If you want your team to follow you, you must model the behavior that you want others to demonstrate and you must model that ideal each of the 365 days of the year without breaks. Foster collaboration among every member of your team by building trust with them through facilitating relationships with them and between them. Doing so will allow them to act together as a cohesive team.
People management is always about leadership. Show your leadership and show it proudly and often. Don’t accept “business as usual”, don’t accept excuses, and don’t tolerate your team pointing blame elsewhere instead of owning up to their accountability. Instead, challenge your People, and everyone in your organization to look outward to find innovative and creative ways to improve things.
Encourage the hearts and minds of your team by recognizing their contributions regularly and by showing acknowledgment for their excellence whether as individuals or as a team. Share your vision of the future that you’re imagining with the People on your team and enlist everyone around you to join you in an effort to realize shared aspirational goals that will allow you to make a significant difference and to feel a sense of great accomplishment.
Managing Your Leader
Do not underestimate the importance of managing your manager as one of the key elements of your ongoing success in your role as a leader. First, find out by having a dialogue with your manager about what you can do to contribute to their success. There is no better way to know what your boss expects of you than to simply ask for specifics. Do not be afraid to do this, just do it. Understand how your manager prefers to work and adjust as best you can to their preferred style. That will go a long, long way toward increasing your influence with your leader.
Keep your manager informed of your accomplishments, and the accomplishments of your team. You should keep your manager informed about your work in progress and what’s going to become your next top priority when the work in progress is completed. Keep in front of your boss with frequent informative and valuable updates of what you and your team are working on, and what you’re contributing so that she doesn’t have to ask for an update. Anticipate what your boss needs to know by putting yourself in her shoes. Practice “no surprises” when it comes to your manager.
Most importantly, support your manager through thick and thin, and never engage in any conversation that would undermine their decisions, their choices, or their leadership. Become a great teammate for your boss, and anticipate what you can do to make them feel more supported, and in the end, you’ll make them more successful. There is no better approach, and the beauty of this method is that it leads to a great relationship with your boss…
Delegate Strategically For Best Success
Every great manager has to become a terrific delegator to become a Leader. Delegate the RIGHT way: Provide clear communications about what needs to be done, your success expectations, and the context of “why we’re doing what we’re doing.” Provide clear communications about the benefits of the work your team will be doing to the organization, the team, the associates, and your prospects and customers. Communicate your belief in your associates when you delegate meaningful, challenging work to them, and pledge your support for them, all the way through their ultimate success.
Don’t let them fear for a moment that you’d ever leave them hanging or twisting in the wind in failure. To increase the odds that your delegated work will reach a successful conclusion, learn how to delegate work like a pro. Prepare in advance for every delegation, selecting carefully what to delegate, and whom to delegate to, and communicate every detail required to allow them to handle things successfully. Then get out of the way and let them have a great chance to learn to handle the work, knowing you’re supporting them all the way. If they struggle, step back in and help them to regain the correct trajectory.
When the work is done, celebrate with your colleague and acknowledge their accomplishment. Master delegation skills and then delegate strategically and aggressively so that the People on your team are always being stretched just outside of their comfort zone and learning and developing at a healthy pace.
Praising, Affirming, And Validating Your People Pays Off
If you want your people to perform like they’re the best in the world, then you need to treat them like they’re the best in the world. Give your team plenty of praise and affirmation publicly, and validate their work every chance you get. Do this because it will send a clear message to them that you appreciate their efforts and their results, that you recognize their contribution, and that you value and respect them both for their efforts and also for the fact that they consistently achieve the results that the rest of the organization is counting on.
From time to time, it will be necessary to provide your People with some constructive criticism because their efforts fall short. Be certain to offer your criticism constructively in private, and never let the criticism become destructive or leave your People with the impression that you’re engaging in a mean-spirited attack. Be very careful to always talk about the behavior and the results versus expectations and to use questions instead of judgments, to reinforce the message that you’re providing constructive criticism, not negative or cynical sarcasm or a personal attack.
One-on-one meetings are the best place to discuss performance, expectations, and any gaps in results, and the weekly team meeting is probably the worst place to have such critical discussions. Be at your best when discussing performance against expectations, and work hard to notice 8 positive examples for every criticism that you offer.
Invest In Relationships In All Directions With Everyone
If you want to be recognized as a successful manager, you must be able to work effectively with executives, peers, subordinates, prospects, customers, business partners, vendors, and your manager. You must be able to build strong long-term relationships that are based upon the value you are delivering to the persons who are party to the relationship. Build coalitions with People well in advance of your anticipated need to call upon them to support your initiatives.
If you want support for your projects, don’t start building relationships with the People whose support you will need the day before you’ll need their support. Get busy NOW and begin making generous investments in relationships NOW, and then, when you need support 6 or 12 months down the road you’ll have a healthy balance in your relationship capital bank account with the person whose support you’re hoping for. Be a great teammate all of the time, and People will enjoy collaborating with you and they will work hard for you, and support your initiatives when you need their help.
Michael is a Master Coach who has been developing Executives and Emerging Leaders for many years. Michael’s Coaching and Consulting firm has five coaches who work with clients all over the world, assisting them in developing their leadership acumen and their Executive Presence. Michael’s team of coaches is located in Arizona, Florida, Iowa, and Minnesota, and the firm works with Business Founders, C-Suite Executives, and Emerging Leaders. Michael and his coaches work with fast-growth companies, often in the technology industry, and his team helps them to narrow the gap between their current state, and where they would love to be in a tremendous future state.
If you’d like more information about Michael Beach Coaching & Consulting visit the website at www.michaelbeachcoach.com, or contact us at info@michaelbeachcoach.com. Michael hosts a podcast about Leadership and how to develop Emerging Leaders, called “What Are YOU Doing?” and you can find it wherever you listen to podcasts or on Michael’s website.
