Are you a great team leader? (part 2)

Learn how to be a good leader to improve your team's engagement and success.


Anyone can sit in a corner office and delegate tasks. There is more to effective leadership than that though. Effective leaders have major impacts on the team members they manage as well as their company as a whole. Employees who work under great leaders tend to be happier, more productive, and usually more connected to their organisation. This has a ripple effect that reaches your business’s bottom line.

Read on for some thoughts.
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Signs of poor leadership

If you look around and see that your team members have become disengaged or stagnant in their work, it may be a first sign of not leading your team effectively. It might be time to reassess and reform your strategies. Some signs to look out for are:

• You spend more time planning your own career progress than that of your team members.
• None of your team has criticized one of your ideas in the past month.
• You haven’t had at least three completely non-work-related conversations with a team member in a week.
• Different team members would provide different answers if asked about your top three priorities for the year.
• Your team members are afraid to fail.

Some ideas to change this and become a better leader are:

Keep a positive attitude

As much as leaders wish their team’s day-to-day operations could run smoothly all the time, sometimes they run into the occasional obstacle. Whether it’s a minor miscommunication or a major error, the way you handle a negative situation says a lot about your leadership skills.

“Look at three positive things about a problem before you identify what makes it dissatisfying. The more you look at the positives in a problem, the more positively people react with one another.” (Robert Mann)

A positive environment is more likely to create a more engaged and productive workforce.

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Teach employees instead of giving orders

An effective leader knows how to show others what is required, rather than simply telling them.
Leaders should coach their team members toward a more collaborative, committed work environment.

If you are controlling people to do certain things in certain ways, you’re not going to get the level of engagement that you’re looking for.
Coach them, this is about helping the people you lead recognize the choices they have in front of them. It makes them take ownership of the direction of the project.
Don't simply bark orders at team members, rather, as a good leader, encourage growth by teaching.

People won't grow if leaders never teach them anything.

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Set clear employee goals and expectations

Setting clear goals and employee expectations for your team is key to employee success. When setting these objectives, encourage employee questions and feedback.

Include them in the process, this can increase engagement.

If a leader wants to motivate and inspire their team, they need to keep their team in the know about their vision.
This will help employees to understand the end result they’re working towards as a unit. When goals are clearly set, everyone can track progress and identify achievements in a tangible manner.

Don’t let team member goals go static.
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Revisit them from time to time to modify or rearrange them as needed. This will let your team members know that you are present and aware of what they are working on.

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