Leading through Team Building
A successful department starts with people who value working toward a common goal, are goal-oriented, and respect the hierarchical structure that most businesses require.
As a manager, your goal is to unite your departments into cohesive units.
In Module Four, you will learn the purpose and characteristics of high-performance departments and why it is important to build strong teams. You will learn the essential leadership qualities necessary to lead strong departments and your role in department accountability using standard operating procedures and key performance indicators.
In the following five modules, we will examine the actions a manager must take to create high-performance departments:
Lead by Example
One of the most important rules of effective department management is leading your departments by example. Your department managers will mimic your work ethic and values. If you’re showing up late for work, your department managers will also be more likely to be late. Additionally, your department managers will behave similarly if you are iffy about your job.
Instead, you should show the department managers you’re committed to the department’s success, handle tasks professionally, and are not above asking for help. When you set a good example, you inspire them to work with you and work twice as hard to get all the work done.
In Module Five, you will learn basic influencing skills, how to create an impact, how to be consistent, and the importance of removing toxic people from department leadership.
Lead by Communicating with Your Departments
The key to true leadership is to inspire a shared vision among your departments. Before you can convey a vision, however, you must develop it. You must be clear in your vision, live it before others can see it, and model it from your behavior.
In Module Six, you will learn to communicate the company’s vision and your own. You will learn to create clear communication by having open lines of communication with your department managers. You will learn to establish positive feedback as a foundation of department culture and the importance of timely conflict resolution.
Lead by Establishing Trust, Respect, and Encouraging Growth
To be a true leader, you must enable others to act responsibly and not encourage bad work habits by compensating for or overlooking them. Simultaneously, you cannot criticize a department manager for trying hard but making an honest mistake. The goal of a leader is to empower others to work. The extent you can do this is the extent you will be successful.
In Module Seven, you will learn to encourage growth in your department managers, create mutual respect, the importance of trust, and how to handle mistakes made by you and your department managers.
Lead by Motivating Your Department Managers
The importance of psychology in achieving and maintaining employee motivation is essential. You can repeat a message to a group of employees, but the words are empty unless they believe and believe in it.
In Module Eight, you will learn fundamental psychological theories that help department managers produce a motivated workforce.
You will learn about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and why intrinsic motivation is so important to a department’s success.
You will learn about personality’s role in motivation, building your motivation plan, creating motivation on the job, using celebration to motivate your departments, and addressing department morale issues.
Lead by Setting SMART Goals
In Module Nine, you will learn without a goal, your chances of successfully coaching your department managers to better performance are low. Defining specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-driven goals will plot a marker on the horizon that acts as your beacon. Without it, you are navigating blindly, causing frustration for both you and your department managers because the departments never seem to make any improvement. It becomes a constant cycle of failing to meet department goals.
Challenging the Process
Far too often, we cling to what is familiar, even if what we cling to is known to be inadequate. The law of inertia governs most large groups: nothing will change if it takes effort to change something. In Module Ten, you will learn to search for opportunities to change, grow, innovate, and improve.
However, there is no reward without risk, so you must be willing to experiment, take risks, and learn from mistakes. Ask questions, even if you fear the answers. Start with the question, “Why?” Why are things the way they are? Why do we do things the way we do?
