Teres development 1st time leaders and managers

Editor's Notes

• #3 Recognise you still have a lot to learn. Being a good leader requires you to constantly update your skills, knowledge and competencies. The best leaders are constantly seeking better ways of doing business. As a new leader, you still have a lot of hurdles to get over. Your followers and boss expect you to keep learning.
• #4 You need to work on gaining trust. Followers want trusting relationships with their leaders. As a new leader you’re not fully trusted yet. You need to prove you’re worthy and capable of being the group’s leader. Build trust is one of the first steps new leaders must take.
• #5 Build solid foundations. New leaders need solid fundamentals to be successful. At this stage you still lack experience and deep knowledge. Communicate clearly, provide effective feedback and focus on other basics to keep your team moving forward.
• #6 Leadership is about delivering results. You’re employed as a leader to deliver the organisation results. Contemporary leadership writing often emphasises the importance of managing leader-follower relationships; however, that is only part of what you need to do as a leader. As a new leader you need use your team to deliver results for the organisation. Don’t focus too heavily on keeping followers happy at the expense of your team doing its job.
• #7 Set challenging goals – For yourself and your team. New leaders are seen by organisational members to be most effective at utilising goals to inspire their team to achieve difficult tasks. Setting goals should be nothing new; however, now as a new leader you should be integrating positive workplace outcomes and assigning ‘team’ goals to groups.
• #8 Link strategic to tactical. New leaders should bridge the gap between senior decision makers and workers. Explain to your followers why changes are being implemented and why strategic aims are necessary. Employees are more likely to be committed to an organisational change if they understand the reason behind it. Greater commitment equals greater team performance.
• #9 Identify solutions, not problems. Never walk into your supervisor’s office with only a problem. Always bring with it a recommended a solution. Leaders analyse problems and identify potential solutions – So always bring a potential solution, even if it’s not fully developed yet.
• #10 Leaders make decisions. Leaders have the implicit need to make high quality and timely decisions. It’s a central component of being a leader. Employ a rational decision making model to enhance your decision making and empower yourself and your group.
• #11 Utilise your team’s knowledge and ability. Good leaders know when to involve their team or to ask for assistance. Participation in decision making and planning enhances team member’s performance and improves decision making. Equally as important, recognise when you need guidance.
• #12 Leaders share success. Share success with your team by recognising their efforts. It improves confidence and motivates future performance. It can be both formal or informal, public or private.
• #13 Look after yourself and your team. To achieve maximise results from your team, you need to ensure they are capable of achieving and maintaining maximum effort. Maximum performance requires a healthy leader and team, physically and mentally.