Have you ever found yourself promoted into a leadership position that suddenly required you to manage a group of people ? Often we are promoted because we were great at our last job and our managers believe we will be equally great in our next role. Invariably senior positions will come with teams that need managing and very little training, if any at all, is given to prospective team leads before they take on their new roles.
When I walked in to my first 'manager' role 20 years ago. I faced this exact challenge. I suddenly had a relatively large group of people who looked at me for direction and a smaller group of seniors who looked at me for results. The question was how do I convince this group of people to follow my direction and help me deliver ?
Over the years I have spent much of my time managing and developing teams and I took the time to develop my leadership skills through CPD, lots of reading and development training offered by my employers.
Here are my top 5 Tips to help you improve your leadership game :
1. Know your team
You will depend entirely on the people you lead to deliver on your mission. Make sure you know the people in your team. Who are they ? what are their aspirations ? how do they like to be managed and communicated with. Employees that are happy and engaged will respect your leadership and work hard. More importantly they will stay and develop into even more valuable employees than you had originally expected.
2. Hire complementary skills
Beware of your personal bias and try not to hire the same 'type' every time. People come in many shapes and sizes with many different skills and personalities. Hire for attitude first and develop the skills. Ensure that any new hire fits nicely into the culture you are developing and that they bring a new set of skills to the team. In this way skill sharing and team development can be a shared experience and everyone will have their own way of adding uniqueness to the tribe.
3. Have an open communication culture
Like a family a team at the office will have disagreements and varied opinions on how to tackle challenges. Thats great, it is exactly what you want. When we challenge ideas respectfully and constructively, good ideas get better, challenges are resolved faster. Encourage a culture of open communication by creating safe spaces to discuss, allow everyone to contribute and criticise. Most importantly put yourself up for constructive criticism. You will be amazed of how much personal growth you can obtain from this.
4. Create efficient operational workflows
As your team grows, you may find yourself working with people remotely or in different offices around the country/world. Ensure that you have an efficient system for tracking your operations. Identify interdependencies and ensure there are good communication channels in those areas. There are a number of digital team management tools you can use to ensure that your operation flows smoothly. Most importantly don't be a bottle neck, you don't need to approve everything! Empower your team to take decisions.
5. Have a shared vision, set goals and define clear parameters
Taking decisions is what you hire people to do. However people new to manager roles may feel reluctant to take decisions for fear of them 'getting it wrong'. To avoid this make sure you are clear about what you want to achieve, share your vision with your team. Break-it down into SMART, manageable goals. Smaller steps towards success where each individual knows their part. Set parameters for decision making so everyone understands how and when you want to be involved. Remember however that you delegate the job not the responsibility.
Want to know more about leadership ? Check out some of my favourite reads on the subject or contact me. I am passionate about the subject and always happy to talk.
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