A team leader refers to one who offers instructions, guidance, and direction to a group of people (the team) intending to accomplish shared goals. Approximately 98% of employees quit their jobs because of incompetent team leaders or managers. You wouldn’t wish to join the statistics due to a lack of exemplary leadership techniques.
Team leaders can be considered effective when they practice the best tips strategically alongside their technical and interpersonal skills. The good thing is that you can undertake various management courses at an affordable fee to unleash your leadership potential. In addition, you should remain optimistic with leadership development, even when some days are frustrating.
You can lead a team effectively from anywhere around the world. Here are our best tips to guide your leadership skills:
1. Recruit Strategically
The first step of forming a team is selecting different individuals and bringing them together for a common objective. Team leaders/managers should recruit strategically, that is, picking the right people for the appropriate positions while offering development opportunities to the existing employees.
If you’re a team leader involved in the recruitment process, reflect on the needs and structure of your team (and the organization at large) to come out with the best.
2. Leadership Development
The best way to win your team tremendous performances as a leader is to help them enhance their leadership skills to befit various roles and responsibilities within a group. You can practice leadership development for your team members by offering them free or subsidized training opportunities and allocating tasks away from their usual line of duty to test their capability.
Most essentially, you should lead as an excellent example of leadership development by confidently facing any challenging tasks allocated by your superiors.
3. Keep the Players Motivated
The motivation of your team members significantly contributes to the general performance of different players and individuals. That’s why you should keep your team members constantly motivated with their positions and responsibilities towards the team.
Some ideal ways to instil motivation in team members include positive reinforcement towards excellent performances, rewarding top performers, and respecting everyone regardless of age or class.
Sharing positive feedback with your players and offering a flexible schedule for the team members also keeps team members motivated. With such an atmosphere, you can be assured of nothing less than effective leadership and high productivity levels.
4. Develop a Clear Plan
It can be unclear when your team members don’t know what, when, and how to undertake different tasks in the team. As the team leader, you must develop a clear and practical plan and make it known to every player.
Things might not always go as arranged, but a working program saves a team from many downfalls. A well-develop plan should be transparent and within the team’s structure.
5. Delegate Strategically
How often do leaders work overtime due to the fear of letting someone else into their responsibilities? Delegating doesn’t mean you’re less competent as a leader, but it brings trust and knowledge sharing within a team.
The process requires team leaders to evaluate every player with their unique strengths and areas of weaknesses to generate the best results possible. Besides saving leaders time to attend to other crucial duties, delegation is an ideal way of motivating your team members to perform better. You can never know how much they can do if you don’t allow them to try.
6. Provide Timely Feedback
Feedback is vital for any organization, even on the pettiest responsibilities. You must be familiar with the period of uncertainty while waiting for reports concerning a recently completed task- disturbing, right?
As an effective team leader, you should offer timely feedback to your players to keep them informed about their performance. A practical feedback mechanism involves praising excellent performances while providing solutions to mistakes and offering room for improvement.
7. Open Communication Channels
Communication is the foundation of any teamwork. To lead a team effectively, leaders should make straightforward and timely communication part of their daily lives at work. The communication culture you create for your players as a team leader is vital in how openly they air their grievances and discuss crucial team matters with you.
If you maintain healthy communication with your team, you will likely address problems quicker and more effectively, facilitating more remarkable performances. Good communication involves listening actively, emotional intelligence, confidence, appropriate body language, eloquent speech, and respect for all.
8. Employee Engagement
Besides delegating duties and building a solid communication culture, employee engagement is another ideal way of leading effectively. Directing and instructing your team players as a leader puts you on a higher rank but getting them involved in various team matters attracts success in the long run.
If you let them contribute to the victory, they will feel significantly valued by being part of the team. Some perfect team member engagement activities include problem-solving sessions, sporting events, career development opportunities, and mental health affairs.
9. Balance Your Professional and Personal Lifestyles
While you strive to perform best at work, developing personal connections with your team members is essential for leading a team effectively. Leaders can demonstrate a balance between their professional and personal lives at work by creating healthy friendships with their team members.
Also, they can empathize with them in times of difficulties (both personal and work-related) and be concerned with their players’ mental and physical wellness. Nevertheless, team leaders should be cautious when demonstrating their habits at work to avoid going beyond the ‘borders.’
