Being Effective Team Leader - Chetan Kelkar

In my opinion an effective team leader should have the following:

1. Create his own identity, make his presence felt.
In my opinion this is very vital – unless the person makes a mark on his team the team respects the him – it would be very difficult in the longer run to lead a team.

2. Lead by example.
Believe me – this is what great leaders have done – not a single successful guy is left out.  It doesn’t serve any better to be late to office yourself but expect others to be on time. Neither it makes any sense to expect any performance if one does not perform himself.

3. Understand his team.
What can one do if he fails to understand the people he is dealing with? Every individual team mate is a different persona and has his own sets of ideas, ideologies, things that he respects, things that he likes or dislikes along with any other whims and fancies that he might have.

4. Open to accept shortcomings.
The team lead should accept his team mates with no inhibitions. One must always remember that not every team member is graced by smartness or intelligence levels of Einstein’s.

5. Plan for improvement.
If individual team mates improve their individual skill sets – team performance has to improve. After all an individual is the level that drives the team. An effective team leader should always plan for improvement within his current team and also set some realistic and achievable goals for improvement on the individual levels after due discussions in person with the team mates.

6. Bridging communication barriers / gaps.
If you want to get out the best out of a team – bridge the gaps in communication within the team mates – this is like a rule and must be done. An effective Team leader should always encourage honest and open communication within team mates. 95% of the issues are driven away by open communication – the rest 5% is the ego.

7. Define clear expectations.
An effective team leader would always set out clear cut expectations from his team. More importantly he should ensure that the expectations set are accepted by the team and should look for problem areas or areas of conflict.

8. Confront problems – let peace prevail.
Peaceful operations – its really  vital for the team to be able to perform and that can only happen if conflicts are avoided or at best confronted and peace prevails.  Avoiding is like taking a pill for headache – the headache will go away, only to return back again. Confronting problems is the best way to approach inter-team conflicts. Either resolve them on your own level or escalate to concerned authorities.