Posts Tagged ‘good leadership’

Team Leadership - Lead Your Team, Don’t Manage It

Posted in Leadership, Management, Strategies, Team on 11/18/2009 03:09 pm by Kairology

Introduction by Ian Williams

Here’s a good article that has some good, simple hints and tips in leading teams. What often causes leadership to fail is allowing teamwork to go stale. It needs constant rejuvenation to keep motivation alive, and new thinking and ideas flowing.

Ian

Team Leadership -  Lead Your Team, Don’t Manage It by Andrew Gowans

Team management in the context of setting tasks, prioritizing, monitoring progress, agreeing and setting performance measures is all relatively straightforward.

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Let’s talk about your true value added, let’s talk about Leadership, Development, Empowerment and Having Fun

Being responsible for a team, large or small, is a serious business. Getting the best out of people takes creativity, guidance and perseverance.  If our team members lose focus, fail to achieve the group’s goals and objectives, we should be held accountable.  What am I saying?  You knew that when you took on the job.  Didn’t you?

Only you know your team (Or at least you should).

This article cannot comment on a special team situation you may have.  However, what it can do is focus on maximizing the benefit you get every time you get together with your team(s).

Examples of Spending Time Together:

Departmental Meetings

Task Force Special Project Team Training Session Workshops Team Briefing Product Review Customer Visits Focused Improvement Group

I’m sure you can add more.  However, you’ve guessed it - any setting where there is a sense of purpose, common goals, and a desire to achieve success by being part of your particular team.

Any of the above examples can be highly motivating, rewarding, and productive.  They can also be time consuming and costly.  Have you ever measured how much time you spend in a ‘team setting’?  Have you ever calculated the cost to the business?

Wasting time and resources is definitely one of my pet hates. And, yet, I’m probably as guilty as the next person  - losing focus, digressing, being reactive instead of proactive - even simply just having a bad day.

However, let’s keep things in perspective.

As a team, be single minded in achieving the common goals through that shared sense of Purpose and Direction, through that shared Vision BUT don’t get boring in the process.

For me, a key attribute of good leadership is having team members who

Enjoy being part of your team Have a strong desire to contribute Believe their contribution is valued Want to develop the team not just themselves Are recognized outside the team for their achievement Have fun

All of that isn’t as daunting as it may seem.

So, again, in the context of leadership and maximizing the value and benefit to be gained from a team setting, what are some of the positive things we can do as team leaders?

Suggestions

Publish agendas or session flows in advance with enough time for team members (including yourself) to prepare for that team session.  Why not invite inclusions to the agenda.

If the session is going to be a long one, break it up into manageable sections, take breaks.  Be creative, have some fun, do some exercises.  I personally would not go more than 50 minutes, an hour, before taking a break.

Introduce quick 15-20 minute training sessions any meaningful and contextual topic or theme. e.g. Giving and Receiving Feedback, Brainstorming, Setting S.M.A.R.T. Objectives. Empower team members by a) Have each team member prepare and deliver the training session and b) Have another team member facilitate the training session.

Deliberately have a non-context topic or theme on the agenda but, again, one that will add value and benefit participants - e.g. invite a technical expert or different functional / departmental head to give a 15-20 minute presentation on what and why they do what they do (This can be as good as having an actual break).

Before the formal session starts, get each team member to ‘dump’ - get rid of all the stuff in their head that’s going to prevent them from focusing on the task(s) in hand. Caution team members need to feel safe and comfortable to do this.  It also needs to be carefully led so it does not get out of control.  Most importantly, it needs to comply with the team’s agreed ground rules that were set at the formation of the team.

Continually develop individuals - give others the opportunity to prepare and publish the agenda for the next team session, empower them to lead and facilitate the session and to write the follow-up review afterwards (apart from anything else, it gives you a rest! ).  Further development can be achieved by inviting other team members to provide constructive feedback - with the knowledge that they too will be given the same developmental opportunity and will also be receiving ‘constructive’ feedback.

Have fun and celebrate successes.  Take time out, have a bbq, have a picnic, supply the supper when the team session’s a late one.

Lead by example at all times. Show the team that your business, their business is a serious one with specific goals and expected results BUT the best way to achieve success is through ongoing individual and team development, empowering others to succeed and having fun along the way.

