Team Leaders/Managers
There are two types of delusional non-managers:
1 People who have always viewed a management role as a ‘privilege without responsibility’. They get the bigger salary and the executive car parking space, and believe their job will be easy because people will automatically respect their rank and status. These people can usually be spotted by their absence! When they are around they have a tendency to ‘throw their weight around’; they bluster and coerce their staff to do their bidding, which often has more to do with bolstering their own egos than with achieving any meaningful objectives.
2 People who genuinely believe they are ‘managing’ but are really getting in the way of people doing their jobs. These people can usually be spotted by their constant calls for progress reports, their insistence on holding meetings in which nothing is agreed, and their micro-management of staff in the mistaken belief that they are somehow “helping”. They regularly introduce new initiatives, but rapidly lose interest in them.
If you have ever seen the TV sitcom called ‘The Office’ (either the original British version or the US spin-off) you will recognize the delusional type described here!
Your team will soon notice if you are a delusional team manager.
1.5 Check that you have some followers
If leadership is ‘the relationship between those who choose to lead and those who choose to follow’, then it is as important for a team to have followers as it is for the team to have a leader.
‘Followership’, however, is seldom an act of blind faith and unquestioning obedience (at least not in business), but a set of behaviours and characteristics that have been summed up by Keith Morgan (2005), who identified key elements that underpin effective followership.
• Effective followers know what’s expected of them; they make sure that their role/tasks have been clearly communicated to them and that they are clear about their responsibilities.
• Effective followers seek to establish and maintain lines of two-way communication to reduce the risk of unclear messages.
• Effective followers take initiative, keeping their leader informed. This is not just about personal action but may involve influencing other people.
• Effective followers challenge flawed plans. This is one of the most valuable contributions that can be made by an effective follower. It is also one of the most difficult, since there is a risk of appearing negative, or distrustful of the leader’s judgement.
“There go the people. I must follow them, for I am their leader”
Attributed to Ledru-Rollin (1807–74), French radical politician
• Effective followers provide accurate feedback to their leader and their colleagues. This means providing both good and bad news in a timely, diplomatic and honest way.
• Effective followers support the leader’s efforts – all leaders need support and encouragement. This also means acting as advocates among their peer group and attempting to quash rumours.
It is a managerial responsibility to create an environment that encourages followership. This table summarizes the ideal conditions and behaviours of the followers and manager:
Effective ‘followership’ is a prerequisite of effective team management.
1.6 Manage a cross-functional team
Many teams are cross-functional: they are made up of people from different departments or functions or even organizations. In this situation, each person has a part-time role on this team and another job elsewhere. It is crucial that you take this into account.
If your team members have another regular role elsewhere, then they also have a regular line manager, regular teammates, regular objectives and regular loyalties. This is referred to as a ‘matrix organization’. The different lines of management and responsibilities make it much easier for people to become overloaded, distracted or confused, and conflicts of interest are much more likely.
In order to minimize the likelihood of problems with a cross-functional team, you need to work hard on six areas of your management skills. You will notice that the initial letters of these skill areas spell TOPCAT.
• T = Team building. You have to work really hard at this because your team members are already members of other teams. They already have a team identity and team loyalties elsewhere and these continue throughout the lifetime of your team. You need to balance getting them involved in your team without appearing to be trying to break them away from their other teams.
• O = Objective setting. You not only have to set clear, unambiguous SMART objectives (see Jargon buster), but you have to do this in conjunction with the objectives and deadlines that your team members have in their other teams. This requires constant review and adjustment as well as extra liaison with team members and their other bosses.
• P = Performance feedback. No one wants to be unappreciated, especially when a team member might be unpopular with their line manager for being ‘absent-on-duty’ with your team. Therefore, performance feedback is critical. If people are doing well, tell them (also tell their line manager). If they are not doing so well ask them what else they need from you in order to perform.
• C = Communication. If you don’t see your team members on a day-to-day basis, or they don’t see each other each day, you have to keep everyone informed of activities, successes, problems, solutions, changes and everyday news. But you have to avoid overloading people who might be getting similar updates from their other teams!
• A = Arbitration. You can’t expect your team members to negotiate for your benefit with their other boss; you are going to have to do a lot of arbitration for your team members’ time and resources. You will have to do this at the outset, when you set objectives, and frequently throughout the life of the team.
• T = Tackling conflict. Life in a matrix organization is full of potential conflict. You are naturally going to feel that your team is the most important, while every other manager is naturally going to feel the same way about their team!
Be a TOPCAT to manage a cross-functional team successfully.
If you are lucky you will be able to hand-pick people for your team. Otherwise, you will have to work with whoever is allocated. Either way, it is your responsibility to create ‘esprit de corps’. This French term means a ‘spirit of belonging in a group’.
