A team leader is someone who provides guidance, instruction, direction and leadership to a group of individuals for the purpose of achieving key results.
The effective team leader has a number of highly relevant skills and behaviours at their disposal. A natural inclination towards leadership is a brilliant start, but beyond that they must have a well-practised and reliable skill-set that they know when and where to draw on in order for their team to be highly effective!
Some of these skills and behaviours are listed below:
Clear Communicator
Whilst regular communication is important, it’s just as important to make sure that this communication is effective. An awareness of the ‘communication cycle’ – how messages are ‘encoded’, passed along a ‘channel’ and subject to ‘noise’ – for example, can be of great benefit for both sides of the conversation.
Being aware of barriers to communication like jargon, perceptions and expectations only increases the consistency and speed of communications being processed and their messages acted on.
Confident Decision Maker
The very best teams work proactively and independently, but they still look to their leader for direction and decisions. The ability to assess options for suitability and practicality, collect and reflect on their team’s opinions and views is essential for any effective team leader to succeed.
Well Organised
Between meetings, projects, workloads and emails, team leaders have a lot to keep in-hand. They have to be on the ball at all times and let as few things as possible take them by surprise. Strong time management and organisational skills are a must.
Delegation Station
Delegation doesn’t mean giving away your work and putting your feet up, it’s about making sure the right people are working on the things that you can’t. Delegating effectively is subtle, and involves coaching team members through tasks and making sure everyone is pulling their weight, and pulling in the same direction.
Sector industry groups and professional qualification bodies have worked together to develop a new Standard of knowledge, skills and behaviours required by Team Leaders in support of the contemporary challenges they face.
Eliesha delivers a development programme for the Level 3 Team Leader/Supervisor Management Apprenticeship Standard. This is recognised as an effective and high-quality programme, developing important team leadership and management skills. The training delivery is blended and rooted in the evidencing of new skills and behaviours in the workplace. The programme effectively manages and accounts for the 20% ‘off-the-job’ requirement and can be paid for with Levy funds.
We can also deliver programmes for the Level 5 Operations/Departmental Manager Standard and offer a range of other training interventions in support of Team Leadership and improved performance skills.
So, whatever challenges you have, contact us now to arrange an open, exploratory conversation about them, and how we can help.
