|
Team
Leader Challenge
As one's daily “to do”
list grows and grows, team leaders often forget to step back for a
moment and take a good hard look at how they are functioning as a team
leader. This Team
Leader Challenge provides leaders a vehicle for self-reflection.
Use the self-assessment
activities below to take an honest look at how you see yourself as a
leader. Isolate both your
leadership strong points and those skills that you feel you need to
strengthen. Keep in mind
that your goal is to boost your performance in a way that will work to
create a more productive and vibrant team.
Challenge
# 1. How strong of a leader are you?
Assess your overall leadership ability by self-evaluating ten
vital leadership skills.
Challenge
#2. Are
you actively engaged with your team?
You are a team leader but you are also an integral part of the
team. You not only establish
the team’s direction and standards, you also set its tone and model
team interaction. Assess
your personal participation as a team participant.
Challenge
#3. Are you meeting
your responsibilities as a team leader?
As a team leader you must clarify, establish, and sustain basic
team responsibilities. When
leaders fail to meet these basic responsibilities, teams will often not
perform up to their potential or expectations
Challenge
# 4. Do you model appropriate interpersonal skills?
On a daily basis leaders need to model interpersonal skills
appropriate for the work environment.
Frequently a team’s effectiveness is in direct proportion to
its leader’s ability to connect positively to its team members.
Challenge
# 5.
How do your team members view you as a leader?
It is important for team leaders to gauge
accurately how they come across to their team members. All too
frequently team leaders assume that they are perceived one way when in
reality the team members are seeing them very differently.
There are ten basic roles of a team leader.
Assess how your team sees you performing each of the essential
roles.
Challenge
# 6. What leadership
behaviors dominate your team interaction?
Analyze your daily actions with your team.
Are there some leadership behaviors that take up too much time or
detract from what you feel you should be doing?
Challenge # 7. Have you
covered basic team groundwork? When
building a team there is a basic foundation that needs to be laid.
Challenge
# 8.
How well do you mange change?
Business teams are continually changing whether they want it or
even know it. New personnel, new economic conditions, new needs, new
policy, new directives, etc. all add up to an ever-changing work
environment. Effective
team leaders understand the need for harnessing and directing change.
Assess your ability
to lead change.
Challenge
# 9.
Do you create an environment for team success?
Team leaders set a tone, model behavior, and create a team ethos.
This ethos can range from one that is vibrant and that encourages
team success to one that works against the stated goals of the team.
Assess the atmosphere for team success that you encourage.
Challenge
# 10. How well do you
communicate with your team? Each team leader has a unique
communication style with his or her team.
How effective is yours? Assess your communication skills by
creating a communication profile.
Challenge
# 11. How well do you
address team problems? As
a team leader you are continually putting out fires and solving
problems. It is important as
a team leader to understand how you approach problems.
Assess your method of problem solving.
Challenge
# 12. How well
do you make decisions? Decision
making is a process of deciding to move into the future following a
particular course of action. Because things are not always certain in
business, your team relies on your judgment and assessment as a decision
maker. Assess how you approach making decisions.
Challenge
# 13. How do you see your role as a team leader? Team leaders
are asked to play many different roles, depending on the situation and
the people involved. Assess
the many roles of leadership that shape your leadership
responsibilities.
|
