Written by: Tim Rylatt, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Being the business owner in a small or medium-sized enterprise (SME) means it is highly likely you will have responsibility for everything from operations, sales, marketing, finance, HR, and much more!
However, two particularly crucial roles influence the performance and culture of your business; those of being the leader, and the manager!
This is because no matter how good your systems are, your premises look, or your services or products sound, they are not what make it all hold together! An effective, energised, and efficient team is the vital glue that enables success, and their engagement and enthusiasm to give their best is the direct consequence of how you perform as a leader and as a manager.
What is the difference between team leadership and management?
Despite the fact these two roles are often grouped together, they are very different.
Management is the enablement of and insistence that the team delivers performance to a required standard. This provides motivation.
Leadership on the other hand is about enthusing and encouraging the team to deliver high performance above the required standard. This inspires.
The best managers have both management and leadership skills, and great leaders recognise the challenges and needs of managers to deliver inspiration to the wider team. The true objective of leadership is to develop the next generation of leaders.
The fear of being seen as micro-managing
There are many challenges that team managers in SMEs have to handle, from different generational expectations of the workplace through to HR needs, conflict management and talent retention.
When you are a skilled technician as well as the owner of the business, managing a team who don’t do things exactly as you would yourself can be a mental barrier to overcome. This is even harder to get past if you previously completed this function within the business and now need to delegate it to someone else.
This can create a tendency to ‘micro-manage’ or do things yourself as it appears to be ‘quicker’ than training someone else to do it. On the flip side it is perceived that micro-management is not a good team leadership skill to have (at least ongoing), and there is a fear of being seen as a micro-manager yourself.
You end up being stuck between a rock and a hard place, and your business’ and team’s performance suffers as a result.
Whilst management through leadership inspiration, true engagement, and passion are great, there are also occasions where closer oversight, direction, and accountability are required. Closer management, temporarily, can also be important for developing the performance of certain less engaged individuals.
Therefore both inclinations are correct, but need to be met in the middle in reality, and this is where systemisation comes in to help you out.
Using systemisation to release the potential of your team leadership skills
I work with lots of clients on developing their business, systems, procedures, and toolkits to document a clear roadmap of what happens when, by whom, and what tools are needed at each point.
Once created, and the team has been trained on this, functions can be delegated, expectations on standards set, and benchmarks for performance established. This systemisation helps to establish consistency, reduce reliance on single linchpins in the company, and enable the business owner to become more independent.
In summary, systemisation is something that facilitates your team and allows management (and leadership) to become simpler and more effective.
What are the skills of a good team leader?
Systemisation gives you the foundation from which your team leadership skills can flourish. Once you are in that position, it then comes down to your skills.
I’d highlight 5 key skills of a good team leader. Each of these are things that can be constantly developed and improved upon. It is important to note they are skills and not traits. Whilst we may be born with a natural disposition towards some of these, all of these aspects can be developed with the right training, support and effort.
Empathy – the ability to understand the other person’s position and emotions which then drives and determines your action.
Optimism – the ability to face challenges, and keep going with a positive frame of mind; therefore you take learnings from negative situations but also spend equal time focusing on the wins and positive situations.
Enthusiasm – a passion for the work, the people, and the purpose of the company. If the company doesn’t have a purpose and direction beyond making the Directors more money, then that certainly needs to be worked on!
Effective feedback – the ability to professionally present feedback and enable development.
Active listening – the ability to not just hear the words, but also hear the meaning, looking for non-verbal cues, truly listening to what is being said rather than thinking about what you are going to say next, or judging.
Fundamentally what you are aiming for is to build a genuine connection with your team, understand them as individuals, and then take positive action from all of this.
How you can develop each of the 5 team leadership skills
There are lots of exercises, role plays, and reflective practices that you can undertake to enhance these skills. Here are a few examples to get you started:
Empathy tips – think about the given situation from the perspective of the other person. Ask about their feelings, concerns, and needs, and demonstrate care.
Optimism tips – when reflecting or thinking about a challenge, ask yourself what the best outcome can be as well as the worst. You may like to try The Six Thinking Hat model, which asks you to reflect on a situation from six distinct perspectives – which you can use yourself and with your team. Fundamentally, reflect on valuable learning from any mistakes, and present a positive solution-focused attitude. Put to one side any of your internal turmoil, as the team will reflect your visible responses to adversity!
Enthusiasm tips – learn and engage with the company's purpose, values, vision, and people-goals. Connect your role, and the roles of the people you have in your team, to the company’s purpose and values.
Effective feedback – Always focus on what can be changed (i.e., the future) more than the past. As the leader, you can support learning to take place. Aim for progression in every interaction you have with your team.
Active listening – Challenge your human interactions to have a balance where the other person is doing 80% of the talking. Use open questions and expansion questions to encourage the sharing of information, to achieve a full and meaningful understanding, and give the other person the chance to share their thoughts before offering your own suggestions, solutions, or inputs. Then take note of how the other person responds and feels, as well as yourself. You will be amazed at the difference this approach results in!
Develop your team leadership skills to boost team and company performance
All too often when it comes to growing or progressing an SME business, your own performance as the business leader and manager is overlooked. No one really manages the leader, and there is limited accountability from anyone external (unless you have a coach of course!)
To allow for good team management, foundational elements need to be in place. These include the company’s purpose, clear values as well as having a defined plan with a clear direction. This is more commonly absent than basic systems and processes.
The business owner’s performance is one of the ten key points to a thriving business, based on The Coaching Star model, so ensure to allow time to invest in your development.
In today’s modern business world, you aren’t just competing for the skills and resources of a team, but also to engage and motivate them for their imagination, passion and enthusiasm. Building connections with your team and listening to them attentively, is the bedrock of achieving that.
Managing teams is often not an enjoyed part of the job for many SME business owners. I think that is because too often the skills needed for good team leadership are assumed to be traits you are born with or not, rather than some to be developed. Remember though, empathy, active listening, optimism and so on are ALL skills which can (and should) be developed.
Invest some time in developing your team leadership skills in order to get the most from your team, and to achieve the best business performance you can!
If you’d like help with developing these skills with your team, or would like to discuss any of these ideas further with me, do get in touch.
Tim Rylatt, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Tim is a business coach to smaller/medium-sized business who have found themselves on a ‘plateau’ in terms of performance and want to make a change. He gets real pleasure from seeing business owners reclaim control and create personal/work-life balance. His valuable real-world insight and experience spans many sectors and industries, with businesses at all stages of their journey from start-up through to exiting a business. You would be hard pushed to find a more experienced business coach, having worked with around 250 companies throughout his career. He is also a published author on the subject.
