Leadership skills for effective teams and success in the workplace

Successful organisations are made up of teams. They are quite literally the building blocks of an organisation. So if you want to run a successful business or move up the ladder in your sector in 2023, then you need to be thinking about leadership skills and effective team management. Naturally, as you grow your business or progress in your profession you will start to take on more responsibilities and these are likely to include managing other colleagues. Therefore it is imperative that you develop leadership skills as early in your career as possible. So that you’re prepared for business growth or right in line for that promotion when the opportunity arises.

In this article we will go over the fundamentals of what it takes to put together and lead an effective team in the workplace.

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Setting clear goals and objectives

If you want to be a good team leader you must have a clear goal in mind. You also need to put clear objectives in place that you and your team can strive for on the way to achieving this goal. If everyone in a team shares a sense of direction they will cooperate more efficiently. This is because they are motivated by the fact that they share the same goal. Setting clear goals in the beginning will also provide a sense of accomplishment for everyone involved at the end. If your goals are too ambiguous then it will be more difficult to track your progress and your colleagues might also be less motivated to work with you.

Communicating effectively and openly

Effective communication is a vital skill that everyone in the workplace should be trying to improve, but especially if you are pursuing a leadership position. You must be open and honest when communicating with your team and encourage them to do the same when working with each other. Ideally you will foster a working environment that encourages your team to be honest in their feedback, criticism and support of ideas. The last thing you want is to trip up over something when you’re so close to your goal, just because someone didn’t feel comfortable opening up about it, out of fear of making you angry etc. Whilst you might be tempted to blame them for not coming forward with the issue, it is also your fault for not making it absolutely clear that honesty is always the best policy. It’s not enough just to be good at communicating your own ideas, you need to be a good listener and someone that people feel comfortable communicating with.

Diversity and Inclusion

If you want to maximise your team’s performance you need to be thinking about diversity and inclusion. It’s very simple, your team is made of individuals from different backgrounds. These individuals will have different perspectives on life and bring different skills to the table. It is in your best interest as a leader to diversify your team members and to include people from a wide range of backgrounds, cultures, beliefs etc. The more variation you have, the more skills you have available to you. However, it is also important not to diversify too much in terms of skill sets. You can have as much diversity as you want in terms of individuals and their cultural backgrounds. But if you are striving for a very specific goal you are going to need a team with a very specific set of skills. In other words, having too much diversity can be a hindrance as sometimes you’ll need a more specialised team.

Collaboration and Cooperation

Effective teams rely on collaboration and cooperation to reach their common goal. As team leader you need to oversee this cooperation and do everything you can to make it as smooth and efficient as possible. You might have noticed by now how some of these skill sets can overlap. For example, your team will only collaborate effectively if you have fostered a working environment where communication is open and honest. Cooperation also allows team members to strengthen their working relationships with each other and develop trust and confidence in their teams abilities.

Flexibility and Adaptability

In order to lead an effective team you need to be able to adapt to unexpected situations. Things will not always go exactly as planned and when this happens you need to be flexible in order to adapt and move forward. This is a mindset that you must implement as a team leader because your colleagues’ reaction to a situation will depend on your initial reaction. If you lose the plot at the first unexpected hurdle then your team is less likely to adapt and overcome the situation. If you panic, they will panic. If you are calm and collected, your team will react accordingly. It is essential that your team is open minded and ready to embrace new ideas at a moment’s notice. The easiest way to ensure this is to be open minded with your team and to their ideas. If you can do this then you and your team will be able to pivot quickly when faced with new challenges.

A team is only as effective as its leader

In this article we have gone over the fundamentals of running an effective team in the workplace. We have gone over how the team needs to interact and cooperate in order to achieve its goal. However none of these team skills matter if you do not possess them yourself as the team leader. You need to properly understand and develop leadership skills in order to take on more responsibility in the workplace and start building the future you want for yourself. 

Are you ready to lead your business team to success? Or perhaps you want to be in line for that management position at work? Either way, you will need to become a strong leader. Let’s chat about how we can make this happen for you with career leadership coaching.