Who should be the leader?

Who should be the leader in your group? why You! We all have potential to be the leader and some will be more successful than others, it depends on your perception, your values and especially the drive in your heart.

Do you want to make a difference , do you want the team to accomplish, do you want to feel part of the group - like you belong? I guess we all do. Where to start, probably the place to start is to assess the situation - of where the group is, what the composition of the group is and what we want to achieve.

Take care to then explain in a positive fashion the vision of what the end-state is, in many cases this is all you need to do particularly if the group is in a good state of mind. Next pause for a few moments to let everybody consider the idea and then ask your team for any questions. It is important that you allow the team to have sufficient time to consider the vision you have planted in their mind - don't rush this aspect. A question asked at this time in front of the whole team allows everyone to benefit from the clarification points.

Once the idea is firmly planted in each member of the team, it becomes time to delegate/arrange the members to tasks - often this is quite obvious as a member may have special skills that preclude others from taking that part of the job. If much of the overall job falls to the special skills people it may be prudent to ask them if and how someone can assist to lighten their load. This can have some great spin-off benefits, firstly the guy with the big load gains a sense of appreciation that he has more work, secondly the person who helps may learn some new skills they can contribute to the team, look for these hidden opportunities to broaden the teams skills and exposure.

So we can all be leaders and with a little empathy and thought we can make a great job of it by including everyone and getting the job done when we get the chance.