Posts Tagged ‘leading teams’

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

• Spotting OPPORTUNITIES to grow and developing the organisation.
• Being OPTIMISTIC about the future.
• OPENLY communicating within the organisation.
• OVERCOMING setbacks and OBSTACLES.
• Focussing on OUTCOMES.

What else would you add?

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

1. Maintaining morale and keeping people positive.
2. Generating new and different ideas to tackle old and long standing problems.
3. Dealing effectively with the underperformers.
4. Getting everyone to pull together, especially when they have different values or aspirations.
5. Dealing with the dominant people who try to railroad everything to suit their circumstances.

What else would you add?

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

Many things contribute to team success and some things get in the way.  Team leadership is an important element in team success, so what are 5 common stumbling blocks when it comes to effective team leadership?

 

Stumbling block 1: The leader is closed minded

 

One of the great strengths of teams is their ability to generate a whole host of alternatives and ideas.  Used effectively these can contribute to great results and even take team performance to a higher level.  On the other hand if the team leader is closed minded and not open to new ideas then these ideas will never translate into results.

 

Stumbling block 2: Not using appropriate leadership style

 

Leadership styles can essentially be grouped into 5 main categories.  Telling, telling and selling, consultation, participation and empowerment.  The style that you adopt will depend on the situation, the expertise of those in the team and the context to name just a few.  For example, in times of urgency you might need to go for a very directive, telling style.  The key is to be able to adapt and use an appropriate leadership style when leading a team.

 

Stumbling block 3: Self interest before team results

 

Team members expect the team leader to be loyal to the team.  If the leader becomes more interested in themselves, they start making choices from a self interest rather than a team results perspective.

 

Stumbling block 4: Lack of consistency

 

We have all probably worked for people who seem to lack any sort of consistency when it comes to dealing and interacting with others.  For the team member this is a real challenge and can ultimately lead to disengagement.  As the team leader try and aim to be as consistent as you possible.

 

Stumbling block 5: Having your favourites

 

Like anyone else you will have a better connection with some people in the team than others.  At the same time you need to be alert to this connection leading to you having personal favourites which can alienate others.  Be alert to the fact that you might be showing favouritism.

 

Bottom Line – Team leadership is a vital component in team success.  So what stumbling blocks are getting in the way of your success as a team leader?

 

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps professional people to improve management skills, leadership skills and team working.  For information on services and programmes click here

Leading a team on the face of it looks really easy. In reality it can be extremely challenging. As well as having the eyes of your boss and peers looking at how you are performing, you have to deal with all the different personalities and characters in the team you lead.

 

Given these pressures, it would be easy to crack and really struggle as a team leader.  Yet in truth there are things that you can do to become a better team leader.  So what are 7 things that you can do to become a better team leader?

 

Increase your self awareness

 

If you are going to lead a team effectively, you need to have a high level of self awareness.  Being self aware is not about identifying all of your faults but about understanding your motivators, your impact, what you do well and where you struggle.  When you are armed with these insights you start to build your team from really strong foundations.

 

Be clear about what is to be delivered

 

Every team exists for a reason and ultimately it is to deliver some result or contribution to business results.  As the team leader, you need to understand totally what is expected from the team and be able to effectively communicate it to other team members.

 

Involve others

 

Imagine there are two teams.  In the first team all of the ideas, ways of working and plans are developed by the team leader and imposed.  In the second team, the team leader fully involves team members in coming up with ideas, creating plans and deciding how to achieve them.  Which team do you think will deliver most?  As the team leader, focus on involving others more.

 

Have an effective decision making process

 

Every team member might not agree 100% with every decision that is taken but on the other hand they will find procrastination even more frustrating.  Make sure that for significant team decisions there is a clear process and criteria for reaching decisions so that things keep moving forward.

 

Don’t ignore the deficiencies

 

It is incredibly difficult to deliver results through a team if you have deficiencies in terms of resources, skills and expertise. At the same time, it can be incredibly tempting to make do, especially if you know that the organisation is facing challenging times. 

