This is the third part of my mini series of blog posts where I’m sharing 20 great tips for new leaders! In this part we are covering tips 11-15, where we are getting in to the nitty gritty of establishing yourself as a great leader. If you haven’t already, go and check out the first and second parts so you can feel confident you have seen all the tips! OK? – Let’s crack on:
#11 Work smarter not harder
Every day that you turn up to work is an opportunity to find that spark of innovation that will push you and the team forward. It’s another chance to be the best team leader you can be. So how do you leverage this opportunity?
#11a – Feel the fear and do it anyway
Think about it this way.
Finding new, more efficient, more relevant ways of doing things seems like an obvious thing to be doing doesn’t it? So, why do so many leaders and managers resist innovation and stay set in their ways?
Doing things in a tried and tested way, and learning from previous successes makes sense, but its also the comfortable approach which will not inspire great things from your team, nor will it set you apart as a great leader. Even if the current approach is working, we must remember that everything about the way we do business is constantly evolving, and we must make sure we are capable of that too. “we’ve always done it that way”, is perhaps another way of saying, “I’m scared of becoming irrelevant”.
Look at the systems and processes that you are using, perhaps even the model of business that got you to where you are already, take a deep breath and embrace the fear of change. Really examine if there are other players who are being more innovative in your field, or if there are new technologies available.
Don’t just jump in though, this isn’t about changing for the sake of changing, this is about innovating to protect you and your team from future stagnation. You may not need to do anything right this second but be sure to have ‘constant improvement’ as a theme that you and your team regularly consider. In this article, the benefits to a constant improvement model are discussed.
#11b – Scepticism isn’t criticism
A key part of leading from the front, is giving your team permission to be sceptical of the status quo. When team members look to suggest improvements, you must resist the urge to feel personally attacked, or view the suggestions as criticisms of how you are running the show. Ask yourself how you can give your employees the freedom to help you keep improving.
Keeping the lines of communication open and approaching every day in a collaborative vein with your team allows for everyone to be on the lookout for improvements. Successful innovations are very unlikely to be landed on first time. You may have a great concept, but the chances are that if that idea is to develop into a fantastic future result, it will have gone through many iterations. These suggestions can be harvested from empowered team members.
The process of change can be difficult, there is no denying that. But if you approach it in a considered and careful way, there really is no need to destroy the good will you have with your team. The science of change management is discussed in this article, and if you follow the steps laid out there, you’ll have the best results.
#12 Show them you’re a believer
Your team, like anyone else will need to feel a sense of self-worth and belief in their own abilities if they are to tackle big responsibilities. I used to work with someone who was an extremely experienced and talented individual. Throughout her career she had consistently delivered strong results and driven her profession forwards. Until now. She had been put into a project role that, although more than capable of delivering on, was outside of her usual area of expertise.
Enter self-belief. The problem with self-belief, is that it can get more and more fragile, in a self-reinforcing reaction. The lower someone’s opinion of themselves, the less able they are to complete a task that they would otherwise have easily completed. This failure then further erodes their sense of self belief, paralysing them into inaction.
#12a – It’s up to you now
Like it or not, as the team leader, one of your roles now is to make sure that everyone in your team believes in themselves! Sounds intense doesn’t it? Well, in fact, this should just be common sense. As leaders, we have a moral responsibility to nurture our team into believing they can achieve their best. That is half the battle! People are capable of so much more, if they simply believe in themselves.
By taking on this position of authority in their lives, we have a disproportionate influence on how people perceive themselves, and we must use that influence responsibly. Positive reinforcement and overtly placing your trust in them are vital. Be careful though to make it clear that you believe they are more than capable of delivering too.
Whilst constructive criticism is a necessary part of developing people in an organisation, this should never be confused with ridicule. Even under the guise of a joke, nothing good can come from ridiculing a member of your team. The only thing worse than ridiculing a team member is, ridiculing them in front of other people! It is not building a fun and social team, their subconscious mind will be absorbing your comments, and you may well be starting an unstoppable chain reaction.
#13 Can they hear you?
It’s a tired old leadership mantra that communication is key. You will probably be sick of hearing about this and reading about it already. The thing is, if it were as simple as just keep telling people things, no one would be getting this wrong.
In most management texts there will be the illustration of the game of Chinese whispers. You know, where a long line of people each has the person proceeding them whisper a sentence in their ear, and invariably the message the last person receives has changed from the original. This is relevant in two ways, the first being to illustrate that miscommunication is inevitable, and the second that sometimes, people intentionally miscommunicate information too!
