Leading For Results
Leading
people is a topic that gets a lot of management and conference time. There are uncounted books, seminars,
workshops, and discussions on the subject.
To me this suggests that we still have difficulty in defining what makes
for an effective leader. In my
experience in nine different markets and countries, the ability to manage three
main aspects are critical:
Task:
Understanding exactly what it is you have
to do (you may have to make some intuitive leaps). You then need to plan it. I use an “Internal” framework (People, Systems,
Equipment, Premises, Legal) for issues that are within my organisation’s
control and an “External” one (for issues outside its control but that impact
on the success of the project). These
could include suppliers, regulators, the local community, etc.
Finally, I add in Kipling’s “Six Honest
Serving Men” (What, Why, When, How, Where, Who) to make sure I understand how
everything will fit together and can explain it to others.
Then you have to be able to explain it clearly to your team (even if it’s just
a team of one) so that they know what needs to be done, why, how, by whom, by
when and what limits (if any) there are on how to proceed. Without going through the planning above, how
can you do this? Remember: what seems
clear to you may not be as clear to others.
Team:
Understand group dynamics and how people
interact. Is your team “balanced” in
terms of skills? If you have a team
consisting of nothing but thinkers, nothing will get done. If there’s noone keeping an eye on overall
progress, you may miss your deadline, or quality may suffer.
You need a mix of doers, thinkers,
controllers and investigators. Different
management thinkers have come up with different descriptions for the roles that
team members play, but what they have in common is that there are different roles. Remember, some people may fulfill more than
one role and others feel more comfortable in one role as opposed to others.
How do team members interact with each
other? Is there one person to whom the
others always listen (or whom they ignore)?
How do they approach things? How
are they likely to react in certain situations?
Individual:
The management cliché says “there’s no ‘I’
in ‘Team’”. The smart answer is “but there’s
a ‘me’ if you look hard enough”. Teams
consist of individuals. If their needs
aren’t acknowledged and addressed, they won’t give their best. Results will be mediocre.
The team member who continually feels
“sidelined” or that their opinions aren’t listened to won’t be engaged or
committed to the success of the project.
Equally, one who continually tries to dominate may provoke resentment
amongst the other team members, resulting in lack of commitment, potentially
delaying the project.
From the above, there are many
considerations when moving people towards a goal. Balancing them is tricky. Just to complicate matters more, some
situations will suit some people more than others, so that the effective leader
in one situation may not be as effective in another.
Self-knowledge is the only way to really
understand yourself as a leader and therefore how you impact on others.
I have spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With more than 20 years in the world financial services industry running different service, operations and lending businesses, I started my own Performance Management Consultancy to offer solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management. I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email. My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of services. For strategic questions that you should be asking yourself, follow me at @wkm610.
Labels: Career, Productivity, Strategy, Teamwork
posted by William Martin @ 13:01
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