Nine tips on leading teams

1. Know yourself

Learn about your values, drivers, and limiting beliefs, and share these with your team.
Learn about the values, drivers and limiting beliefs of your team, and how they differ from your own. This will give you a much deeper understanding of how you can work together most effectively.
Ensure that your strengths coincide with the way that your organisation creates value.

2. Identify the most important things

Most leaders have more information than they could possibly need. Figure out the two or three things that really matter, and focus relentlessly on these.

3. Delegate well, delegate often

Delegate all decisions except those that are irreversible and highly consequential.
Be prescriptive about what you want you want someone to get done - why you want it done, and by when. But give people autonomy over the ‘how’.
When setting a complex task, set super clear instructions early on, and stay in regular contact. But don’t micromanage the process in between check-ins.

4. Balance ‘seeing the front’ with stepping back

Spend enough time at the coalface. One of the most valuable military tactics is the habit of ‘seeing the front’ before making decisions. It provides essential firsthand information, but also tends to improve the quality of secondhand information.
Equally, learn when to take a step back. This empowers overs, and gives you the space and time to think more strategically.

5. Acquire comfort with different leadership styles

A directive style can work well in a crisis, or with inexperienced team mates. But it can stifle autonomy the rest of the time.
A visionary style can inspire and chart a new direction. But as useful as this is on the ‘why’, it is often less strong on the ‘how’, which can lead to frustration and a lack of clarity.
An affiliative leader builds strong team connections and the resilience required to get through tough times. But if overused, teams can become low performing and fail to develop.
A democratic style elicits valuable input from team members, but can become inefficient, overly bureaucratic and risks being seen as an abdication of decision making responsibility.
A pace-setting style secures high standards, and can be good for short term motivation. But it can also lead to burnout, the creation of A and B teams, and an erosion of trust.
A coaching style helps team members build strengths and plug gaps, but can appear like micromanagement if such feedback is unexpected or unwelcome.

6. Set the right culture, and set it early

Dedicate the time needed to set your culture early on - nothing is more important.
Share every problem you can. Encourage free flowing information - not ‘bring me a solution as well as a problem.’
Praise specifically. Criticise generally.
A key aspect of culture is psychological safety - a climate in which people feel comfortable to speak up with potentially controversial ideas or questions.
Another is honesty, which starts with you. When you make a mistake, own it.
Live by your values, and plaster them everywhere.
Absorb stress. Don’t reflect it onto your team.
Express appreciation to your colleagues. Most people are bad at this, even though they themselves crave acknowledgment of their own efforts.
Praise good effort and process - not the final result.

7. Set the right systems, and set them early

Future proof your organisation by thinking about the systems you’ll need in place three years down the line, and setting them up now.
When making decisions as a group, get everyone to write down their own decisions before any group discussion, to ensure you get their honest initial assessment and a broader diversity of views.

8. Get really good at making decisions

Leaders don’t always need to have the answer right away. Acquire comfort with taking your time.
See this separate post on good decision making for further thoughts on how to make good decisions.

9. Inspire through a vision

Have the courage to communicate a vision that can inspire others.
A vision is the ‘why’ - the thought process behind your actions. Communicate this at every opportunity.

Further reading

Leadership, Michael Lombardi

Can You Pass a CEO Test?, New York Times Corner Office