Team Management

The most common debate in Leadership conclaves is whether people are born leaders or they can be trained to be leaders. Well , I wish to go for the latter. Leadership are certain qualities or rather skills that need to be honed in individuals. The success or failure of a Leader essentially depends on how well a person applies the leadership skills wherever required. It is similar to any other skill we train ourselves on. The use of any skill lies in the perfection of it’s implementation. Leadership is no different.

Leadership skills depend on situation & context. However certain basic skills are common across various domain. Here I have tried to list out some of them in the context of managing a team as a Team Leader:

· Conviction — Leadership starts with power of conviction of the Leader. When you are leading a team of people your power of conviction to the cause or objective is often the most important component. A person who is vacillating in his mind on the basic objective of the team seldom comes across as an effective leader. Strong conviction of the leader often motivates others in the team to clear doubts in their minds and align to the team goal.

· Communication — One of the key components of any team management is communication. The team needs to communicate their objective externally through proper verbal as well as body language of their members. Internal communication amongst the members is equally if not more important. Clarification of doubts, having one on one chats etc are some of the key components of team communication which should be facilitated by an effective team leader. The leader needs to ensure the team objective is well communicated and understood by each member. The leader also need to identify communication gaps amongst members and try to plug them so as to bring unity amongst the members.

· Trust & Respect — Mutual trust & respect among members is essential to any successful team. The Team lead along with members need to appreciate & respect the view point & perspective of others . Respect comes from genuineness and belief in the team goal and aligning to the end objective cumulatively. Mutual respect also shows how team members stand up to their colleagues incase of any adversity or whenever needed and care for each other. There should be mutual trust in the abilities & intent of the members. Trust comes from effective communication & honesty amongst members and is often fostered by the team leader. The feeling of oneness is very important for any team. The Leader should ensure the team members show mutual trust & respect both internally as well as when dealing with any external stakeholder.

· Motivation — The Leader has a big role to play to motivate the team to give off their best and stay aligned to the team goal. Members need to feel special and happy to contribute to the team’s cause. A good leader should ideally push the members & motivate them while himself working in the background to ensure the team functions properly. The role of the leader is more of a facilitator & a catalyst. The true leader encourages and appreciates the members and gives credit for any success while taking responsibility for all decisions and standing up for any failure. A leader trying to hog the limelight and not promoting his members is often very demotivating for the team and shows in the low morale of the members.

· Team Camaraderie — One of the key components of any successful team is how the members support each other and enjoy each other’s company. The Leader needs to ensure the members are in high spirit & enjoy themselves . Team lunch, Evening outs, celebration of birthdays/anniversaries etc are all part of essential team bonding exercise. Every success, big or small should be celebrated even if it’s in a small way. This goes a long way in representing the team as a unit, supporting and respecting each other and having a healthy competition amongst themselves. The role of the leader is to ensure optimum camaraderie exists in the team.

· Leveraging Strengths — The team leader has a key role in bringing all the members of the team together. The leader should follow a collaborative approach to leverage the experience and expertise of each member by effective man management skills to maximize the team output. The leader needs to ensure the team functions as one unit, everyone is equally engaged & does not get stuck in ego or misunderstanding issues amongst the members. It is the duty of an effective leader to realize the strengths and weaknesses of each members and leverage accordingly.The team as a unit is always bigger in stature and existence than any of it’s members and the leader needs to ensure this is followed on each occasion. The leader needs to guide each member so that he/she can give off their best. Having said that, an insecure leader is a bane for the team & often leads to downfall in team performance.

· Pride — The members should feel genuine pride in representing the team. This pride should show in their interactions with external stakeholders & their performances so as to excel and beat competition wherever applicable & in the professionalism which they exhibit. True pride for the team is often responsible for Trust & Respect amongst the members. The role of the leader here is to imbibe the feeling of pride amongst the members. Just like respect & trust, pride cannot be forced on anyone, it should come from within. The leader has a huge role in instilling this pride by his own performance as a leader as per the above criterions mentioned.

Thus the role of a Leader is quite versatile while managing a team. The ideal leader is a friendly authoritarian person who’s well respected by the members while being approachable and amiable in nature.