The leaders' inner strength

We have spoken at length over the last few months about being the best leader we can by using all our skills to energise and enthuse our teams. Your skills depend on your strength, the strength to evaluate, the strength to communicate in a clear and unambiguous manner. The strength to maintain your vision for the team is paramount to your success rather than follow the pack.

When you determine your vision for the team, you will find many times that you'll need to test your inner strength to remain focused. Do you have the strength to paint this vision, to remind your team why they are important, how the team contributes to the goals. When people disagree are you strong to argue your case and support it with facts and your vision of success.

When morale in your team wanes due to internal or external pressures are you available to your team members to help them see that what they are doing is positive and helps the whole team to move forward. Are you there to create some team building ideas and maintain the morale. Obviously this can be tough, if you looked at the current gloom and doom from the financial fallout many of our team members will be effected and their morale will be dented, again we need to draw on our strength to examine the facts and maintain the team morale.

When communicating with your team are you careful to deliver your messages in a positive manner, do you draw on your inner strength to raise your team up. Should your team members argue and fight, do you stand strong and fair to ensure issues are dealt with the animosity is arrested.

When tough decisions need to be taken are you fair and consistent in reaching your decision, when you need to deliver bad news are you straight and honest with your team members. You will need every once of inner strength to work through these issues, however if you stay strong, true and honest with your team they will respect you for your strength in dealing with them.

Great leaders are strong people who rely on their strength for the good of their teams. As you develop as a leader take the time to look and develop your inner strength and your team will appreciate it and follow you willingly.

Maintaining your team's profile

I guess we've all been keeping an eye on the financial situation around the world. I hope you've stopped and taken some time to consider what is the implication to you and your team.
As the leader you need to take some steps to protect your team the best you can.

A few weeks ago we talked about maintaining a scorecard, I hope you have been on top of this. With the knowledge from your scorecard you know what your team is doing well at. Be sure that your boss knows about these high points.

As the leader your job is to keep the profile of your team in the mind of the work hierarchy, the better your team is understood the better they will be justified should the dreaded layoff discussion begins.

The economic phases of business dictate that the company is looking to protect itself for the long haul and at some stage, particularly if this financial crisis is prolonged cuts will happen.

Like it or not there are lots of people feeling stress about their job situation. As the leaders of these teams we need to do our best for each member. Be positive and talk-up your team's strengths, work hard to minimize any errors all this will help to maintain your team's morale.

Do your best to keep your team productive and be sure to feedback your team's performance so the team get a fair hearing if things get worse.

Leading Change a Balancing Act

One common task for us as leaders is to lead change in our workplace. While it may seem that this is a straight forward activity, when done well it will lead to positive changes for our team. However if this is poorly done it can create havoc in our workplace.

The obvious first step is to identify what and why a change needs to be implemented. This is best done through a consultative approach. Take care when raising the situation to also note the parts of the process that are working well and need to be continued in the current way they are done.

In your leadership role it is up to you to drive the changes and engage your team. While this may seem obvious the risk you run if you do not identify the good aspects in the current situation is that the team will feel that their previous efforts have been wasted or not appreciated. So now having identified the good points that need to be continued and where the changes need to be completed. The next steps can be started.

The positioning of yourself towards the team must be one where you are part of the change and not one of the boss pushing the change down to the team. Should you push the change down in an authoritative way, there is some risk of two negative outcomes. Firstly the team may feel very off-side even if they outwardly say yes to the change. Secondly the team may feel dis-engaged in that they have this task thrust on them with no support.

Ideally you will engage with the team and be a large part of the change, when your team see you involved and they see you changing in-line with the change, they will better engage and assist with the change. Take your time to keep the team appraised of the continuation phase along with the changes and their progress.

By working with your team your leadership stands a much better chance of success than pushing a change onto a team and walking away.