achievement. Specific to corporate sponsored programs would be the anniversary shout outs, weekly company newsletters, weekly inspirational conference calls, and company awards centered on such performance indicators as sales, KPI matrixes, customer service, and loss prevention. As a leader, I have incorporated my own incentives such as store centralizes contests, team luncheons and events to recognize store performance, and peer to peer recognition through verbal reinforcement and developmental meetings. These have all contributed very highly to my ability to reinforce positive behavior and celebrate achievements with my team.

References

Kouzes, J. & Posner, B. (2008). The leadership challenge. (4th Ed.). San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.