Leadership – Ramping It Up With Your Team

Over the span of my corporate career, I learned that as a leader, it sometimes is a significant challenge to get your team to share your passion and desire to ramp it up and take it to the next level. You can sometimes end up in a fierce struggle to either push them or pull them over the goal line. Neither of those approaches were my first choice, although I did have to do some of both. It sometimes ends up that we settle for something less or worse – and we give up trying to lead and end up just managing.

The scope of the projects I was asked to lead were significant – i.e. creating regional service centers; consolidating operations; launching new product lines. Regardless of the scope or size of the project, the steps needed to “lead” were identical to those to be followed in smaller projects. When mentoring other executives, these steps always found their way into our discussions on leadership and ways to effectively boost team performance. These same discussions have relevance today as I coach business owners on what they need to do to lead their team. Here are the five key steps you should be taking to lead -

1. understand realty and make sure your team does also – explain why the “status quo” needs to change
2. show them the way (the vision and the plan) step by step so they know what needs to be done; their role in it and why each step is important – the vision is the target and achieving it should fuel the fire within your team members
3. spell out the timetable and the milestones to measure progress (and the consequences of not meeting the targets)
4. show no fear (or as I once heard – “never bleed in the shark tank”); let your passion shine and (this is really important) never offer or accept excuses
5. Get going – measure progress; acknowledge the desired actions by your team members and say “thank you” to them during and at the end of the project

Many years ago (about 38 years ago) I read the following statement on a full page ad in the Wall Street Journal from HP – “People want to be lead instead of managed”.  That statement was the beginning of my personal journey to be the best leader I could possibly be – it worked for me and can for you, if you want it to. Think about it.

Tags: leadership business management coaching