How to Lead Well

I was recently asked by an ex-colleague for some tips on how to lead a team.

Over 20 years I’ve led many diverse, cross-cultural teams of varying sizes, often collaborating with experts by experience.  I’ve led refugee & migrant programmes, and housing & homelessness services.  I’ve worked with volunteers on grassroots initiatives and delivered national programmes through multi-agency partnerships.

I think being a good team leader is mainly about; Relationship, Wellbeing & Communication:

Relationship

• Work hard at getting to know your team (and encouraging them to get to know one another).  Ask open questions (starting with ‘how’ & ‘what’).  Listen well; with active listening and by listening to understand.

• Adopt a strengths-based approach with each of your team members; what are they best at?  How can you help them to get even better at that?  What motivates them and makes them tick?  Adapt your management style to each team member accordingly.

• Hold regular team meetings where everyone joins in and contributes, celebrate the big and small wins together, give positive feedback to one another, look for opportunities to have fun together, get out of the office, and encourage team collaboration.

• Support their aspirations - what’s their ideal job longer-term?  What’s their favourite aspect of their current work?  Knowing areas they enjoy and want to grow in, ensure your team are appropriately challenged and stretched by seeking out plenty of training and development opportunities for them (online and in-person training, work shadowing, conferences, etc).  Champion them internally and externally, showing your commitment to helping them be the best they can be.

Wellbeing

• Prioritise wellbeing and health.  Aside from the ethical importance of looking after people, it's massively inefficient to push your team to breaking point as your whole business model will collapse without them or be hamstrung by high turnover / poor performance.  Encourage your team to put their health first by; taking lunch breaks, tea / coffee breaks, screen breaks, using flexi-time / flexible working systems, using health-related benefits, invest in psychosocial support / reflective practice to help one another process complex work and its impact upon us.  Model all of the above, it’s important to lead by example.  Use all your annual leave each year, talk (as far as you feel comfortable) about the life you have outside of work (you are more than your job!), when you’re ill or on leave, be properly ‘off’; don't check your email or phone (aside from anything else, it’s just more efficient).

• Maintain and encourage strong professional boundaries - When people are with their loved ones they need to be 100% present, just as when they’re working they also need to be 100% present.  Everyone should have the flexibility to work in a way that gets the best out of them AND no-one should be consistently doing more than their contracted hours (if they are, this demonstrates poor leadership, poor boundaries and poor budgeting in terms of the actual resources required to deliver the work).  Protect your team as far as you can from excessive demands and distractions; good leaders help to remove the roadblocks preventing teams from doing their best work. Encourage a commitment to doing work that is ‘good enough’ (think working at 75-80% of capacity for 5-10 years rather than 150% for 6 months then crashing and burning).

• Encourage continuous learning and professional development.  A great way to model this is by prioritising regular time in your diary for training, reading, reflection, etc. to give your brain space and time to breathe.  If you’re anything like me, this is where you and your team will have their best ideas / realisations.

Communication

• Cast vision; where are you going and why?  Why can’t you stay ‘here’?  Don’t just wait for the ‘big boss’ or the organisation to do this, your team need to hear it from you also.

• Clear communication is crucial in leadership.  As are clear expectations and clear instructions.  Bear in mind your team members’ preferences for different modes of communication, different communication styles & learning styles, as well as all-important cross-cultural differences.  I spent years in the North of England being told my communication was too indirect, only to move to the South and be told I was far too direct.  Share your hopes and expectations with your team and co-produce shared expectations as a team.  This will help ensure everyone understands their role, and how they contribute to the overall vision & mission.

• As soon as you can, clarify what you will be monitoring (i.e. what needs to be done in a specific way) and what can be left for people to decide themselves; remember that autonomy is inherently motivating and, (given a clear enough brief), encourages initiative and freedom of expression.

• Schedule regular, short, task-focused one-to-one catch-ups with each member of your team (also checking in on wellbeing).  Also schedule 4-6-weekly one-to-one supervision meetings with a focus on each team member’s role, their professional development and their performance.  Prepare thoroughly for all meetings with your team as a way of demonstrating your value for them.

• Give helpful feedback.  Look for what people are doing well and offer lots of positive encouragement.  Regarding poorer performance, pick your battles, prioritising the most important thing for your team member to work on ‘for next time’.  All of us make mistakes but it’s how you react to those as their manager (i.e. calmly and constructively), as well as how they learn from these, that is most important.

Leaders who prioritise relationship, wellbeing and communication don't just have happier, more motivated teams, they unlock the potential of their teammates, creating more productive, high-achieving teams who make a real difference in the world.