What is the one characteristic shared by all successful leaders? Someone who is prepared to go with them. Naturally, there are differences amongst leaders. But why do certain leaders have a greater influence than others? Even with a high title, relying on “Just do what I say” is no longer a viable strategy for leading a team. An effective leader may boost performance, productivity, and employee happiness at work while also having a significant positive impact on teams, enterprises, and individual people.
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So how can one manage a team and ensure its happiness? A range of seasoned leadership trainers and corporate executives provide their advice on how to manage your team more successfully in an effort to address that query.
Nine Ways to Improve Your Team Leadership
1. Promote cooperation across individuals, groups, and departments
Jennifer Hancock, a leadership coach and the founder of Humanist Learning Systems in Manatee County, Florida, states that a leader’s job is to inspire their team to work together and complete the task at hand.
“You won’t be leading them if you are not focused on providing for your team,” she asserts. “Leaders inspire, facilitate, and assist. Instead of the other way around, they serve their team. Hancock adds that intervening to make decisions when the group is unable to come to an agreement is another essential component of effective leadership. A team’s leader breaks ties so that the group may continue further.
Cross-team cooperation has a lot of potential advantages, such as improved accountability, motivation, trust, and transparency.
2. Pay attention to your staff and welcome criticism
By actively listening to your staff, you can increase their sense of engagement and worth, which will strengthen the bond inside the workplace. Alex Onaindia, CEO of Miami marketing firm Distinction Agency, argues that as a leader, “it’s more important than ever to have your finger on the pulse of your company.” Employees want their opinions to be heard. The finest ideas are sometimes ones you never consider, so it’s critical to promote an environment that values candid communication and openness. I firmly think that none of the ideas coming from my team are terrible ideas.”
Establish a Two-Dimensional Feedback Culture
Making time to listen to your team is a crucial aspect of being a successful leader. Provide your staff members the chance to feel appreciated by:
having private discussions. Inquire about their impressions of the organization and your management style. Workers may be cautious at first, but if you encourage an open-door approach, your team will become more innovative and effective.
arranging for brainstorming meetings. Engage your staff and democratize the process of creating knowledge. By leveling the playing field, this makes it easier for staff members to become at ease providing candid criticism in various contexts.
taking employee recommendations to heart and implementing smart suggestions. Acknowledge staff members’ contributions and act upon their recommendations. Neglecting to act on well-thought-out ideas will cause relationship damage.
3. Establish an organizational vision and share the “big picture” with others.
Outstanding leaders establish a distinct vision and objectives for their groups and consistently reaffirm them. “Having a clear vision helps teams understand the value of their work,” says Carlos Castelán, managing director of Minneapolis-based The Navio Group, a retail business management consulting firm that advises senior executives. Individuals may concentrate on their job and feel free to follow the company’s vision when they have well-defined goals. Employees are reminded of how their work benefits others and feels like it belongs to the wider team when the vision and goals are reinforced.”
To ensure the strength of your leadership vision, make sure it is goal-oriented, quantifiable, and detailed. It might also be a good idea to review your business growth plan and see if there is anything you can do to improve it.
4. Own Your Weaknesses and Be More Open
Dr. Aaron Barth is the founder and president of Dialectic, an HR and leadership consulting firm located in Guelph, Ontario. He says that leaders often get mired in the politics of their organizations and the pressure to manage appearances that they forget that people are more receptive to sincerity and honesty than to perfection. “Better problem-solving, innovation, and creativity are driven by actively cultivating an environment where people can try, fail, and try again,” he claims. “And the first step in that is for you, as the team leader, to be transparent about your mistakes.”
Building trust within your team and throughout the whole business is facilitated by setting a transparent example and acting with honesty. While workers would not have questioned a secretive management decision ten years ago, they now demand their leaders to be open and honest. Employees increasingly expect to know the why and how of choices, not just the announcement of them. However, this does not imply stating anything comes to mind; rather, it is about realizing the advantages of openness and communication in your company.
5. Establish Connections to Foster Happiness
It might be particularly crucial for leaders to establish a positive workplace culture and solid internal ties from the beginning. According to Paul Maranville, Managing Partner of Lantern Partners, an executive recruiting agency in Chicago, “in the first six months, this may include spending half of your time meeting with various team members and managers or traveling to other locations within the organization.” This will establish you as a personable, visible team participant right away. As a result, you will gain respect from colleagues and establish yourself as the organization’s go-to, reliable leader in your particular field.”
6. Place Special Stress on Individual Growth
In order to be an effective leader, you must also teach your team so that individual goals are in line with the objectives of the group or company. “This type of leader is encouraging and empathic, and they concentrate on helping others grow so they can succeed in the future,” says New York City-based life and leadership coach Madineyah Isaacs. This may include lengthy discussions with coworkers on topics unrelated to the job at hand, but the main objective is to shift the focus to long-term aspirations and how they relate to the mission of the organization.
7. Give Your Team Consistent Praise
When it comes to giving your team credit that you may have previously taken for yourself, making the time to acknowledge their hard work and accomplishments can go a long way. In actuality, encouraging remarks and praises may boost the motivation and communication within your team.
The founder and CEO of INTINDE, a leadership business coaching company in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Angela Civitella, states that “a true leader is at ease and realizes that acknowledging someone else’s efforts takes nothing away.”
8. Fulfill Your Words
According to Andrea Angelucci, Manager of COMPASS Services at Mazzitti & Sullivan EAP in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, it might be easy to start making promises about things like compensation, incentives, or prospects for professional advancement if you’re trying to inspire team members. She adds, “But these hollow promises will only serve to break the trust between you and your direct reports if you can’t deliver.” “Always make commitments you know you can keep.”
9. Invigorate Your Group
Every project has highs and lows in terms of each person’s workload. As a result, according to Juliana Stancampiano, CEO of Oxygen, a Seattle-based company that specializes in workplace education and enablement, effective leaders need to manage a team’s energy in a variety of contexts. “A place where teammates can show up, share their ideas, disagree, and figure out a way forward is created and maintained by leaders,” the author states. “When energy builds, they defuse it, let it build to a peak if necessary, and always return it to a constructive state. This is essential if you want to prevent employee burnout while still enabling your team to do consistently excellent work.”
Finding each team member’s distinct energy, skills, and passions is also crucial. As a team, you can increase efficiency, buy-in, and trust if you can continue to harness that energy.
