Read part 1: Key principle # 1
Read part 2: Key principle # 2
Read part 4: Key principle # 4
In this third in-depth article we look at the characteristics of what makes an effective team boss, and conversely, what does ineffective boss quality look like in terms of the impact it has on others?
The characteristic of an effective team boss can be summarised as someone who is prepared to let go of some tight management control to grow and enable their team, versus micro-managing them.
Key activities for an effective team boss therefore include:
Delegation of some of one’s own work tasks and projects to members of the team. Letting go of your power a little bit, not trying to hold on to everything yourself as the leader.
Empowering others to do work, come up with ideas, and proposals for how work can be done better, without micro-managing their every move or criticising their every mistake. It’s about creating an environment where it is ok to make mistakes, so long as we learn from them and don’t repeat the same mistake next time! It’s about creating a learning environment where open and constructive two-way feedback is allowed when reviewing meetings, project outcomes, key milestones. It’s also about asking the right questions more than just giving answers:
- What are the key learnings from today/this meeting/ this project?
- What went well? How can we build on that and repeat that?
- What can we do differently next time?
- How can we get even better?
Coaching your team to be a winning team, to grow their skills and knowledge, and become more effective.
This is a big area of focus for successful leaders – the best leaders coach their teams by helping them think through goals and their own actions, rather than using the exertion of their power in a negative way (the famous "hair-dryer shouting" approach) to tell team members what to do and how to think in order to control them.
Effective coaching enhances team member performance and promotes a climate of motivation. I like the method advocated by John Whitmore, known as the self-directed learning method,
the GROW model of coaching. This is where the leader is coach and asks the learner, who is the team member, a series of structured questions to facilitate the learner owning the learning derived from those questions.
It starts with:
G=Goal
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