Building A Winning Team

Technical Leadership Capabilities

Brian Sutton, Robina Chatham

• Publisher: BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781780173696
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Leadership
• Index: Business

The development of technical leadership capabilities is often overlooked as a training requirement in organisations but skills such as critical thinking and knowing when and how to exert your influence are key to business success.In this book management experts Brian Sutton and Robina Chatham describe and explain five management techniques to help you develop your leadership capabilities and build a winning team. With real life examples, tips and mini exercises, you'll also boost your soft skills as you steer your team to success.

1 HELPING YOUR TEAM TO SEE YOUR VALUE TO THEM AS A LEADER

The focus of this chapter is helping your team to see your value to them as a leader. This involves learning to listen more than speak, to ask rather than tell, to open doors so people can shine, becoming attuned to the unusual or unexpected and above all making sure credit for good things always lands in the right place.

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?

Many IT people get promoted to a leadership position because they are good at their current job and that job is likely to be a technical one. The role of a leader is, however, very different from that of a ‘doer’. Often IT people are expected to perform as a leader with little training, guidance or preparation and just to make this even more difficult, there are seldom good role models to follow. Sometimes you may find yourselves having to lead former ‘workmates’ and, other times, you may find yourself leading very intelligent technicians with little respect, or regard, for the leadership role. As you become a more experienced leader, you also become more distant from your technical roots and soon find that the people in your team know much more than you do about the technical aspects of their job. Whatever your circumstances, you need to earn the respect of your team.

Leadership is an art, rather than a science; it is not just about process and procedure: it is about communication, influence, teamwork and the ability to inspire and motivate others. It is about keeping your eyes open and your hands off, rather than your eyes down and your hands on. It is about asking the right questions, rather than searching for or providing the right answers.

THE IMPACT OF THE ISSUE

If your staff don’t respect you or your role as their leader, you will not get the best out of them and sometimes you will get the very worst due to boredom, frustration or simply because ‘they can’t be bothered’.

If you are ineffective in your leadership role the organisation will have suffered a double whammy; it will have lost a valuable team member while gaining a poor leader. Principal reasons for this include:

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Poor communication – staff don’t know what is expected of them or how they are meant to do it.

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Lack of teamwork – staff expend effort in ‘doing their own thing’; there are no guiding principles to bring the individual members of the team together.

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Lack of a shared and compelling vision – there isn’t anything for the team members to believe in; no group purpose or vision to see where they are heading.

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Lack of urgency – there is no drive, energy or motivation to perform and achieve.

MAKING SENSE OF IT ALL

Leadership is not about having all the answers or always being right; in fact one of the best ways of gaining trust from your team is to openly demonstrate some humility. Increasingly this is being termed ‘Humble Leadership’ and is characterised by a willingness to admit mistakes, empower followers and take risks for the greater good (that includes putting the needs of your organisation or team before your own needs).

Remember your success rests on the willingness of your team to volunteer their energy and initiative to your cause. Telling them what to do may produce short-term compliant behaviour but gaining their trust and releasing their potential is the only sure way of producing long-term commitment and results.

Your first duty should always be the welfare and growth of the people in your care. You should aim to create a climate in which others can shine.

HELPING A TEAM MEMBER

A new project manager saw an opportunity to support one of his team members. Bill was a brilliant technician with great ideas but was highly introverted and sought the background rather than the foreground. This lack of visibility meant that nobody outside the team knew how good he was. Bill’s project manager helped him create a ‘personal brand’ highlighting his values, the reason to believe in him, the benefits of working with him and what made him unique. He also worked to help Bill see how his knowledge and insight related and contributed to wider issues within the business. As Bill started to engage more openly in the team his project manager worked to give him the opportunity to ‘live his brand’, first by sharing his ideas within the team and, as his confidence grew, by inviting him to a number of meetings with business partners, not as the tame ‘techy expert’ but as a valued colleague who could add an extra dimension to understanding and solving key issues. This increased Bill’s visibility without ever stretching his comfort level too far. As wider exposure grew so did Bill’s self-confidence. Six months later Bill received a well-deserved promotion.

As the leader, you enjoy levels of organisational access that are not available to your team. You get to hear things that they don’t, you are invited into discussions that are closed to them and your level of organisational autonomy allows you to access resources and leverage relationships that can help your teams work with much less stress. Your team has to play the hand of cards that it is dealt, but your position allows you the opportunity to stack the deck slightly in its favour.

Learn to exercise your position and influence for the benefit of your team. Ensure your team members take the credit for their achievements and get the exposure that they deserve.

BRINGING DEVELOPMENT AND OPERATIONS TOGETHER

A new team leader told the story of how animosity between Development and Operations was getting in the way of his teams’ project implementations. He adopted the role of mediator or ‘marriage counsellor’, bringing the two sides together. The team leader facilitated a discussion whereby the Development manager agreed to follow the process as laid down by Operations willingly in exchange for a commitment from Operations to introduce a new ‘fast track’ process for urgent changes. Both parties were pleased with the outcome and general relations and results improved significantly.

PRACTICAL ADVICE

Successful team leadership requires you to simultaneously operate at multiple levels of both attention and abstraction. You need to be able to focus on important details whilst never losing sight of the greater goal; this ability to zoom in and zoom out is a key skill and not a simple one to master. You also need to exercise your influence and relationship-building skills in every direction: downwards, sideways and upwards.

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