The role of the Team Leader can be crucial to making the day run well and keeping the show on the road. It’s also a potential source of confusion, frustration and can actually be an inhibitor to delivery if it’s not understood.
Team Leaders can also be known as Supervisors, Seniors and Coordinators. Some organisations use this title for their first layer of management also, which can add to the fun. So here’s how we distinguish between the Team Leader and the Manager: Read more…
Here’s one you’ve either heard or said yourself – “I’ve got to pull myself out of the weeds, I’m involved in the detail and I can’t get moving“.
Familiar? Here’s why people struggle in this area – the concept that they need to pull themselves up. It won’t happen because of the natural principles of how work organises. The way to get out of the weeds (an expression which, by the way, is fundamentally insulting to the work of your people) is to allow yourself to be lifted by creating solid layers of work. Read more…
There’s an easy way to distinguish the different work at successive levels in the organisation. Look at the bang for buck each level is expected to contribute, not just in terms of ‘what about’, but ‘by when’. Including a timeframe allows us to set up middle and executive management that can add real value, while allowing the frontline to get on with their work.
It works like this for the first three levels in the organisation, which are all about delivering:
1a) Frontline: Deliver bang for buck today, or in a matter of weeks. Read more…
There are some pretty common mistakes managers make at any level. How do I know this? I’ve made them. Here they are:
1. Not knowing your own job.
Every manager has generic things they need to do because they are accountable for the work of their team, but they also have a unique contribution to make beyond managing their people. For example, a manager who is in charge of multiple teams is also accountable for improving the way work occurs across all of their teams, while a general manager is responsible for moving the business into new areas and shutting down the old. Read more…
In the kitchen at work the other day, I made a coffee, opened the fridge to grab the milk and there was none. After the initial surge of disappointment and frustration passed, I put my cup of black coffee with one sugar in a safe place and commenced the trudge down the hall toward the canteen.
Got to thinking along the way – how do we work out who should get the milk? In my area we don’t have a defined role to take care of this sort of thing, which leaves it up to everyone. At the same time, we seem to share an assumption that menial tasks such as milk collection should not be done by ‘important people’. So how do we work out who is important? Read more…