Who does what? Who actually does what? Who needs support? Who is struggling? Who is doing great but getting lazy because they aren’t learning anything? Who is overloaded? Who is being missed? Who needs a kick? These are the questions you need to ask yourself when taking stock of your team. This is what helps you understand who needs help, where and when and how to plan your strategy out to help them.
They want to know how they are doing. They want to know what they are doing wrong. They want to know where they need to get better. They want to know what to fix. So they crave it, in any form, they want it, all the time – feedback, not validation, not comments, but feedback – how do I get better? Tell me.
If all around you is stress, chances are you aren’t shipping much. Chances are you’re behind, you’re not on time and nothing is helping you move forward. It’s not for lack of effort, but rather because you’re focused on leading only one thing – stress. But, you can’t lead stress. You can manage stress – you can mitigate it, break it down, isolate its touch points, figure out what is causing it, and adjust from…
Leading Teams is not an easy endeavour. Nothing ever goes perfectly well and the person to blame will always be the leader. If you can handle and shoulder that blame as you take on a new challenge, as you pick up your feet and try again. You have the makings of a leader, that is in short supply, that your team needs.
Is it the person who called it? The one with the most seniority? The person who calls the meeting isn’t necessarily the one who’s going to lead it. Their role was to get everyone together, but who leads it? What are you discussing? What’s the problem you’re trying to solve? Start there, that’s your leader.