How should you approach Team Leadership? As a process and not just something that you can get done! If you are a leader, you know that you can’t force people to work harder or to be more effective, you can only pull your team efforts together and encourage them to work smarter.
So, what are the qualities of a good team leader:
A good Team Leader knows how to empower a team to achieve group and individual goals. They should be flexible and adaptive and know when to manage and when to lead. Take time with your employees to ensure that all members of the team are working together towards a common goal. Engagement is more than just job satisfaction, an engaged employee wants to do their job better.
Failing is a natural thing and many leaders believe it is important to recognise it, but never reward inadequacy because a team member has become lazy. Don’t defer responsibility as that will just create anger and resentment, a leader who owns their own failure often gains greater loyalty from their team.
Always ensure things are running to plan. Trust your members to get the job done but also recognise that necessity of verifying their work to the correct standard. Step in when you see a problem and make sure any issues are dealt with before they become too big.
There is nothing more satisfying for a Team Leader than seeing your employees discussing the product or service of your organisation. Encourage proactive debates but keep them in line by setting expectations, pushing ego’s aside and making rational judgments about what is best for the team.
Another important skill in leadership is coaching, this will give you the ability to hold you and your team accountable. Using coaching methods such as GROW works well to give a team or an individual ownership of goals, look at the way forward and to see how committed the person you are coaching is.
Are you a confident decision maker? Are you self-confident, do you speak and listen well? By listening, you can grow self-esteem in your team which in turn builds greater resilience in your team members.
You can never stop learning how to be a better leader!
Our Managing and Leading Teams Open Programme will help you to work on these skills to become a great leader. We have programmes scheduled each month – please get in touch or have a browse through our website at the different people management programmes we offer.
