I was speaking to a group of Project Managers recently. Before talking to any group, I conduct interviews with a cross-section of attendees to determine what they hope to gain from my session. To a person, the pre-event interviewees wanted to learn more about leading teams of peers.
As Project Managers, it is a fundamental part of their role to lead teams of people with different pay grades, levels of responsibility, authority, and roles to achieve success with whichever project they have been assigned.
‘hat said,’ we know the ‘iron-fist’ or the ranting & raving like a lunatic leadership styles do not work even when there is a clear line of command. They certainly won’t work when there is a dotted-line or matrixed relationship, like a project team.
The only difference between you and your colleague, your team, is that you’re in charge and someone is holding your project’s table for the project’s success. To achieve your goals, you’ll be expected to motivate, facilitate, encourage, communicate effectively, build trust, and resolve conflicts with the diverse team members.
How?
1. Set a positive foundation.
- Establish a relaxed environment where everyone is encouraged to share opinions and ideas.
- Ask for input from everyone, and encourage quieter members to speak up.
- Use active listening skills, like paraphrasing and asking questions for clarification.
- Insist on respect for one another and, for tasks taking a lot of time and effort, consider developing a team to define your team’s goals and how the team will work.
- Use participative decision-making tools, and try to ensure active involvement and commitment from the team.
2. Empower Team Members
- Leaders who give power to others can be very influential and motivating. It’s praise wherever it’s due.
3. Be Flexible.
- A heavy-handed approach can cause resentment and non-compliance in a team of peers.
- Adapt to the changing environment.
- A flexible leadership style can deal with changing circumstances without compromising your leadership role.
- You need to help your team adjust to changes in direct circumstances, which are your top priority.
- When you’re open to change, they’ll see that, and they’ll be more likely to accept change.
4. Set Goals:
- Having a clear direction is essential.
- If there’s no central direction to follow, team members will have their own perspectives that could lead your team down very different paths.
- It is much easier to keep people working together effectively if objectives are clear.
5 Support and Protect Your Team
Each team member may have a regular job in addition to their team-specific tasks. This means that commitment to your team may be a secondary priority. As the one who is ultimately accountable, concentrate on getting the support and resources your team needs to do the job well.
Focus on these three key areas:
– Obtain resources – Your team may quickly lose momentum if it encounters a resource shortage. If you get your team what it needs – when the team needs it – your status, influence, and ability to motivate can increase significantly.
– Manage stakeholders – Many people outside your team may team-slashingly influence the team’s success. First, you may encounter outside resistance from various sources.
One way to gain the respect of your team is to shield it from harmful outside influences, allowing team members to produce exceptional work.
– Obtain management feedback – Ensure that management knows what’s going on and that your team knows what management thinks. This can be a delicate task because you don’t want to overwhelm the recipient with too much information. Figure out what each side needs to know to remain satisfied, and then provide it.