Archive for the ‘Leading People and Teams’ Category

As you progress in your career you are likely to find that sooner rather than later you are in a position where you are leading a team. While leading a team is hugely rewarding there are many challenges too. So what are the big challenges you need to overcome if you are to achieve success?

Challenge 1: Being Clear About What You Want To Achieve

A lot of people talk about mission statements and the importance of having a clear vision. In reality getting crystal clear about what you want to achieve is really tough and yet without clarity it is difficult to brief others.

Challenge 2: Getting The Buy-In Of People

Unless you have followers you are not a leader and not leading a team. Winning hearts and minds is tough, especially when proposing something different. Being able to step into others shoes is a major benefit.

Challenge 3: Responding To Different Agendas

Different people want different things from their work, their employer and boss. Responding to these different demands and agendas is tough.

Challenge 4: Handling Resistance

Resistance will come up whatever you try to do. It never ceases to amaze me the lengths people will go to in order to hold on to things, even those things that they don’t like when they face uncertainty.

Challenge 5: Keeping People Engaged

Many studies have identified that as few as 20% of people are actively engaged in the organisational agenda. Disengagement hurts organisations in terms of productivity, customer satisfaction and profits so don’t underestimate the importance of keeping people engaged.

Challenge 6: Handling Negativity

Some people are said to be glass half full people while others are glass half empty. In those situations where the glass half full dominate they can drag down even the most optimistic team members.

Challenge 7: Impatience

We all to some extent want quick results and the reality is that anything significant takes time to achieve.

Challenge 8: Remaining Positive Personally

You are a human being not a robot. In the face of a tidal wave of despondency it can be really tough to stay positive.

Challenge 9: Getting The Balance Right

There is a fine line between pushing people to hard and being a soft touch and it is tough to get it right.

Challenge 10: The High Jump Factor

When you achieve anything just like in the high jump the bar is raised to another level. As a consequence you are under constant pressure to continually raise the game of your team and yourself.

The Bottom Line: Leading a team can look really easy from the outside looking in. The reality is often very different.

Duncan Brodie helps professional people to become highly effective leaders. You can sign up for his free audio e-course here

When people go for a job interview it is pretty commonplace to be asked how others would describe you. In the interview you probably trot out a good answer that ticks the boxes in the mind of the interviewer.

The trouble is, beyond the interview situation few people ever really give much thought to this question and this is a lost opportunity.

The question is great in many ways:

1. It gets to the heart of the type of leader that you want to be.
2. It shapes how you interact with others, behave, set an example and go about undertaking your role as a leader.
3. It keeps you constantly conscious of what it is that makes you perform at your best.
4. It gives you a marker or frame of reference against which you can check before getting into a difficult conversation or making a difficult decision.

When your team is asked this question I guess that you and most leaders and managers would like to hear things like:

1. They are highly supportive of me and the team.
2. They encourage us to try new things and provide the safety net to allow us to do this.
3. They are approachable and I can go to them if I have a struggle.
4. They are honest with me.
5. I trust them completely.
6. They are a great role model and someone from whom I can learn.

By contrast, few leaders or managers would like to hear the following:

1. They are totally autocratic and never involve us. They might best be described as the Nike boss who says “Just Do It”.
2. They put excessive demands on the team and we feel like we are collapsing under the weight.
3. The only person that matters to them is themselves.
4. They take all the glory when things go well and never acknowledge the contribution of others.
5. They blame and try to pass the buck when things go wrong.

And here is the good news. You get to determine for what you have a reputation as a leader or manager. So what choices will you make?

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps professional people become great leaders and managers. Sign up for his free audio e-course Leadership Success at www.goalsandachievements.co.uk.

It is fair to say that we are in challenging times right now. If you are leading and managing in these challenging times it can be difficult to maintain morale, especially if jobs are at risk. So what can you do maintain morale in challenging times?

