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“Organizations are not limited by their opportunities; they are limited by their leader.” — Dave Ramsey
When Mike started his marketing business he was a one-man band. He used his life savings to fund the business for the first year. His business grew to the point where he had several departments with key leaders heading those departments. Then, he hit a wall. The business stalled.
The crisis: Mike was still acting autonomously. He did not know how to delegate and properly manage his team, which led to micromanagement.
How do you lead your team?
The second biggest mistake that leaders make when working with others is either under or over-supervising – either abdicating or micromanaging. When leading and managing others, it’s most effectively done in the context of coaching. It’s about providing encouragement, support and direction to enable team members to reach their full potential. This leadership approach is closely aligned with servant leadership.
In the context of coaching, there are four ingredients to increase the capacity of your business.
- Resource
Your team needs to know their job responsibilities. What are their goals and how do they contribute to the success of the organization? What tools do they need to most effectively perform their job responsibilities? Team members who know what they need to do and have the tools to do their jobs are more capable and successful.
- Accountability
It’s not sufficient just to resource your team, you need to hold them accountable for results. It’s important to clearly communicate your expectations to your team and to check in frequently to ensure they are working on the right priorities. Then focus on outcomes and not activity. We have a responsibility to motivate team members to achieve their very best.
- Listen
When you are meeting one-on-one with a team member, do you dominate the conversation? In order to help team members grow we need to ask questions rather than provide answers. When we help team members come to the solution on their own, it leads to their growth and they then own the solution.
- Support
Many times team members know what to do and how to do it, but they may run into obstacles. Perhaps it’s another team member or department that is being obstinate or is not willing to do what needs to be done. This is where your support to help break through those obstacles is invaluable.
Sometimes, you may say, “Work it out among yourselves.” In the real world that doesn’t always work. Occasionally you need to get involved to remove the roadblocks.
By implementing these four ingredients you will have a more effective and engaged leadership team, which will enable you to grow the capacity of your business. In the last blog post, I teed this up as one of the three leadership challenges that stall growth.
Which ingredient is the easiest for you to implement? Which is the hardest?