We know the age-old story that the best, most committed workers get promoted, because they’re so good, and it is assumed that, because they are good at the job, they will be able to guide and lead others. Despite knowing that to be a myth, how many of your team leaders are that person?
Well, here is another piece to add. Often, the biggest sticking point is not that they don’t yet know how to lead or manage their team, it’s really that they don’t know how to let go of doing the job and leave it to the others.
We create teams or working groups when the workload exceeds what one person can accomplish. When one person is appointed Team Leader, their job can be viewed as the output and responsibility of the whole team.
So without training or instructions to the contrary, the newly appointed team leader tends to share the work, including themselves in the mix. And because of the supervisory responsibility, they frequently become the busiest, most overloaded person in the team, especially if their team mates are happy to “manage (the work) upwards.”
What they fail to notice is they are no longer available for leading duty.
The wise (or educated) team leader recognizes their responsibility is to ensure the team’s job gets done. If they can successfully share all the work out amongst their colleagues, they become free to support them in achieving it.
It is in the team leader’s and the company’s best interests to ensure team members have all the resources they may need. The team leader as a supply line.
Although we tend to think of time, money, materials, more people or equipment as resources, there are other even richer sources to be tapped. The time commitment and focus of enlightened leaders. An individual’s supply of inner resources, such as enthusiasm, curiosity, ingenuity and willingness to share and co-operate.
Commitment, trust, empathy, openness to experiment, to admit mistakes and learn from them. These are available in constant supply when a team leader makes it their job to nurture them. Thankfully, there is a way to nurture and grow such resources. Coaching!
Coaching can, but does not have to be, a formal, therapy-like session of agreeing goals or objectives, exploration of blockages, development of options and action plans. It is and can be more an attitude or way of thinking designed to encourage learning-by-doing-on-the-job.
A set of principles that says:
I avoid telling, giving answers, advice or solving problems, which rob my colleagues ruthlessly of their right to learn for themselves and to own what they learn.
I give my attention, ask questions to prompt my colleagues to question themselves, and provoke curiosity so that solutions are theirs.
I share openly information and my own experiences to encourage and support co-operation.
I consider feedback as a gift by prompting and guiding self-feedback as if from an interested observer’s point of view.
I only offer suggestions in the form of “what would happen if…?” questions.
I serve my team members to help them succeed.
I trust their judgement and support them when they slip.
When your team leaders, supervisors and managers are trained and adopt these principles, a kind of magic happens. About 90 years ago, the famous Hawthorne experiments at General Electric in the US established a very simple rule that people’s performance improves when their managers show interest in them. And Douglas McGregor suggested in the 1950s with his Theory X & Y of motivation that people like to work, take responsibility and contribute creatively to solving problems when they are encouraged. Other theories have developed those concepts further, but the fundamental principles still apply.
Coaching can achieve both enhanced performance and intrinsic motivation, because of those principles and much more. When team leaders think and operate like coaches, they release much of their own stress by recognizing they themselves do not need all the answers. And even more, when they do know the answers, instead of implementing them they insist on drawing them out of their team members, everyone grows, not only in output, but in engagement, mutual trust, learning and collaboration. Good people stay when they feel valued and respected.
So many businesses and organizations have placed trust in performance management systems, buying into old myths already debunked so long ago that people are motivated by money and bonuses. The pattern of set performance objectives, neglect for several months, appraise performance and disappoint only ever motivated those few who received highest rankings. This focus on individual assessment also undermined by its very nature, co-operation and teamwork.
Coaching is genuine performance management, because the Coach is active not only in setting and agreeing objectives, but in following progress, giving attention and encouraging learning and solution seeking. The skills of coaching are those of genuine communication, intelligent conversation and the surest route of access to the mining of those precious internal resources inside every individual. Coaching is the modern leadership imperative.