It’s true that people often have very different ways in which they assimilate information best. I am known at work for being someone who always carries a hardbound A4 notebook with me. In any meeting the annoying sound of a ballpoint scratching away can be heard. Why? Because, if I don’t write it down, I don’t hear it! It’s just the way I assimilate information.
The thing is, everyone is different in this regard, and an extremely common leadership mistake is to assume that when you write an email, or verbally communicate information, that the meaning behind your words is being understood in the manner in which you intended it to be. I can assure you that at least some of the time, it’s not.
The trick here is to get to know your team members preferred communication styles. It’s tempting to expect them to be the ones to adapt to your style, but honestly, if you want to create a thriving and performing team, take the high road and adapt your style.
#13a – Every which way
Effective communication is essential if you want to build relationships with your team members and create a group of people that work seamlessly together. When you want to share information, provide work appraisals or feedback, delegate tasks and responsibilities, using more than one communication channel is the way to go.
Refining your ability to communicate effectively takes time and practice, and the journey will be peppered with mistakes, but it is fundamental to leading and managing well. You can learn this skill.
We mostly rely on the spoken work, the written word, illustrative visual aids and non-verbal communication to get our points across. Each one has little nuances which if perfected, can greatly increase the likelihood of you being correctly understood:
#13b – The spoken word
Obviously, conveying information through verbal communication is the primary way in which most of us communicate (this includes sign language too). Whether it’s a quick chat by the coffee machine, a presentation in the board room or on a teleconference, getting this skill right means efficiency and good relationship building. Relying solely on verbal communication though can be a risky strategy, as it is very often misunderstood, especially if you are speaking over the telephone. Backing up anything you have said with an email or text message, has distinct advantages.
Some simple pointers when communicating verbally can help you increase your chances of being understood:
Firstly, leadership means inspiring confidence in those who report to you, so make sure that you are heard, loud and clear. Regulate your tone wherever you can, as nothing says confidence better than regulating the tone and pitch for a strong, level delivery. This is essential if addressing a group too. Mumbling comes off as either nerves or indifference, and significant pitch changes give the impression of allowing emotions to influence your decisions.
Confidence in your voice underlines that you are confident with your ideas and direction. We discussed a lot earlier about collaboration with your team, which is essential. But, when you are communicating directly, an idea, or a direction, clear and concise speech show that you are taking responsibility for your words.
If you like to speak in metaphors, try and keep them simple and to the point. This is another common way that people come away with the wrong impression. Understanding metaphors is often reliant on the receiver having experienced something similar to you, and that’s not guaranteed.
Repetition for emphasis is another tried and tested tool for giving yourself the best chance of underlining the important points in a conversation.
#13c – The written word
In business, the written word is king. The advantages to communicating in writing are obvious when it comes to having proof that something was said, and in the case of email, proof that something was read.
There are a few ways to keep your written communications working well for you though. Less is definitely more when communicating in writing. As you have no doubt realised by now, I am a wordy writer, and this undisputedly detracts from my message. It will also detract from yours.
If you can keep things simple and concise, there is far less room for misinterpretation. A word of caution here though, concise, may well be mistaken for abrupt or rude.
With the written word, how things are interpreted often depends on the state of mind of the person reading the communication, as much as the intent of the way it was written. This is because the visual or auditory cues are absent. Sarcasm, humour or plain enthusiasm can easily be taken as rudeness, so be careful here. It’s a safer bet to let your personality shine through when communicating verbally, than when punching out an email.
A good tip when vetting your emails, is just to let them sit. If you are emailing someone and the situation is in anyway ripe for misunderstanding or tension, save the email as a draft, and leave it for 20 minutes. (It’s also wise to leave the ‘To’ field blank just in case while you do this). Do something else for a while, then go back and cold read the email. If you are still happy with it, then you can send it knowing that any emotions will have at least partially cooled.
Have someone else review your emails before you send them if you are unsure.
#13d – Its not what you say, it’s the way you say it
People watch for cues when you speak to them. They watch for subtle eyebrow raises, nods, smiles or frowns. In this article, I cover how on a subconscious level, we each can spot signs of anxiety in one another’s face, within 33 milliseconds. This stuff matters.
Developing a way to control your non-verbal communications can be a game changer if you can master it. Body language and facial expressions betray our underlying emotions far quicker than a snippy remark, so try and learn how to keep your body language open and positive, even when you aren’t feeling it. In this article, some more detail is discussed around visual cues.
