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Help for New Team Leaders
30 September 2014
Allison read 5 Tips for New Team Leaders by Jeanne DeWitt on the HBR Blog Network and found herself nodding her head and sending this post to all the new team leaders she’s currently supporting.
Tags: allison read, management and supervision
Organizations often promote a high performer to be a manager, fail to give the person any training on how to supervise, and then wonder why it doesn’t work out very well. Ask yourself or others in the workplace about the best boss they ever had and watch their eyes light up. That light (we call it employee engagement) is what you're looking for in your employees.
The good news is that this light isn’t quite as magical as it sounds. Just as organizations train people to do all sorts of more technical or tangible tasks, it’s also possible to learn how to be a great boss and learn how to help your boss be the boss you need.
Once you understand these basics of good management, you’ll also want to work on a strategy for when you are assigned a new team. Jeanne DeWitt’s 22 September 2014 blog post has some of the best guidance I’ve seen for new team leaders. You’ll find practical advice and compelling lessons learned about what not to do from this former Director at Google and current Chief Revenue Officer at UberConference as she explains these five tips:
- Over-communicate.
- Ask questions.
- Figure out what people really want to do.
- Get your hands dirty.
- Be decisive.
I wholeheartedly support all of these suggestions. I especially appreciate how DeWitt recommends being a cautious, curious learner who asks a lot of questions in the first month, but then also follows up with decisive actions once it’s time to start implementing any necessary changes. My only caution is to make sure that when you’re figuring out what your new team members really want to do that you don’t unintentionally make promises you can’t keep. However, if you approach this tip in the way DeWitt recommends, I agree there will be times when you can eventually get people doing work that is more aligned with their interests and strengths which is another great way to create employee engagement.
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