Many leaders provide elaborate high-potential programs and only mediocre development opportunities for the rest. That's a shaky foundation. Transformed leaders need to tirelessly align and coach team members. Consistent high-performing businesses hold leaders accountable for developing team members. Leaders who actively coach are well-positioned to quickly redeploy talent to meet shifting business requirements. Learn how to coach as a leader.
Are you boosting or kneecapping your team's creative efforts?
Teresa Amabile, the Edsel Bryant Ford Professor of Business administration at Harvard Business School, recently completed a study based on the daily electronic diaries collected from 238 professionals working directly with a team leader on one of 26 project teams in 7 companies from 3 different industries. Her research found that good team leaders:
- Clarify roles and objectives - giving people a clear sense of overall project objectives, why the project is important; avoiding changing assignments or objectives frequently, and giving assignment inappropriate to person's skill level or that conflict with other manager's instructions.
- Recognise and reward good work - giving tangible rewards eg higher pay as well as simple recognition, especially public recognition
- Support people - show support in people's actions and decisions, help relieve unnecessary stress, address negative incidents, thoughts & feelings, rather than ignoring them.
Are you an effective team leader? If not, make that your transformational leadership priority.
ACTION: Excel in these four leadership transformation priorities:
- Executive, develop thyself.
- Correct cultural corruption.
- Drive productivity and innovation through engagement.
- Make talent management a business priority.
Priorities aren't real until resources are applied to them. What resources are you applying to your leadership transformation priorities?
Bibliography
Harvard Management Update, March 2007.
Four Priorities - Build Bonds with Stakeholders. By Christopher Rice, President & CEO, Blessing White, 2007
Leadership Behaviours Profile. Team Management Services, 2007