Copyright 2011 TIGERS Success Series
By Dianne Crampton
The wisdom from the TIGERS-Den leadership forum never ceases to amaze me. There is a real synergy that forms when committed, like-minded leaders share their insights on team culture.
It is also rewarding to see them co-create a set of skills they believe are important for emerging team leaders and for new leaders they intend to recruit now that the economy is turning around. This is real stuff from the trenches. And for emerging leaders, these efforts are well worth noting.
In a nutshell, here are the 7 positive characteristics that separate ho-hum managers from team leader rock stars.
- Develop and apply your soft skills
Express yourself and respond to your team with a refined and grounded set of soft skills necessary to build and strengthen relationships. This includes genuinely caring about people and identifying what they need to be successfu1.
People are different. Use your skills to explore the differences so you can give people what they need to be motivated and achieve professional and personal goals.
- Be a good communicator.
Be accessible to your team and make sure everyone has an opportunity to express their opinion and insights.
- Cultivate empathy in yourself and on your team.
Empathy does not mean fixing people’s problems. It does not mean you wallow in sympathy with someone who is experiencing disappointment. What it does mean is that you have the ability to imagine and correctly articulate what someone else is feeling with no urge to fix it.
- Express your coaching skills daily.
Make yourself approachable and learn how to ask the hard questions that spark interpersonal and technical skill growth, engagement and commitment in your team members.
- Empower your team.
Trust your team members to do what you communicate to them. Make sure they are trained and have the skills to solve problems at the lowest level of operation.
- Be productive and results-oriented.
Have a clear vision and strategy for the team and its responsibilities. Plan and communicate your plans frequently and in multiple ways. Show achievements and track goals so the team knows it is succeeding.
- Be technically competent.
Do what you need to do to learn skills correctly and build your skills continually. Your team will look at your actions and how you do things. If you take short cuts, so will they.
Teams learn when each individual member learns. Teams grow into higher levels of function when people grow personally and professionally, too. Effective team leaders foster this environment and ultimately it is the owner of the company or executive team that sets the stage.
You really covered the basis of what being a good manager is. Managing people is really hard work, so people shouldn’t aspire to be one if they’re not willing to put in the effort and time to developing their leadership and management skills.
I also strongly agree with your tip to “communicate frequently and in multiple ways.” Reality in the workplace is that people tend to ‘assume’ or ‘simplify’ things about the project or plans of the company, so it’s better to keep track by communicating. And not all communication need to be formal.
I’m with you about ‘coaching in a way that empowers your employees’. I observed in my office that new supervisors usually make the mistake of coaching in a way that employees are encouraged to depend on them for decision-making, or for getting the difficult parts of the project done.
But I believe new leaders should coach in a way that would develop their employees. So asking the right questions rather than providing the answers is a better way in the long-run.
Technical competence is a must! Especially with the gen y in our team, they don’t respect tenure or past achievements, they want to be led by somebody who has an edge over them. Technical can mean having a better over-all perspective on the problem, authority to get the right people on-board a project, or organizing the logistics of the project more effectively.
Astin,
This is very true. I have also found that Gen Y employees want good mentors.
Being a good communicator is not only about what you say and how frequently you communicate but the ’emotions’ you communicate or transfer to your team. In my experience, nervous and excitable team leaders made me feel tense. A leader having a calm, confident, upbeat demeanor also helps.
Your last line resonated with me, “Teams learn when each individual member learns.” It made me think that aside from satisfactory project completion, I should not forget to check the growth of each of my team members.
Gregg,
I could not agree more. And in doing so you are creating the awareness of workforce development that is in alighment with your strategies and systems. You would also be creating a system for workforce retention and attraction.
Here is a webinar we created that shows you just how accurate your assumption is.
Building a Better Us – The Psychology Behind Leadership Team Development
To listen to the replay, click this link:
http://InstantTeleseminar.com/?eventid=22184850
IMPORTANT: You will need this password: TIGERS
Quality of leadership creates more loyalty and commitment in teams than perks and a good compensation package. So a way to cut hiring costs is to hire effective leaders.