Leadership - Attitude and Actions - Part Two
Leadership - Attitude and Actions - Part Two
If you want your team to develop and perform, then an atmosphere of trust is vital. This isn’t simply about trusting your team to perform. It’s also, of course, about each member feeling that they can trust you to deal with them in a professional, caring way. But, take it a stage further. Make sure that your people trust their colleagues in other departments; trust your Customers to meet their commitments and deal with your people in an honest and open way. It’s true that the more trust you offer, the more trust is both accepted and acted upon. And returned to the sender!
Do a sensible “vision thing”
If you don’t have a vision for both yourself and your team, then it’s very difficult to get where you don’t know you’re going! But, equally, their can be a danger of the “vision thing” taking over and being so overblown as to appear ridiculous to the “recipients”
A truly-effective vision is unlikely to be the leader’s alone. It’s a shared set of goals and vales that all team members can buy into and work towards
Teach, train and guide
You might be lucky enough to have an individual tasked with providing training for your team – either within your department or in a centralised or out-sourced function. But, remember this, the responsibility for ensuring each team member is trained remains with you. It isn’t simply about courses or resources!
An effective leader will also spend a fair part of their time teaching rather than training. Teaching is about helping people to understand the environment within which they work. Training is about providing the skills to complete job tasks. Often, the latter is present – but the former missing. In this way, people know how to do something. But, they might not know how important the task is. Or how it fits into the overall operational framework of the department or company. Once an individual understand the compete picture, it’s easier for them to both do the right things – and to do them in the best-possible way
“Future-concentration” is more productive than “past-dissection”
How often have you attended a one-to-one or group meeting to discuss something that’s “gone wrong”? And, how often has this descended into recrimination, blame, self-defence and the like?!
The aim of an analysis of any past performance is to find out how to put it right now (if still necessary) or to get it right next time. If a leader focuses in this way, people are more likely to accept their mistakes without quarrel and want to work at the “improvement” part
Find the way - then lead the way
If you’ve ever watched The Simpsons, you’ll know that Homer is legendary for making the wrong decision – but then following it both enthusiastically and with commitment (at least for a while)
The key he never learns is to take the time to consider and make the right choice before putting it into practice. So, if you can find the right path, it becomes much easier to lead your people along it!
“I can make it happen” – but it’s not you who’s saying this!
It’s individual members of your team who feel empowered enough to do this. Just think how frustrating it is when you are talking to an individual within a company and they then tell you: “I have to ask my boss about this” or the like. Now, okay, for major areas, your people might have to consult with you. But part of the aforementioned trust is to allow them the freedom to make as many decisions for themselves as possible
Controlled freedom
The aim of all the tips here is that you, as the leader, provide the above for your team. And, then it frees you to be more future-productive than present-controlling!
Leadership Attitude and Actions Part Two - To learn more about this author, visit Gordon Veniard's Website.
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Be a “trusting leader
If you want your team to develop and perform, then an atmosphere of trust is vital. This isn’t simply about trusting your team to perform. It’s also, of course, about each member feeling that they can trust you to deal with them in a professional, caring way. But, take it a stage further. Make sure that your people trust their colleagues in other departments; trust your Customers to meet their commitments and deal with your people in an honest and open way. It’s true that the more trust you offer, the more trust is both accepted and acted upon. And returned to the sender!
Do a sensible “vision thing”
If you don’t have a vision for both yourself and your team, then it’s very difficult to get where you don’t know you’re going! But, equally, their can be a danger of the “vision thing” taking over and being so overblown as to appear ridiculous to the “recipients”
A truly-effective vision is unlikely to be the leader’s alone. It’s a shared set of goals and vales that all team members can buy into and work towards
Teach, train and guide
You might be lucky enough to have an individual tasked with providing training for your team – either within your department or in a centralised or out-sourced function. But, remember this, the responsibility for ensuring each team member is trained remains with you. It isn’t simply about courses or resources!
An effective leader will also spend a fair part of their time teaching rather than training. Teaching is about helping people to understand the environment within which they work. Training is about providing the skills to complete job tasks. Often, the latter is present – but the former missing. In this way, people know how to do something. But, they might not know how important the task is. Or how it fits into the overall operational framework of the department or company. Once an individual understand the compete picture, it’s easier for them to both do the right things – and to do them in the best-possible way
“Future-concentration” is more productive than “past-dissection”
How often have you attended a one-to-one or group meeting to discuss something that’s “gone wrong”? And, how often has this descended into recrimination, blame, self-defence and the like?!
The aim of an analysis of any past performance is to find out how to put it right now (if still necessary) or to get it right next time. If a leader focuses in this way, people are more likely to accept their mistakes without quarrel and want to work at the “improvement” part
Find the way - then lead the way
If you’ve ever watched The Simpsons, you’ll know that Homer is legendary for making the wrong decision – but then following it both enthusiastically and with commitment (at least for a while)
The key he never learns is to take the time to consider and make the right choice before putting it into practice. So, if you can find the right path, it becomes much easier to lead your people along it!
“I can make it happen” – but it’s not you who’s saying this!
It’s individual members of your team who feel empowered enough to do this. Just think how frustrating it is when you are talking to an individual within a company and they then tell you: “I have to ask my boss about this” or the like. Now, okay, for major areas, your people might have to consult with you. But part of the aforementioned trust is to allow them the freedom to make as many decisions for themselves as possible
Controlled freedom
The aim of all the tips here is that you, as the leader, provide the above for your team. And, then it frees you to be more future-productive than present-controlling!
Leadership Attitude and Actions Part Two - To learn more about this author, visit Gordon Veniard's Website.
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Dianne CramptonDianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team culture consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. Dianne's contribution to the 2010 Pfeiffer Consulting Journal (an imprint of John Wiley and Sons Publishers) entitled TIGERS Hearted Teams is available in November 2009. Her new book TIGERS Among Us: 5 Winning Business Team Cultures And Why, Three Creeks Publishing will release in March 2010. To receive publishing discounts, subscribe to the free TigerTracks Newsletter here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
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