Desired Skills of the Team Leader
Dealing with the many different personalities in the meeting is a daunting challenge for leadership. A skilled leader is able to recognize each individual's behavior, and to manage with confidence. A great team leader is able to clearly see the goals he or she needs to accomplish, and strives hard to continuously move toward achieving them.
An effective leader needs to have a set of desired skills and traits that encourage members of the team to follow them. They develop the skills over time, with education, training, experience gained on the job, and lessons learned from past mistakes. The qualities they have developed make them proficient at running a meeting effectively, and are considered to be a strong resource of talent in the company.
For management and leadership, knowing the traits and qualities that make up good leaders helps create a development opportunity in the organization. You can train and develop your employees to take on these qualities and gain the experience needed to become effective leaders.
The accounting department has been under fire from upper management over the past three months. Gerald, one of the truly talented auditors in the department, was worried. He did not like the direction the department was heading and had a legitimate concern. Management understood his concerns when he voiced them, and was doing everything they could to make their best employee happy.
The department had undergone several leadership changes in the past six months. They added several new hotshot accountants that recently graduated with business degrees from Harvard and Yale. They were taking over the management role in the department, and were to be the new face of the company. Gerald did not like the fact that senior management was passing over the career advancement of experienced team members.
The first team meeting, Charlie took over as the new manager for the accounting department. He was fresh out of college and joined the ranks as group manager. The team had settled down, and quickly Charlie spoke up.
"Ok. Please be quiet everyone. The first order of business is to start work on the Woodward account; I need people to get moving on it immediately, because it's overdue."
Gerald spoke up. "That account is on hold right now due to litigation and an audit by the IRS. They sourced that to Canfield, and we have to wait until they are done to verify results."
Charlie paused for a moment. "Please do not interrupt me again. Since you like to disrupt the meetings, you get assigned this task."
Gerald nearly fell out of his chair. He could not believe the response over his remark, and was quite frustrated. How could this young man lead a group when he would not listen to what people are telling him?
A week later, Charlie was expecting results on the Woodward account on his desk. Instead, he received a resignation letter from their top accountant, Gerald.
10.1 Organized - Effective Task Managers
The effective team leader is skilled at knowing the big picture -- what the goals are of the organization. They are able to communicate these goals to the team.Good leaders are able to understand the short- and long-term goals of the company. They are able to ask, "Is this truly good for the business?"
Task-oriented leaders are results-driven. They want to produce tangible results with their team and accomplish the goals set for the meeting.
The task-oriented leaders are in tune with many of the events in the company, and have great clarity in the business objectives.
Relationship-oriented leaders want the group to succeed. They consider their team highly talented and wonderful to work with. As a leader, they will stand up for their team members.
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