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