 

Don’t fall into the trap of ignoring deficiencies in the hope that they will go away.   Tackle them so that you keep progressing.

 

Encourage and support others

 

It is so easy to forget just how difficult it was when you were doing something for the first time or operating in a new set of circumstances.  Some just deal with this without any problems while others will have crisis of confidence.  As the leader, make a point of encouraging and supporting others through the good and not so good times.

 

Remember to recognise team effort

 

It never ceases to amaze me just how few leaders take the time to recognise the efforts and contributions of the team to deliver.  If you are someone who falls into this category, do something to create a habit of looking out for good things that the team has tried or done and acknowledge them for their efforts.

 

Bottom Line – Becoming a better team leader is a career long learning process.  So what steps can you take to become an even better team leader?

As a leader you will have the role of leading what may well be a very large team of people.  With more organisations now operating across the globe, you may well find that you are also having to lead a virtual team located hundreds or potentially thousands of miles from where you are based.  So what are my 8 top tips for leading teams?

Tip 1: Set clear goals or outcomes

If your team or teams are to achieve anything they need to have absolute clarity on what you expect them to deliver in terms of goals or outcomes.  While in theory this might seem simple, too often leaders fall into the trap of setting very vague or ambiguous goals.  To overcome this start by getting clear about what you want to be different 1, 3 or even 5 years from now and then narrow it down to a very clear purpose.

Tip 2: Facilitate more and direct less

As the leader of the team, think of yourself as the conductor of the orchestra rather than the person playing an instrument. Your role is to bring out the best from everyone in the team so that you get optimal performance and results.

Tip 3: Learn to listen

We were all given two ears and one mouth.  Yet often you would think that it was the other way round.  Don’t fall into the trap as the leader of the team of spending all of your time talking and little or none getting the contributions of others.

Tip 4: Reward team rather than individual performance

If someone is going to be rewarded just for what they do individually, what incentive is there to contribute to team performance?  Aim to create reward structures that mean that if the team wins, everyone wins rather than being narrowly focused on individuals.

Tip 5: Be consistent

All leaders have their own style which is to be expected.  At the same time it is important as a team member to have some sort of consistency in leadership style.  There is nothing worse in having to guess what leader has turned up on a particular day so try to be as consistent as possible.

Tip 6: Be a role model

As the team leader you set the tone for the rest of the team.  How you behave, how you interact, how you deal with difficulties and conflict will all impact on the team.  Decide on the tone you want to set then model that for others.

Tip 7: Provide opportunity

One of the big attractions of being on a team is that you often get the chance to work with different people or to take on new challenges.  Use this as an opportunity to grow and develop people.

Tip 8: Take responsibility and praise others

When things don’t go according to plan, take responsibility and don’t seek to apportion blame.  When things go well don’t grab the glory and make appoint of praising others.

Bottom Line – Leading a team looks easy yet in truth it is hugely challenging.  So what do you need to be doing to create more success as a team leader?

As a leader you recognise that more can be achieved collectively than you could individually.  Yet in my experience, leaders often make mistakes that stifle rather than encourage performance.  Are you making one or more of these mistakes?

Mistake 1: Holding on to things out of habit rather than neccessity.

Mistake 2: Playing at pretend empowerment where you keep interfering and checking up.

Mistake 3: Having to be right and so not listening effectively to others contributions.

Mistake 4: Needing to be liked rather than respected and letting popularity cloud your decision making.

What else would you add to the list?  Go ahead and leave your comment.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps orgnisations to get great results through teams.  To find out more click here

A team as a collective can deliver much greater results than any one individual could.  A key component in any team is the leadership of the team.  So what are my 4 key tips when it comes to leading teams?

Tip 1:  Have a clear vision

If you don’t know where you are heading, how will you know when you have got to the destination?  Put differently, it is essential that you create a clear vision of what you want the team to achieve so that it can be understood by everyone.

