BOSS/ LEADERSHIP SPECIAL .....................The New Leader's Guide

The New Leader's Guide





You are a newly promoted team leader and handling your initial bunch of teammates. Follow this quick guide to get it right the first time.

Stay hungry

Be ambitious, all the time. As you seek bigger opportunities, you demand more from yourself and your team. Your effort and enthusiasm will get more stuff done. That is all that matters to your employer, your teammates and your future career. Staying hungry also means constantly learning new skills and discovering better ways of getting things done. Your team will ultimately mirror you and together you will achieve more.

Avoid the postman's job

A postman simply delivers communication from one to another without assuming responsibility for the content. As a team leader, your role is not just to pass on instructions from management but also assume ownership for them. Similarly, you are not expected to merely convey your team's problems upwards but create acceptable solutions. Your team will respect and listen to you all the time that you are not a postman.

Talk a lot

Leaders come in all personality types--extrovertsintroverts, aggressivecalm, authoritariandemocratic etc. While you develop your own unique style, there is one skill that you need to pick up--the ability to talk. If you are not someone who is used to verbal communication, now is the time to learn. Unless you communicate extensively with team members--about work, about them, about you, about the team--there will be no team. Your conversations convert a group of individuals into a cohesive bunch that delivers awesome outcomes.

Parrot perfectly

An oft-ignored skill is the ability to parrot any communication. First learn to repeat your words without change in intention, content or tone just like an advertisement on television. This ensures that when you communicate with different team members or at different points of time, only one message is reinforced. Secondly, learn to repeat the other person's words after a conversation is over.This makes sure that you heard them intently and are able to analyse the content and impact at your leisure.

Be predictable (mostly)

Your team members are acutely aware of where you are, what you are doing and saying. If you react differently to similar situations, your team will not know what to expect from you. This will either stress them out or prevent them from taking decisions on your behalf. In both cases, output will suffer. As you become predictable and boring, your team performance will stabilise where you want it to be. The rare occasion when your react differently--your team will recognise that you are only human, just like them.

Table the bad news

Early in your role, learn to accept and share bad news upfront and without any cover up.As you welcome and encourage people to share bad news without fear of retribution, communication will open up and you will nip problems in the bud before they grow into monsters. Similarly, overcome your hesitation and practice sharing your bad news upfront with the team. Your team will learn to trust you more and you will get their support in solving problems faster.

Covet not, compete not

Be like the marathoner whose only competition is the limits of his body and mind and not others. Similarly, your own competition is your last month's performance as a team leader. Do not compete for glory with people who report to you else your team will soon be dysfunctional. Instead support them in their quest for success and gain credibility as a winning team.

Care enough or quit

Are you really excited about the results expected from you and also interested and curious about individuals in your team? If not, quit early and find a new role and team that excites you. If you are concerned about results but not your team members then your team will never deliver extraordinary outcomes. If you care about your colleagues but not results, your employer will soon replace you. Care enough about people to support them in their careers. Care enough about your work to fire under-performers.

Breathing deeply as the first reaction to a challenging situation like a screaming co-worker. As you exhale, remind yourself not to take yourself or the situation too seriously. Let your initial reaction subside and either respond calmly or take time out to cool down. When you build a reputation as a person who does not rage or rant, you prepare for bigger people management roles.

Practice dumb questions

No question is too unimportant, redundant or stupid. Practice asking simple questions like--how is this done? Why do you say that?
What do you think? As you ask more questions of your team members, you give a chance to silent members to speak up and share their inputs. You are now able to generate better ideas and bring differences into the open before they fester into people problems.

Devashish Chakravarty

The writer is Director, Executive Search, QuezX.com.

ET26JAN15