1. Remind everyone regularly about the direction of the department and organisation in the longer term and the potential opportunities that will be created.
2. Take the time during staff appraisals and one to one meetings to find out about areas of experience that individuals are keen to get and then aim to get them that additional experience.
3. Continue to support learning and development of all staff, not just those undertaking professional exams. While budgets might be tight, there are still plenty of low or no cost opportunities for CPD.
4. Make a point of letting people know when you are particularly impressed with a piece of work that they have done or a challenging situation that they have handled well.
5. Be positive as a leader of the team as you set the tone. Pay particular attention to how you interact with people in the early part of the day.
6. Be visible and avoiding locking yourself behind a closed door for large parts of the week.
7. Consider setting up open meetings where staff have the opportunity to raise concerns, issues and get some responses.
8. You probably recognise that several heads are better than one. If your stakeholders are looking for more from your function, get people involved in generating ideas and making suggestions to maximise the value that is delivered.

Remember that is often the simple, low or no cost things that have the greatest impact on maintaining morale.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to become highly effective leaders and managers. He invites you to take advantage of his free audio e-course Leadership Success at www.goalsandachievements.co.uk

Trust is vital to achieving results as a leader. After all, if you don’t have trust, it is difficult to get the support for your vision, plans or ideas.

So if you are a leader, how can you build trust as a leader?

Don’t Fall Into The Seniority Trap
• There may have been a time in the distant past where people would tend to trust you just because you were the most senior person. The reality is that those days are long gone so it is pointless to rely on this. Being a leader and having followers is nothing to do with the job title that you have.

Set The Tone

• As a leader you set the tone for the whole department. By that I mean you set the expectations in terms of things like the way people behave, the way people interact with each other, resolve differences of opinions and solve problems to name just a few.

Find Out What Matters To Others

• Ever notice that in every job interview you go to you are asked what motivates and de-motivates you? The trouble is that interviews are often the only time this question gets asked. Think about it; if you know what matters to people you can start to do things and behave in ways that focus on the things that matter to people.

Give Regular Feedback

• Most people in the workplace crave feedback yet study after study shows that it is sadly lacking. Giving regular quality feedback to people gives a really powerful message that you care about them and their success.

Start Small

• It can be really tempting to try and be too ambitious at the start. It is much better to break the overall goal into smaller steps. As each step or stage is progressed, it builds confidence and trust.

Be Honest With People

• When leading a team or department there will be times when some difficult choices will need to be made. It can often be tempting to either avoid communicating or to make promises that cannot be kept. Broken promises will end up destroying trust.By contrast people may not always like the news that you are giving them but will respect your honesty.

Be Supportive

• Allowing people to move out of the comfort zone with the assurance that they will be supported is a huge step to giving them a message that you trust them.

Don’t Blame

• We have all if we are totally honest fallen into the trap of blaming others when things don’t go to plan. While it might offer in your own mind some sort of short term cover it will demolish trust, stifle creativity and dilute the results.

Hold People To Account

• When it comes to managing or leading people, it is important to have accountability in place. This is not some sort of heavy handed approach but simply involves agreeing with people what they are going to deliver and then asking them to keep you informed (or to account) for what they have done and what they still have to do.Doing this consistently with the team and individually creates trust.

Listen A Lot

• All of the best people that I worked with were brilliant listeners. When you focus your attention as a leader or manager on listening to others you get some real insights. People want to contribute and have the opportunity to do so. Listening does not mean that you have to act on every idea, concern or suggestion. At the same time people will respect you more. If you encourage and teach your people to listen effectively to others’ points of view you will build great team work and trust.

Do What You Promise

• If you say that you are going to do or deliver something then make sure that you do it. People will use this as an indicator as to whether you can be trusted or whether it is all just talk.

Empower and Delegate

• Delegating work to others not only provides opportunities for growth, development and challenge, it also sends a strong signal that you really trust your people.Empowering, where you give experienced people an outline of the result that you want, step back and let them get on with it is another great way of creating trust.

Stand Up For Your Team

• There will be times when privately you are disappointed with your team. Maybe they have done a poor job on a project or in dealing with a disgruntled client. In these situations it is vital to make sure that you deal with the issues privately but still stand up for your team publicly.

Take Responsibility For Results

• If you are running a department you will be well rewarded for taking on that role. At the same time, responsibility for the results ultimately is down to you. Maybe this might not seem fair but that’s the way it is. If you want to build trust, take responsibility for the results, whatever they are.

Give Recognition To Others

• Good leaders and managers look to give recognition for the successes that are achieved. See yourself more as a facilitator of delivering great results and give recognition to others when things go well.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to become highly effective leaders and managers. He invites you to  sign up for his free team leadership audio masterclass here

Teams, as we know, have the potential to contribute significantly to organisational performance. On the other hand they often fail to deliver to optimal performance levels.

