Above all, leaders need good people to surround them.
No organisation – large or small – can operate productively when the boss is doing all the doing and they are surrounded by people who cannot deliver the highest quality performance themselves.
So it’s imperative to ensure that any team has members that deliver the very best results as individuals, as well as contributing to team outputs overall too.
Whilst having a whole range of leadership skills are important, one of the most productive is to be able to ensure that there is a constant pipeline of capable people in your team. In a bigger picture, leaders of the very biggest businesses need to have talent research and acquisition high on their agendas.
At local level, team leaders can have even more vital impact on those they can influence to become dynamic and useful members of their team. Sometimes development of individuals already in place is where the value gets added; in other situations, finding and recruiting potential is where the biggest rewards come from.
As leader, the role is to create the best environment for talent to flourish and this really requires good leadership to set the scene for such opportunities to be found and utilised, for the benefit of all.
Meetings That Deliver
When you think about the time you’ve sat there and wondered just what you could be doing, it’s hard to appreciate the value of meetings sometimes.
The dynamic of working closely with a bunch of like-minded individuals, bouncing thoughts and ideas off each other, isn’t the way we’ve typically developed this useful opportunity in many cases.
To ensure that the best comes from those times that meetings are used, there are a few guidelines that will help to make them work efficiently as well as effectively.
1) Use and Circulate an Agenda – this enables attendees to appreciate what will happen and prepare all they can in advance.
2) Invite only the People Necessary – to ensure that value is added and individuals feel that they are necessary, be focused in getting who you want at the meeting; and those who you don’t need don’t show up unless they can add value with their presence.
3) Use a Facilitator – this will allow the meeting leader to focus on leading the team and ensure that processes get followed and timescales achieved. They can be formal and external, or a member of the team who is able to dissociate themselves from the content.
4) Keep on Track – will make sure that the meeting sticks to it’s agreed purpose, that a place is found to park off-topic items and agreed meeting length will be achieved.
5) Collate Action Points – to ensure that accountabilities agreed by particpants actually happens, identify actions and timetables for completion.
Pull these five tactics off and you are much more likely to make effective progress in the least time – and have your people agreeing that the meetings you are responsible for are worth the time taken.
Better Leaders Get The Best From Everyone
Every team has a make up of a variety of people, all of whom have different skills, characteristics and above all styles. If you have balance, you will have a blend of types so that each complements the team as a whole.
For many teams, the biggest contributors are those outgoing characters who think out loud, introduce ideas and are seen to be active and lively.
There will also be quiet people who are able to contribute fully and yet often are overshadowed by their more boisterous colleagues.
This is something of a shame because the seemingly more reluctant ones can often be the deepest thinkers, who so often have solutions to problems well thought out and considered.
For a leader, this can create a challenge. The liveliness of some of the team is a valuable quality, because it usually engenders a positivity that is enjoyed by many and helps create a sense of team achievement too.
Smart leaders need to find ways to engage with those who take the quieter line, whilst also keeping the value that those less reluctant to be visible provide to the team.
Certainly there are tactics that will bring out the best from those less keen to be in the limelight. For example, using different styles of communication, using all the senses, rather than just auditory might be one way. Facilitating ways that the more introverted can contribute – perhaps simply by asking them what suits them best could be another.
Ignoring the contribution potential of those less extroverted is a big risk, in a world where the smallest egde can have the highest value.
For a leader who is able to harness all the individual styles in their team, much reward above and beyond that expected might well be the valued outcome achieved.
Being the Leadership Model For Feedback
Feedback is a gift that is both widely misunderstood, as well as being incorrectly applied when it is. Yet so many would value the outcomes if a little time was taken to be clear on what needs to happen.
Those dreaded words, ‘Would you like feedback?’ are, oxymoron-like both a carrot and stick at the same time. How could something of such potential value be wrapped around something so clearly set up to beat you up with?
It’s Time for a Rethink
Feedback needs to clearly reflect perspective. And when we think about it, most of us do a pretty good job at what we do, all things considered. In fact, probably 90%+ of what anyone does in their job is pretty good.
Yet how often does so-called ‘feedback reflect and highlight short-comings as that 90%+?
When we give feedback, it’s vital to focus on what people do well – and share with them opportunities to be even better. Feedback is as simple as that, where what people do is proportionally reflected in the feedback they receive.
90% good to great; 10% what might make it even better.
Doing this regularly (so that the ‘Would you like some feedback?’ sinking moment becomes history) makes it more even; more valued and more likely to created important change.
Setting the Example
As leaders, we have an obligation in this, because others look up to us to show the way. When you want to give objective, supportive and developmental feedback, it’s also vital – yes, even as a leader – to take it yourself.
The challenge is to take that feedback and NOT make excuses, give reasons etc., in the moment, but just to say thank you to the person giving you feedback and reflect, both on their courage and generosity, as well as what you need to do differently in response to their feedback.
So often, leadership arrogance tends to get in the way of this, which them precludes their own development and damages the relationship with those of their people who have taken the time to give them the feedback that so often a leader will miss out on.
Steve Jobs Talks About Managing People
Let Your People Find Their Answers
It’s almost second nature to managers. Their team members come and share a problem with them and seek solutions. The manager, on cue, solves the problem and everyone’s happy.
For managers, here’s where the problems start. Although it’s ever so nice to feel the pride of being ‘the one who knows everything’ in the eyes of their people, it can be both repetitive and time-consuming for the manager after a while.
You see whilst it’s nice to be a hero and help everyone, the more you do it, the more they come to see you and get help.
Which actually helps no-one.
The manager ends up with a permanent knock on the door to fix the issues their people find, stopping them doing their own job; the individuals fail to develop properly because, well, they have a manager who fixes everything for them!
For the individual team members this can become quite frustrating, because they are always waiting for the boss to be available to solve their problems. It can seem arrogant that the boss is the only one with the answers.
The solutions given might not be quite the fit they want to deliver and even more of a problem, it can be boring when you simply get told what to do, rather than challenged to find solutions yourself.
And the solutions the manager finds are simply the thinking of one person, so others who might want to air their thoughts may find that the potential synergy of many, simply gets lost as our hero solves the problem all by themselves.
There’s an easy way round this.
Managers need to ‘not know’. When faced with an issue or a problem, a simple discipline to ask questions first will always create better outcomes both for relationships as well as results overall.
A simple ‘Well, what are you thinking…’ to ‘How do you think we can fix this…’ and everything in between, will get the best from your people. The phrasing of the language is vital. Softly supportive will build the relationship. Hard and challenging might scare team members off.
As you build their confidence to solve problems themselves, your office might become a much lonelier place and, as eventually people only rarely tap on your door, you can feel warm inside that they are all much better employees because of it.
Too often as managers we are the ones who know all the answers. Too often those answers are not the best fixes, and too rarely will our people develop and grow unless we facilitate that growth.
Step back; let go; be creative with your ‘not knowing’ and reap the benefits.
