As a team leader, whether you’re acting like one for the first time or not, you’ve got to put together an effective team. You need to know what skills you'll need at your disposal, and ultimately, you need to be sure the team you lead is capable of operating in a group capacity.
After all, it’s possible to pair together incompatible people, and that can reflect back harshly on you. However, as long as you’re aware of what your employees or junior members of staff can do, or you’re able to get a good measure of someone in an interview, you’ll do just fine here. As such, let’s go through the top three skills you need to look out for below.
Organization
Staying organized is the number one thing your team should be able to do. You’ve got an entire project to manage, which involves a lot of tasks to get to the final stage, and there’s going to be a lot of hands involved. And if those hands can’t communicate effectively, you’ve already lost at being a good manager!
So it’s key to implement this attitude within your team. Everyone is going to bring their own kind of organizational skills to the table, but you’ve got to bind them together. Maybe some is better planner than others, maybe someone else has excellent time management skills - work out what each individual strength is in this category and then sort them accordingly.
Problem Solving
Problem-solving is one of the best skills to have in the working world. As such, it needs to be at the top of your team skills list. After all, how are you going to work together effectively if no one knows how to shuffle the details and look for ways around obstacles? A person with a problem-solving, lateral thinking brain will always be one of the strongest links on your company chain.
You could even foster the development of this skill even further. For example, it might be worth it to have a member of your team go through something like Lean Certification Training; in doing so, they’ll be able to more thoroughly pinpoint wasteful areas of your project process, and come up with ways to eliminate them.
Taking Initiative
You’re not going to be around every step of the way, seeing as you’ve got your own tasks to get on with. However, your team needs to be able to take this in their stride - they need to know what they’re doing, and how to proceed to the next step independently.
On your own part, try not to be a micromanager here; the more you can delegate, and allow your team members to use their initiative, the better you’ll all get along as a group. Let one or two people take charge, and see how the group functions as a result.
Your team should have many strengths, but the most important is usually the soft skills we take for granted.