While there may be whole host of barriers to success, I have found that some of the real barriers include the following:

• A Lack Of Listening

  So often people say that the problem is a lack of communication. Yes, communication matters but what I have found is the real barrier is the inability to listen to each other. When we stop listening, we close our mind to insights and ideas that could make a big difference.

• The Know It All

  You might have met this person: the individual who has the answer to every possible challenge that the team could have or face. The trouble is, they tend to steam roll through their ideas and end up alienating people.

• Pessimism

  Achieving anything of significance is tough and let’s not pretend otherwise. At the same time, if you are overly pessimistic you never do anything because you worry as to if you are doing the right thing.

• Promising A Lot, Delivering Little

  The people who used to frustrate me were the people who promised to do a lot of things but just let the team down time and time again. If you are the leader, you need to hold these individuals to account.

• A Lack Of Trust

  Trust takes time to build and can be destroyed in minutes. Delivering what you say and going out of your way to help others builds and maintains trust.

I would love to hear your experiences of what gets in the way of team success and, if you have a moment, I invite you to leave a comment.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to become highly effective leaders and managers. He invites you to take advantage of his free audio e-course Leadership Success at www.goalsandachievements.co.uk

Leading a team can be a challenge. There are many different personalities with their own desires, goals, agendas and perspectives.

So what are my best secrets of leading a team?

Secret 1: Aim to be consistent
• Don’t be the leader who is the split personality. Have a style and try to stick to it.

Secret 2: Take an interest in others

• Leaders need followers. The best way to build followers is to be interested in their success.

Secret 3: Be clear on expectations

• Despite what you think, people prefer clarity on what is expected of them to vagueness.

Secret 4: Provide support

• Teams have ups and downs. Support them through the good and not so good times.

Secret 5: Determine people’s motivators

• If you don’t know what makes people tick, how can you ever expect to motivate them?

Secret 6: Give feedback routinely

• People thrive on feedback. Make a point of giving feedback routinely.

Secret 7: Paint a picture

• The clearer the picture you can paint of where you want to get to, the better.

Secret 8: Build trust

• As someone said to me recently, “No trust equals no team”.

Secret 9: Keep it all in perspective

• Sometimes, especially when the going gets tough, it is easy to lose sight of the relative importance of things. Learn to keep things in perspective.

I wonder what secrets you would add?

For the exhaustive reference on working with, leading and managing teams, check out the special pre-release on my latest book. If you are serious about your team, don’t miss this special Click here for more details

As a leader, you want to deliver the best results possible. There is nothing wrong with this and, at the same time, it is important to manage expectations.

Set the bar too high and you will set yourself up for failure. Set the bar too low and you will be accused of taking the easy option.

Managing expectations is a tough call to make. It starts with being clear on where you are now. Next comes an honest assessment of where you want to get to and by when. Then there is the inevitable reality check. If this is missing, you run the risk of making promises at, or setting expectations at, a level that is just too high.

The Bottom Line: Successful leadership is as much about setting and managing expectations as it is aiming high. The challenge is to get the balance right.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here

As a leader, you have certain expectations in what others will deliver. The chances are you will write these down once agreed. The trouble is that often there is a missing link in the process and that link is ‘follow up’.

If you don’t follow up, a number of things will happen:

1. Those that you lead will not take you seriously.
2. People will fail to deliver what they have agreed to because they know that there will be no consequences.
3. Others who have a habit of making sure that they always deliver will stop bothering as they will become demotivated.

Follow up sets your stall out as a leader, shows that you are serious and provides that vital feedback that so many people are crying out for. So what changes do you need to make to follow up more effectively?

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here

Everyone knows the power of setting goal and many find it a stuggle.

What can you do to improve things?

As always if you have a top tip, why not go ahead and leave a comment.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements works with accountants and health professionals to help them to realise their professional potential through becoming highly rated managers and leaders.

Let’s face it; we all have times when we say things in a way that we later regret.

While we are all human, if you are finding that your normal default is towards destructive comments, it’s time to take action.

If your default style is to use destructive comments, you will:

• Make yourself unpopular.
• De-motivate others.
• Alienate yourself.
• Stop any creativity or risk taking.

So if you want more success through others when leading, focus on tackling and addressing the way you provide comments.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here