22: Empower Team Members
TRANSCRIPT FOR EP22:
Welcome to Woman Leadership show. I'm Janet and in this episode, I will be sharing with you on how I empower my team members In my 20 years of corporate experience, I have colleagues who shared with me that they like to lead team and others don’t like to lead teams. Those who don’t like to lead teams told me that they do not like to handle conflicts, disagreements and problem team members. They rather be an individual contributor who focus on completing the tasks and not responsible for anyone and their results. As for some who loves to have teams, they shared that they like to have people under them doing the work for them so they keep their hands on. What it means for me to have teams. I think it is a responsibility of team leader, supervisor and manager to lead, grow and inspire the team to believe in team’s vision and goals. Without vision and goals, it is difficult to move together as a team and got everyone on the same bus. Though I was promoted to be a leader where it was not by choice but it has been an awesome journey for me in leadership role for more than 15 years. I do have my challenges with team members but who doesn’t? As a leader, we learnt a lot from others and it develop us to continue wanting to learn how to lead ourselves and others. As a leader, I would think is important to have both technical and softskills , the technical skills are less important when we move up to a more senior level for example a CEO would require more softskills than technical skills as he is managing a team under him both direct and indirect reports size depending on the organization.
As I am a hands on person and I learned a lot starting from the scratch and on the ground, I will be able to understand the challenges of the team and able to troubleshoot with them together and not seen as someone managing them but without knowledge of what is happening on the ground and it works. Once we are in leadership position, I would not be focusing doing operation work as my value is in engagement and managing stakeholder but I will still be able to understand the ground work and provide guidance to the team. In one of the company I worked for, the team I led had the highest engagement score in the department. There are some colleagues from another team would like to join me. They like what the team synergy and energy that we had as a team. By Empowering the team members means trusting them that they do their work well within the given timeframe and expectation, this is important in the team until someone breached the trust. If there is not trust in the team, there will be doubts creeping in slowly creating politics in the team and snowball into greater distrust and unhappiness. That will affect the productivity and impact the team results. Look for their strengths and focus on them and see how it can complement the team. In the team that I had led, there were some who were good at engaging stakeholders and facilitating training while others good at spreadsheets and operations. In one company, I tried to groom a team member to be facilitators and trainer, she even went to join toastmasters to improve her facilitation and speaking. After she tried for sometime, she realized that was not something she enjoyed doing and she moved on to do different areas which utilize her strengths which is in planning and organization. Give them time to explore and stretch them otherwise they would feel complacent and not having discover their other potential. I am a strong believer in grooming the team members towards their aspiration. Provide them opportunities to learn and have a growth mindset. There is a saying if you are not growing m you are dying. When they can see and feel a stronger why in what they do and how it contribute to others and organization in a broad picture, they will be more committed and willing to strive with the leader and team. I believe that when I empower the team members they would be more motivated and believe they can do a great job and bring out their inner potential. I hope that through my sharing, it draws inspiration and personal reflection for you. I believe every woman can be a leader in your own way. I look forward to seeing you in my next episode where I will be sharing with you tips and ways to realize your full potential as a leader on Woman Leadership.
Welcome to Woman Leadership show. I'm Janet and in this episode, I will be sharing with you on how I empower my team members In my 20 years of corporate experience, I have colleagues who shared with me that they like to lead team and others don’t like to lead teams. Those who don’t like to lead teams told me that they do not like to handle conflicts, disagreements and problem team members. They rather be an individual contributor who focus on completing the tasks and not responsible for anyone and their results. As for some who loves to have teams, they shared that they like to have people under them doing the work for them so they keep their hands on. What it means for me to have teams. I think it is a responsibility of team leader, supervisor and manager to lead, grow and inspire the team to believe in team’s vision and goals. Without vision and goals, it is difficult to move together as a team and got everyone on the same bus. Though I was promoted to be a leader where it was not by choice but it has been an awesome journey for me in leadership role for more than 15 years. I do have my challenges with team members but who doesn’t? As a leader, we learnt a lot from others and it develop us to continue wanting to learn how to lead ourselves and others. As a leader, I would think is important to have both technical and softskills , the technical skills are less important when we move up to a more senior level for example a CEO would require more softskills than technical skills as he is managing a team under him both direct and indirect reports size depending on the organization.
As I am a hands on person and I learned a lot starting from the scratch and on the ground, I will be able to understand the challenges of the team and able to troubleshoot with them together and not seen as someone managing them but without knowledge of what is happening on the ground and it works. Once we are in leadership position, I would not be focusing doing operation work as my value is in engagement and managing stakeholder but I will still be able to understand the ground work and provide guidance to the team. In one of the company I worked for, the team I led had the highest engagement score in the department. There are some colleagues from another team would like to join me. They like what the team synergy and energy that we had as a team. By Empowering the team members means trusting them that they do their work well within the given timeframe and expectation, this is important in the team until someone breached the trust. If there is not trust in the team, there will be doubts creeping in slowly creating politics in the team and snowball into greater distrust and unhappiness. That will affect the productivity and impact the team results. Look for their strengths and focus on them and see how it can complement the team. In the team that I had led, there were some who were good at engaging stakeholders and facilitating training while others good at spreadsheets and operations. In one company, I tried to groom a team member to be facilitators and trainer, she even went to join toastmasters to improve her facilitation and speaking. After she tried for sometime, she realized that was not something she enjoyed doing and she moved on to do different areas which utilize her strengths which is in planning and organization. Give them time to explore and stretch them otherwise they would feel complacent and not having discover their other potential. I am a strong believer in grooming the team members towards their aspiration. Provide them opportunities to learn and have a growth mindset. There is a saying if you are not growing m you are dying. When they can see and feel a stronger why in what they do and how it contribute to others and organization in a broad picture, they will be more committed and willing to strive with the leader and team. I believe that when I empower the team members they would be more motivated and believe they can do a great job and bring out their inner potential. I hope that through my sharing, it draws inspiration and personal reflection for you. I believe every woman can be a leader in your own way. I look forward to seeing you in my next episode where I will be sharing with you tips and ways to realize your full potential as a leader on Woman Leadership.