If you pay attention to how emotions effect you, it is possible to quickly discover your own tells. Maybe if you are anxious, you’ll notice a slight quiver in your lip, or a slightly higher pitch to your voice. If you can pay attention to these things in yourself, you can also learn to read them in others.
Controlling your emotions in these situations is the gold standard way to combat this kind of potential for miscommunication. If you’d like a hypnotherapy resource that can help you control your emotions, check out the Let’s Work Healthy Shop where there are MP3s that really work!
The best advice I can give here, is to learn these skills either from someone who you consider to be a great communicator, or from some of the many good books on the subject.
#13e – Visual aids
Charts, graphs, notes, sketches or powerpoint slides are what some people need if they are going to understand your point. It doesn’t matter how concisely you reiterate your thoughts; they just need to see it in front of them.
Keep in mind that your goal is to accurately convey information to people who may well learn differently to you. So, using a wide range of channels to communicate should be your goal. Get feedback on any visuals from trusted colleagues before including them in your work, and obviously, make sure not to use any potentially offensive images. In the workplace, it’s just not worth sailing close to the wind here.
#14 Invisibility – not such a superpower
As a leader, it is highly likely that you will be pulled from pillar to post, attending meetings here there and everywhere. You will suddenly be involved in dealing with HR issues, be pulled in to profit forecast meetings or any number of other commitments that you were unaware even existed before.
Finding time to fit all this stuff in is not the only problem that will face you here. Leading a team means you need to be present, be seen and be heard. Becoming invisible will immediately erode trust, and you’ll likely have people asking each other, “what exactly are they doing all the time?!”
As unfair as this may be, it is a real problem that you simply cannot afford to ignore. Building relationships with your team is essential, and if you are hardly ever there, those relationships will be irreparably eroded.
#14a – Don’t be a stranger
As much as possible, you need to be seen. This includes being there when they arrive and there when they leave if you can. We need to be modelling the behaviours that we are trying to instil.
Making yourself always approachable with an open-door policy gives team members opportunity to confide in you and builds trust. Realising that you are in this together, and the same rules that apply to them apply to you is vital. We have all worked for people who, because they are the boss, roll in later and vanish for hours at a time. Nothing creates resentment quicker than an unlevel playing field.
A great way of managing this is using software like Microsoft Outlook. Remembering that transparency is key, knowing where everyone is, all the time is priceless. Have all your calendars shared and visible between all team members, no matter the seniority. You can obviously make some entries confidential, but unless it is absolutely necessary, try and keep everything as transparent as possible.
Schedule regular protected office time. This is as important as any meeting, no matter who calls it. Regular time, where you can be seen to be working on something important, but where you are available for interactions with the team will pay dividends.
#14b – bite the bullet and ask
How do you know how you are doing? If you have a senior manager that you report to, then I’m sure they will be giving you feedback. But it is a mistake to rely on this feedback alone as a gauge of your success as a leader.
Every month, when you hold 1:1 meetings with each team member, make a point of asking them for feedback on your leadership. I would recommend this take the form of asking them, what you should stop doing, what you should start doing and what you should continue doing. This is uncomfortable territory for most, but it builds trust. Document the conversation then, if the feedback is given in good faith and will genuinely help you, be seen to be implementing it. Additionally, make it clear to the team member, that your manager will be seeing the written record of the meeting.
When you have your regular catchups with your boss, share the written records of your team catch-ups, and ask your boss to guide you in applying the feedback. Self-reflection in this manner is extremely beneficial.
#15 Performance Management
OK, so by now, you have hopefully worked out how best to achieve your team’s aims, broken them down in to measurable tasks and effectively communicated specific outcomes to each team member.
Things have been carrying on around you, and its time to see if each team member is achieving the most and the best that they can achieve. This is where it has the potential to get tough. Performance management isn’t easy, but it is achievable if you approach it carefully.
#15a – Bean counting it isn’t
When you set goals or tasks, a key part of that is ensuring they are measurable. And now it’s time to measure. Tracking progress against expected outcomes is vital, and lets you spot problems developing early, if done right.
Your team will be far more comfortable if they know where they stand and how they will be assessed. So, it’s a good idea to commit to regular and structured meetings with each person, where progress is discussed. Regular (at least monthly) meetings give you opportunity to get a handle on how things are going, and your team opportunity to raise areas of concern too.
