I stay continually amazed at how clueless many managers are about what their team member’s want, yet they have been managers for years. Ask questions of your team members and then listen to their responses. The vision is for the team to have one heartbeat.
When put in charge, take charge. and have the courage to do the right thing. Continue to show appreciation to your team.
Courage is not passing it off or acting cowardly. Courage is taking the necessary action steps to get to a worthwhile goal.
Make a commitment to the goal and make a commitment to get better. Taking risks is OK, too. Players who take no risks usually lose. Don’t let your ego get in the way.
Leadership is essentially the ability to lead, inspire, and influence. Leadership must define the talent. Leadership and teamwork are intertwined. You are the leader of your team, so lead by example and don’t expect your team to carry you.
The following few easy actions can help you maximize the output from your team:
- Hire the right people (discussed below). People won’t burn out if: they are the right people, if they are open to training, and if you continue teaching them.
- Utilize their strengths. Maximize everyone’s talents through leverage, training, expectations, accountability, consequences, and empowerment. Realize that very rarely does the true core of a person ever change. Sadly many managers tend to manage around their team members' weaknesses. Avoid this tendency & forever strive to manage around a team members' strengths.
- Train. Hold frequent training sessions as often as is necessary. Start and end on time. Have an agenda and get to the point. Aim for most training sessions to only last 30-60 minutes. An employee cannot do their job if the leaders, trainers and managers do not clearly articulate what is expected.
One last important point. When you are in a leadership role, it is inevitable that you will get exhausted with needing to constantly repeat the same message over and over. “Surely they don’t need to hear me say the same thing over and over again”. INCORRECT - surely they do! It’s been my experience that a large part of the workforce do want to be told over and over, because they don’t want the responsibility to get involved with higher levels of thinking and decision making.
