How to be a good team leader –
What we're covering..
Introduction 👋
The saying goes that “people don’t leave bad jobs – they leave bad managers”, and it couldn’t be more true.
Research has found that 57% of people have left at least one job because of a bad manager!
Whether you’re a team leader at work, home, or school, it’s great to learn how to manage people.
There is a lot of pressure on team leaders to perform well.
As difficult as the job can be, leading a team can help you to:
- climb up the career ladder at work 🪜
- get other people to help you reach your goals 🏆
- create new ideas 🧠
- save time when getting things done ⌚
- make work better quality than if you did it alone ✨
- get more work done 📈
But how do you actually lead a team? 🤷♀️
Here are our top tips for being the best team leader. 👑
1. Be a good team player 🏀
In our article Teamwork makes the dream work! How to work well in a team 🧑🤝🧑 we explain the following tips on how to work well in a team.
As a good team leader you should want your team to feel like you’re still part of the team – which means following the same rules as your team players do.
To work well in a team, you should:
- Listen👂
- Be kind 🤝
- Encourage others 👍
- Be proactive 🏋️♀️
- Be positive ☀️
- Celebrate diversity 🌍
- Make decisions together 🧠
- Set clear responsibilities 📃
- Set clear goals 🏆
- Communicate clearly 🔊
2. Keep balanced workloads ⚖️
As a leader, you want your team to be as productive as possible. 👩🏭
BUT
Push too hard, and your team might struggle, and start to lose trust in you. 😒
If you’re constantly making demands of your team and promoting an unhealthy workload, you might find your team members getting burned out and distancing themselves from the team. 🥴
Try to keep a good balance of fun and work to keep your team enthusiastic and productive. 🤹♀️
3. Give credit 🏅
Some of the biggest frustrations team members can have is:
- not receiving recognition for their hard work 🤷♀️
- feeling like you’ve taken credit for their work 😒
As a team leader, it’s really important for you to support and encourage your team to achieve the best that they can.
4. Show integrity 💖
In order to be a good team leader, your team needs to be able to trust you.
You can show integrity to your team by doing things like:
- Being honest
- Keeping your promises ✅
- Leading by example
- Making fair decisions 👩⚖️
- Treating everyone fairly and not showing favoritism
- Be transparent – if you’re giving people bad news, be open about it!
5. Be open-minded 🧠
The great thing about having a team around you, is that you will also get:
- new ideas 🤩
- opportunities to improve things 🛠️
- people who can tell you when you’re wrong or making a mistake 🙋♀️
- people who will try and change things, to make them better 👷♀️
Change can be uncomfortable, and push you out of your comfort zone. 😬
But in order to make the most of all the good changes your team can bring, you need to be open-minded, and willing to try new things.
This means
- Letting your team fail (and not blaming them for trying!) 👎
- Listening to new ideas 👂
- Trying new ways of working 🧪
Being open-minded can help your team to trust you, and feel safe enough to take risks that could benefit the team. 🧠
6. Protect your team 🛡️
In a workplace, your team can be constantly under pressure from things like:
- other people adding to their workloads 📈
- conflict with other teams 💣
- home life stress 🏡
- relationship issues 💔
- struggling to manage work/life balance ⚖️
As a team leader, it’s your job to protect your team from these issues as far as possible. 🤺
You should protect, champion, and encourage your team, helping them to get
- exposure to different experiences 👩🏫
- recognition 🏆
- opportunities to grow 🌱
7. Share a vision 👀
There’s nothing more demoralizing for a team, than not knowing where you’re going 🧭🗺️
As a team leader, it’s your job to set a vision for the team, so they know what they’re working towards. 🛣️
8. Be compassionate 🥰
As a team leader it’s important to be compassionate and understanding for what your team are going through.
Your team will never get everything perfect all of the time, which means you need to have patience and empathy for their situations.
Research has shown that employees who work for compassionate managers are:
- 25% more engaged in their jobs 😍
- 20% more committed to the organization 🔗
- have an 11% lower risk of burnout 🔥
In order to be more compassionate as a team leader, you can do things like:
- Speak to your team with kindness and respect
- Be patient 🧘♀️
- Forgive your team for making mistakes
- Express gratitude and appreciation for your team 🙏
- Encourage your team
- Apologize when you’ve made a mistake 🙇♀️
- Listen carefully and without judgment
- Offer to help your team 🤝
- Celebrate your team’s success
- Accept your team for who they are 🤗
9. Keep it fun 🤹♀️
Just because you’re a manager, it doesn’t mean you have to lose your sense of humour!
Research has shown that:
- having a positive mindset can make you solve problems quicker. 🧩
- feeling positive can reduce your levels of stress hormones, making it easier to focus and process information. 🤓
So – being positive can make you smarter, and help your team to be smarter too! 🧠
You can help your team to be more positive by:
- celebrating successes 🎉
- complimenting team members on their good work 🙌
- treating challenges like an opportunity to learn 🤓
- making time to have fun with your team 🪅
- helping the team to resolve conflicts 🤝
10. Listen better than everyone else👂
As a team leader, it might feel like you need to always have the answers and always have something to say.
This isn’t true!
In fact, the opposite will often work better.
The best team leaders are the best listeners, making sure that everyone has room for their say. 💬
If you make others feel listened to, they’re also far more likely to listen to you. 🙌
To make sure that your team feel listened to:
- take a genuine interest in them 🤩
- ask them for feedback – always try and do better for them 🎤
- ask for their opinions on your plans 🤔
- make your team feel special – 133 ways to make someone feel special 💖
Conclusion 👍
So that’s it!
To be a good team leader, you should:
- Be a good team player 🏀
- Keep balanced workloads ⚖️
- Give credit 🏅
- Show integrity 💖
- Be open-minded 🧠
- Protect your team 🛡️
- Share a vision 👀
- Be compassionate 🥰
- Keep it fun 🤹♀️
- Listen better than everyone else👂
If you know any friends or family members who might benefit from learning about how to work well in a team, share this post with them!
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