As discussed in #14b above, this is also where you get to find out how you are perceived and where you can improve too. Schedule these meetings into each calendar, and barring emergencies, make it clear that these meetings should not be missed. This means you must treat them as vital too, as if you don’t, they will lose all credibility.
Work to a repeatable agenda, which has a record of what work should have been achieved to date, a section to discuss problem areas and a final action plan section which will contain commitments from both you and them.
If you identify that performance is not where it needs to be, you’ll need to tactfully determine where the cause sits. In most cases, it can be lack of motivation or lack of ability.
#15b – When motivation fails
Be careful, if you have decided that lack of ability isn’t the problem here, you need to determine if there is some problem in your employees’ personal life that is impacting their ability to deliver. Hopefully you have been building strong enough relationships to know your team well, and this will really help in seeing some of these personal problems coming. You’ll need to very tactfully explore this with them to see if there is a divorce, illness or bereavement that may well be killing their concentration. Remember, your role is as much about support as anything else, and sometimes offering a listening ear is most effective.
Keep in mind that if you have a human resources department, they may well be able to help with these turbulent waters and point your team member to external support services. Keeping your interactions on a professional footing is important here, and above all else respect boundaries and privacy.
Where it isn’t a personal problem that is causing the downturn in performance, investigating potential lack of drive or lack of confidence is your next point of action.
#15c – Identify demotivators and reiterate direction
Start the discussion by establishing if the expectations you have are clearly understood and ask why they feel they haven’t achieved the goal. This will be where the details of obstructions will come to light. Perhaps they believe the expectations are too onerous and aren’t achievable. In these instances, you first must establish for yourself if you disagree on this point.
Keep an open mind and, assuming you feel that the outcomes are achievable, having reiterated the expectation, try hard to identify any areas where additional support from you might be needed. Take the time to explore in detail the reasons why the goals haven’t been met, and where possible, try and find work arounds to facilitate them to meet the goals.
This kind of conversation can be uncomfortable, strategies for dealing with difficult conversations are covered in depth in this article.
(For access to a great monthly focus meeting template which includes a section on feedback check out the Let’s Work Healthy Shop, they are inexpensive resources which really help.)
Having established any support that you can offer and identified strategies to address any obstacles that have been raised, reiterate where they need to be before the next meeting and record that in the action plan section of the meeting notes. Clearly document things that you will do before the next meeting, and things they should have achieved. This information will serve you well in the future.
#15d – Address ability shortfalls
During the meeting it may be clear that your team member is keen as mustard and motivated to achieve, but not able to meet the standards you need because of lack of ability. There are lots of potential causes and identifying which one is less important than identifying what you are going to do about it.
Explore where exactly the gap is through discussion. Ask them to talk through with you specifically what they find difficult about the task. There may well be an underlying issue that isn’t initially obvious. You’ll develop the ability to spot these more easily over time. As an example, customer engagement may be suffering not because of lack of product knowledge or sales technique, but because of fear of public speaking or just plain lack of confidence.
Having established where there are gaps, discuss strategies on how best to address the problem. Additional training is not always the best or first approach, especially if training has already been provided. Discuss with the employee where any previous training fell short, simply rebooking on already completed training will be unlikely to yield the desired results.
Could you provide additional support in house? Buddying or mentoring either yourself, or with another experienced team member is a good option, either as a stand alone strategy or in conjunction with external training provision.
Regular reviews of existing training and assessment of new provisions will help prevent you being in the same situation in a few months time. By making sure to pay continued attention to the skill gap, you provide reassurance that you are actively trying to resolve the short fall with them.
Back in tip #2b we covered matching people to the role as best as possible, so hopefully there is a good fit now. If not though, review this and consider reassignment options if there is a significant mismatch. Remember though, if a task is to be reassigned to another team member, you’ll need to consider the impacts on moral for both team members, one may feel put upon, whilst the other may feel a failure. Careful management of this situation will be required.
Get involved
As you can see from the post, I am trying to give simple practical help to leaders wherever I can. I would love to hear your thoughts on the tips in this article, so it would be great if you could leave some comments below. Have you got any great tips for new leaders too? Let me know below!
I will be offering lots of pointers on this site as I develop the content and so let me know about anything you’d like me to cover too. I am also developing some great resources for leaders, and if you subscribe in the box at the top of this page, you’ll get FREE access to the new 32 page E-book, ‘New Leader Quick Start Guide’. If you want to establish yourself as a great leader and develop a creative motivated team, this E-book is for you!
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See you in part 4!
