Are you leading your team in the right direction?
Providing good resources and infrastructure isn't everything to lead your team in the right direction. The millennial generation is constantly hungry for learning new skills and growing beyond their comfort zone. This article provides a reality-check to the managers whether or not they are doing justice to their team.
It took John three years to set up his dream business, build a strong market reputation and make it work in full bloom. He had really worked hard to take his business to this level. In all these years, he could manage a good infrastructure for his office, hire more than 70 employees, and everything seemed perfect. Despite having a large team and great infrastructure, his company had a poor employee retention rate.
This really didn’t affect the company until the clients started to refuse doing business with him. It wasn’t possible for John to interact with all his clients. There were other members in the team who did this job. This is a common scenario in many organizations. Every project or client suffers when a single employee leaves the job. The condition with John’s company got worse. He lost 5 employees and 20 projects in two months’ time. The reason of declining number of employees was high work pressure, unrealistic deadlines and a poor team management.
So, a change was needed. He realized that if something wasn’t done right now, then he might even have to face the worst which could mean shutting down of his company. All this created a lot of panic and fear in his mind, but he was sure he could manage it. He decided to share his problem with people in his professional network. They made him realize that he was just churning work out of his team and wasn’t really concerned about their growth. One of his previous managers reminded of his own reason of leaving the job, which was low attention towards the growth of an employee.
A highly experienced business professional told him that if he wants his company to survive in the market for long,he will have to build a strong team. He said,” If your focus is generating quick profits then you cannot expect your employees to stay because afterall they are human beings who want care and attention over money”. And the only way out to build your credibility is by having good employees work with you for longer.
John knew that all these people were actually right. In all these years, he was busy generating profits, cutting costs, and expanding his client base. He never bothered about building a good team and this was the reason he was losing precious employees. So, he decided to build a team and take them in a direction that is not just fruitful for his company but also for his employees.
Surprisingly, his experiment became successful and he could manage to maintain a number of 50 employees in his team. So, before you get more eager to know what he did, read the following points to how you can lead your team in the right direction.
Know your Team
Before you begin to send out orders and project guidelines to your team members, you must invest some time in knowing them inside out. You can organize an interactive session to find about their strengths, talents, and weaknesses. Building a high performance team can happen through motivation and positivity. You will have to motivate and coach every individual in your team to create a sense of belongingness amongst them. But this is possible only after you know them well. Then only you can create a good team and head them into the right direction.
Create an Open Environment
If you want to build a high performance team and foster a culture of partnership then an open, honest, and robust environment is the key. Without honesty and transparency, there can be no trust within your organization. Lack of trust leads to a lot of internal conflicts and complications within your team. If your team is crippled by conflicts, you cannot expect them to deliver a productive outcome. They would always be bound by fears and doubts which would eventually hamper their overall growth.
Be Supportive
A high performance team meets regularly to discuss growth, track progress, and raise their concerns. As a leader, it is your first and foremost responsibility to ensure that your create enough room for your team members to allow them to share their ideas and voice their issues. You can even plan timely meets with your team members to know about their objectives, performance, and personal development. To ensure they deliver their best performance for every project, you need to support them during challenges and also embrace their shortcomings.
Make Noise About Success
Most managers forget to appreciate their team members when they accomplish professional goals. But, they don’t forget to make a big issue whenever any team member makes a mistake. This simply acts as a big discouraging factor for your team.
A good idea is to celebrate every little achievement that your team members makes. Even if a particular achievement doesn’t contribute directly towards the project, you must make it a point to appreciate your team. If you want to develop a healthy work culture at your place then you will have to keep it light. Encourage extracurricular activities and don’t miss out any occasion to celebrate together. This will help you to forge close-knit relationships with mutual trust and friendship.
Building a well-collaborated team is a big challenge. But, leading it in the right direction is even a bigger challenge. With a few considerate steps and an open mindset, you can easily build a strong team.
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