Leading through Team Building
A successful team 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 teams into cohesive units.
In Module Five, you will learn the purpose and characteristics of high-performance teams and why it is important to build strong teams. You will learn the essential leadership qualities necessary to lead strong teams and your role in team 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 teams:
Lead by Example
One of the most important rules of effective team management is leading your teams by example. Your teams will mimic your work ethic and values. If you’re showing up late for work, your teams will also be more likely to be late. Additionally, if you are going to be iffy about your job, your teams will behave similarly.
Instead, you should show the teams you’re committed to the team’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 Six, you will learn basic influencing skills, how to create an impact, how to be consistent, and the importance of removing toxic people from team leadership.
Lead by Communicating with Your Teams
The key to true leadership is to inspire a shared vision among your teams. 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 Seven, 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 team leaders. You will learn to establish positive feedback as a foundation of team 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 team leader 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 Eight, you will learn to encourage growth in your team leaders, create mutual respect, the importance of trust, and how to handle mistakes made by you and your team leaders.
Lead by Motivating Your Teams
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 Nine, you will learn fundamental psychological theories that help team leaders produce a motivated workforce.
You will learn about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and why intrinsic motivation is so important to a team’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 teams, and addressing team morale issues.
Lead by Setting SMART Goals
In Module Ten, you will learn without a goal, your chances of successfully coaching your teams 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 team leaders because the teams never seem to make any improvement. It becomes a constant cycle of failing to meet team 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 Eleven, you will learn to search out 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?