*****

Andrew has over 20 years experience providing personal and business coaching specialising in strategic planning, continuous improvement, personal development and lifelong learning.

Providing a focused problem solving approach through our personal and business coaching (especially to small businesses). Our primary theme and overriding goal is to provide you with the right choices that fit your needs, solve your problems.

Want to discuss any of these articles further - no problem.

The quickest way to contact Andrew is to visit his internet marketing website, http://www.youraffiliatecoach.com and click on the “Your Request Form” button on the navbar.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?Team-Leadership—-Lead-Your-Team,-Dont-Manage-It&id=223864

 

Play Your Leadership Cards

Posted in Activities, Ian’s Articles, Leadership, Products on 07/20/2009 06:08 pm by Kairology

Marianne Williamson’s famous quotation (from A Return to Love) goes like this:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?‘ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

I can understand why they have been mistakenly attributed to Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King – you could almost hear them saying this! I love these inspirational words because they apply to everyone in every situation. What stands out is the encouragement they bring, in a tough world everyone needs encouragement to use their inner and material resources to create abundant life for themselves and others. These words are an important part of my inspiration for developing leaders, and for the tools and approaches I create and use.

No great leader ever achieved great things by playing small. We all need to extend and enhance our game if we expect to make progress, as any athlete will confirm. Leadership itself, though, is huge topic. Google the word and you get 159 million possibilities! The approaches and teachings on leadership from past and present are mind-boggling, and they continue to develop and multiply. A huge industry revolves around the need for leadership skills and development, and that’s hardly surprising for two main reasons.

First, there is such a need for good leadership, and in all areas of life it seems to be shrinking in application and growing in rhetoric. Many talk the talk but fewer live out leadership in a way that does what it’s supposed to – simply take people on a journey for a purpose. And there’s a huge amount packed into that statement. How many friends, family and colleagues do you have who suffer under a ‘leader’ who treats people badly, and has a poor sense of direction and purpose? I meet them everywhere I go. It’s a tragic scene that is easily overcome with a little thought and care. We are desperate for leaders in every area of life, but rarely find them. When an outstanding business, social or political leader emerges, they are very conspicuous. The rest are in a questionable crowd.

Secondly, leadership is such a complex idea to the world. There are so many aspects and facets to it, and so many academics, authors and speakers bring their own principles, approach and checklist. So in dabbling in this area myself, and being a simple soul, I needed a model of leadership that is pure and simple, something I can carry around in my head. The best for that in my book (literally) is Professor John Adair and the Action-centred Leadership Model. I can now be an effective leader by just understand something about the balance between 3 things – Task, Team and Individual. What could be as simple and profound? The problem with making it any more complex is that leaders always feel there’s so much more to learn, and feel constantly defeated by that challenge. They are constantly caught in the blinding headlights of what they are perhaps not doing, rather than bringing simple focus to a task with the right people.

So what has this to do with Kairology? The word Kairos means the right time for intervention or change. So I have simply used the playing cards framework to create 52 simple tools and approaches that I feel are important for good leadership. That doesn’t mean using all 52 cards at once – otherwise it wouldn’t be simple. It means looking at the cards and selecting what you need to work on in order to improve your personal leadership. It means being selective and purposeful, guided by your own instincts and by feedback from others. I also encourage people to select cards at random, and see what happens when they work through it.

The Kairology Cards are intended to challenge, guide and inspire – rather than be yet another text book or checklist. I believe there is no checklist for leadership. There is you, there is a job to do, and there are people to help you. That’s it! So I have attempted to provide a framework for thinking to help leaders do just that. The simple challenge is to play your cards right – to select and use them creatively for your own development and growth.

Have a ball with this, but also take it seriously. Your achievements and the people around you depend on it. Find your passion for people and challenges that bring diamond results. It may be cards-based but you don’t need to gamble with your leadership skills. However, leadership does involve courage and risk-taking, and building a deck that will stand or fall based on a heap of variables. Get yourself a good deal, a good partner or team for the game, clear strategies and tactics, and go for the win. Leadership is not a game of chance, but a game of skill in which you bring the courage to shine your light powerfully.

Order the Kairology Leadership bundle today.