Interesting article about teams and the NFL and how the team is not a business. I disagree … and I think many of the points that are made do indeed apply to all types of teams: sports teams, business teams, virtual teams, volunteer teams, even [extended] family team.
Ignore the advice of the previous manager, this is your team. As an adjunct faculty for Mountain State University, I have been getting the undergraduate Organizational Leadership students beginning in semester 3. I have chosen not to ask the previous faculty about the students … what would they tell me? Either “everyone is great, they have really improved’ or petty differences the students have had between each other. My leadership style is vastly different than other faculty, therefore the class interaction will be different.
Value the individual first, the team will come later. With a new leader, each team member is uncertain of how and where they fit in. In conjunction with the last item below, each person needs to feel valued and that their contributions are important. As a result, there definitely is an “I” in team.
Determine the individual’s strengths for work. I once had a manager that insisted I sit in an office, alone, at the end of a hall, with a storage room across from my office, and do data entry work. He was not in tune with me enough to realize that my strength was in the inter-personal relationships, not in the mundane and routine data entry. I didn’t last long at that job.
Expect strong performance from each team member. Set clear expectations, make sure these expectations are clear to your team member. Give them your support, be their mentor and sounding board, and hold them accountable to go above and beyond
None of this is rocket science – what is it is using your emotional intelligence and your perceptive listening skills to grow not only your team members’ abilitiles .. you’ll also be growing your own leadership skills!
