Leaders hold a remarkably high influence on the success of a company. They lay the foundation for effective teamwork, coordinate the individual employees into a balanced team, and lead their team to success. Therefore, it is not surprising that most problems arise from leaders who are leading inadequately. That there is some truth in the phrase “employees don’t leave companies, they leave managers” is not only shown by studies. After all, dissatisfaction with the leader is one of the most cited reasons for quitting.
What makes a good leader?
Every leader should know the importance of their role and the influence that their skills and especially their values have on the satisfaction and productivity of their staff. This understanding brings leaders closer to employees. Factors such as appreciation, respect, and trust can also strongly influence team performance. If employees do not feel valued or respected, or if they have no trust in their supervisors, this affects their well-being which in turn is reflected in their performance.
Managers should also be the point of contact for problems that negatively affect the employee’s work – be it problems from their private life, external influences such as the Corona crisis, or problems within the team.
Involving staff in decision-making and taking team goals and values into account has positive effects on productivity. A manager’s goal should be to encourage employees to work independently, communicate openly and strengthen the team’s sense of community.
How can leaders optimise teams?
Successful teams are characterised by high productivity, high customer satisfaction, high motivation, high individual satisfaction and low turnover. For a team to be successful, the leader must ensure some clarity in the team.
What is our common purpose?
You would think that this question is easy to answer. Feel free to try it out for yourself. You will be surprised how differently this question is answered. This is simply because staff members look at the question mainly from their own perspective. As different as the roles of a team are, as different is the perception. As a leader, you can develop a common concern with the team that is clearly defined and takes into account the motivators and values of the team members.
What goal are we visualizing?
Teams define themselves through goals that can only be achieved together. Therefore, the concrete and precise naming of goals is important in order to focus on acting as a unit. Regular team meetings that focus the goals, support the visualisation.
Who can contribute to the achievement of the goal?
Each goal has different challenges. The leader alone should not determine what each individual team member can contribute to achieve the goal. Rather, it is more effective to adopt a coordinating position and let the team members independently define intrinsic contributions (intrinsic OKRs) that are linked to the goal.
Who takes on which role?
Team roles should be assigned through lived values and own feedback. Not only does role clarity increase the performance of the team, it also defines the responsibilities of each individual team member so that every sub-area is covered and gaps, which always turn out to be major time wasters, cannot arise in the first place.
Relieving managers and supporting decisions
As a leader with various responsibilities, it can be challenging to cover all areas of responsibility. When making quick decisions, there is a danger of being guided too much by feelings. It is important to supplement the subjective assessment with objective measurement points.
Digital analyses can support decisions with the help of collected key data. Every important decision at team level, for example the optimal deployment of an employee in the team, can be facilitated and optimised by team analyses.
With the help of regular potential analyses, challenges in teams can be recognised at an early stage and quick actions can be initiated. Team development becomes measurable and developments can be tracked continuously.
Data-based approaches offer a temporally and spatially independent solution that constantly increases the overall team potential with the help of key figures. The digital team tool supports managers by continuously measuring the development of the teams, revealing success and failure factors of the team and offering appropriate solutions.
For MONDAY.ROCKS, the key to modern and digital team leadership lies in the combination of digital analyses and team experts who actively accompany the implementation of the findings. For this, we offer a solution that supports managers, enables a new way of working together and can continue to be operated independently – without permanently employing consultants on site.
