I’ve been doing quite a few interviews recently, and I am being asked a lot about team management as expected, but unexpectedly the majority of the answers that people are looking for are based around the core need to not hire a self centred horror and get someone who can help and support a team or project to hit deliverables.
This should be an absolute base line, but as it does not seem to be, here are the 6 most BASIC tips I implement when working as a team or department lead from the perspective of the people you are responsible for:
- Learn International public holidays. This is a simple one. Go to Google calendar or any major web calendar and load all of the public holidays for the countries of all people that you are responsible for, Learn the public holidays and do not be surprised when someone is not working that day, Bonus points if you can pronounce them and learn their relative importance in the year.
- Never use any variation of “Well if I’m in, you should be in as well” responsibility and work are nearly always linked to remuneration, or to put it more simply, you tend to be paid more than they are so they are not supposed to be doing as much as you.
- Don’t pit yourself against the more important real life things. Your monthly report is not more important than their only child’s graduation. Use your judgment rather than your ego.
- Learn to handle the truth. Anybody who is responsible to you should be able to bring you any related problem in confidence that you will work to make it better, you might be upset, you might even utter a few swear words, but you must not aim it at them, this is now a shared problem and your goal is to help them and to solve it. Do not scream at them, do not take out your anger, fear or whatever on them. They have brought you the truth, If you freak out no one will bring you the truth again. You will have proved yourself incapable of handling it.
- Do not allow familiarity to breed contempt, This is quite a common one. Someone does something amazing and everyone is impressed, but the next time they go that extra mile, people are less impressed and they get less praise, so now there’s now less reason for them to go above an beyond. Judge each time someone is amazing as a stand alone action, and if they do it a lot promote them or provide a longer term reward.
- Most importantly never ever, EVER throw them under a bus, you must stand in front of your team or department and take the hit if there is a major issue. after the problem as been resolved there might be repercussions internally, but you stand united and you back them during the time of the crisis against a third party.