Are you recently appointed as a Team Leader? Keep remember this position is much more tricky then you previous position. As an independent contractor if required you can escape your responsibilities for a day but in the position of a Team Leader it is not wise to escape a hour too. Leadership Qualities comes by born. Handling a Team is not so easy as we are thinking. In today’s world employees are observed closely. So as a leader you have to take care of your team members & at the same end you have to furnish your responsibilities well. While both these activities will observed.
So before move to this new journey of your career track it is better to know the tricks how to be a successful team leader. What are the areas you need to focus on.
Be Punctual
Success comes with time. So be punctual. In case you have a meeting reach the hall before 5 minutes. You are leading the people if you will come late tomorrow your team members will follow you. By reach late to an appointment is an offense to others. Learn Time Management Tricks. It helps to work smooth.
Stick to your Commitments & meet Deadline
As a Team Leader you are the junction between workers & management. Management commits to Customers refer to your commitments. If you will failure your commitment it can happen management will loss the customer. So at any case always give priority to your Commitments. Let’s take an example if you committed to deliver some job in next 48 hours do that positively. Keep remember this is the place where your performance is observed.
To meet deadline sometimes we are in critical situations. It can happen due to several factors like unplanned leaves, loss of resources, less experience, unplanned workflow or short of working hours. Always it’s not easy to meet Deadline. To be a successful team leader do planning well before into a project work. During planning keep considered the above factors. Whether it’s customer or management before decide the deadline add 30 to 40 percent time in advance. It will help you & your team to meet the expectation.
Respect others, Listen them & if required accept their Suggestions
Every action has a reaction. Refer to this if you want to get respect from your team members you have to respect them. If your team member is telling something keep patience to listen them first. If after you don’t feel the suggestion is acceptable take time to make this clear “How his/her suggestion is not fruitful”. In case you found their suggestion is more valuable then yours feel free to accept them. Keep remember to grow in your career as a team leader your team feedback is a major key. During your performance analysis management will review your team members feedback. Finally you are there to take care of your team members.
Be Friendly
Knowledge varies from personality to personality. Who knows it may one of your team member knows more than you. Several kind of people are here. Generally in front of the boss people are habituated to keep an internal fear. This is the cause with talent people are not coming forward to share. Be friendly with your team members. Respect is it’s own way but maintain such a relationship where your team member need to express his or her ideas.
Encourage & Motivate your Team
Leading a team is not only a job to work hard. Work smart. Encourage your peoples to achieve objectives. In a critical situation act like a command officer to motivate your team. It’s very true as a team leader you can’t own win the race. To win you need dedicated team players. Until your team members are dedicated to you & their duty it’s your responsibility to encourage them.
Include Everyone
In case an incident happen in your team according to the priority of the incident involve members to your mailing list. To make you clear on this I will let you share 2 cases below.
Case I : Your customer approach you to a new enhancement but you found that is out side scope. In your team you don’t have that kind of resources. Immediately keep this intimate to your management & all them who are related to customer delivery. If your management suggest you some resource to do the job. In every mail you communicate with that new resource keep copy to your management. Let your management know the movements. In feature if any thing will go for escalation no one will finger you.
Case II : At 4:30 pm you got a mail from your management that “we have to complete this job today, it’s on high priority”. You know your team members will leave at 6:30 pm. After getting the mail immediately inform your all team members about this with Copy to management. So that no one will leave without asking you. Then call a stand up meeting to discuss the job & it’s priority. In this case if any team member is having any problem tell him/her to intimate the same with mail. If the team member not kept the management in Copy, Forward this mail to your management body.
Know what you are talking
By default it’s a vision of your team members that if any problem will happen in job our team leader will help us. So if you are presenting some topic or about the job profile make it clear to you first. During presentation it can happen some of the member will ask you some clarification. That’s why know what you are talking. Be ready, If any question come on the topic you need to clarify that on desk.
Don’t criticize or complain about Team members
As I discussed above your performance will measure depending upon the feedback from your team members. So don’t criticize or without sufficient cause don’t complain about your team members. If any thing happen in your team try to resolve it in your circulation. Suddenly don’t show this to management. If the issue is major then you can inform this to management. Always remember the Time of management is more Costly then Time.
Praise & Appreciation
In a regular basis you are assigning job to your team members & they are rendering this. To motivate them on their job Praise & Appreciation is a best practice. Never ever plan to take credit from the job did by your team members. Who did the job he/she need to get Praise & Appreciation for that. This attitude helps to establish your reputation in front of your team players. Once they know that what I am working for that credit is mine they will give their best corporation.
Accept Mistakes
As a human it is must we will do mistake. During on chair if unknowingly you did some mistake feel free to accept that. Don’t ever try to hide it out. Truth is always like the Sun. In one day it will come to everyone’s vision. That’s why if you found some mistake happened by you accept this & assured the team that the same mistake will not going to happen again.
Keep your Management Know
In case of a major issue happen in your team keep Management know. Management is the body who pay’s you & all your team members. So before the issue will go out of hand it is better if management is aware of this.
Maintain privacy & avoid personal relationship with team members
Everyone has their own privacy. As a leader it may you know your employees privacy. But keep remember to don’t disclose their privacy near any one. Business is different and relationship is different. During your travel with the team avoid personal relationship. In the professional world some time you may noticed relationship breaks the contract of job.
Be a strong Decision maker
As a team leader for many decisions you are free to take your own. Never ever Fluctuate on your Decision. While take a decision analyze all the factors well.