Tip 2: Learn to be a great listener

You are the leader and have many ideas, views, opinions and solutions.  Your team know that this but also want to be able to offer their views and feel like they have been heard. A good leader recognises this and focuses most of their communication on listening.

Tip 3:  Be someone who takes decisions

As a leader you need to weigh up the upside and downside of any particular option and then decide.  Team members may not always support your decisions 100% or may not have taken the exactly the same decision.  On they other hand they will respect you for not procrastinating.

Tip 4:  Empower your team 

One of the big advantages of a team is the range and variety of skills and experience that is available.  You know what you are good at and not so good at, so empower those to do what they do best.

Leaders’ priority is to deliver results.  When leaders deliver results they create success for the organisation’s they lead which leads to more personal success.  While leaders deliver results those leaders that are truly successful recognise that creating and building teams are critical to their success.   So why are teams so critical to your success as a leader?

Only one of you

As a leader you are probably extremely good at what you do and highly capable.  After all you would not have achieved the success you have so far unless you were good.  That said, there is only one of you and you have finite amount of time.  24 hours a day, 168 hours in a week, and 744 hours in a month is what you have no matter how great a leader you are.  With this limit in time, there is a limit on what you can get done on your own.

Skills, knowledge, experience and expertise

Teams bring a much greater of range skills, knowledge, experience and expertise than any one leader could ever have.  Think about it.  Every Managing Director or CEO started out their business career in a particular discipline.  It might have been marketing, sales, finance, operations or human resources to name just a few.  They started out experts and became generalists and more rounded.  At the same time they recognise that they can never be experts in every area of business so they build teams with complimentary skills, knowledge, experience and expertise.

Creativity

You might be a highly creative person. Imagine having 5 or 10 other creative people contributing ideas, knowledge and enthusiasm into creating a compelling vision for the organisation.  How much richer would the final product or output be in this situation?  Leaders who achieve success know that much more can be created through teams working together than working on their own.

So teams maximise the possibilities and achievements but what can leaders do to leverage the benefits of teams and achieve success:

1. Know what you are brilliant at

2. Be aware of the gaps in your skills, knowledge, experience and expertise

3. Make sure that your teams are full of people with complimentary skills, knowledge, experience and expertise

4. Make recruitment a priority area in your business so that you attract and recruit the best people

Bottom line – The best leaders know that teams are critical to their success.  So what steps are you going to take to be an even more successful leader?

A team as a collective can deliver much greater results than any one individual could.  A key component in any team is the leadership of the team.  So what are my 7 key tips when it comes to leading teams?

Tip 1:  Have a clear vision

If you don’t know where you are heading, how will you know when you have got to the destination?  Put differently, it is essential that you create a clear vision of what you want the team to achieve so that it can be understood by everyone.

Tip 2: Learn to be a great listener

You are the leader and have many ideas, views, opinions and solutions.  Your team know that this but also want to be able to offer their views and feel like they have been heard. A good leader recognises this and focuses most of their communication on listening.

Tip 3:  Be someone who takes decisions

As a leader you need to weigh up the upside and downside of any particular option and then decide.  Team members may not always support your decisions 100% or may not have taken the exactly the same decision.  On they other hand they will respect you for not procrastinating.

Tip 4:  Empower your team 

One of the big advantages of a team is the range and variety of skills and experience that is available.  You know what you are good at and not so good at, so empower those to do what they do best.

Tip 5:  Encourage participation

In any team there will be those who are vocal and those who will be quieter.  Your role as a leader is to encourage the full range of contributions and encourage the introverts who make great contributions to get their point across.

Tip 6: Be a role model

One of the best ways to show how you want others to act, behave and interact is to show them.  By being a role model you encourage others to follow your lead.

Tip 7:  Know your team limits

Within any team there will be a range of skills and abilities.  If you are to lead effectively you need to understand the limits of all team members.

Bottom Line – Leading a team is a challenge but by doing some simple things you can become a highly effective team leader.  So what’s your first step in becoming a highly effective team leader?