Don’t Procrastinate
It’s always easy to leave things for later, but the consequences are almost always bad. Usually, there is no logical reason to defer anything, starting with simple things such as paying your bills, and ending with dealing with your project’s problems. They won’t just get solved by themselves, they are only going to get worse as time passes. What is more, there are for sure some people relying on you and waiting for you to finish, in order to be able to do their job. You owe these people to get your job done as soon and as well as you can.
Respect Your People
They’ve made it to this team thanks to their qualities and strengths. They have developed into experienced professionals, or they are just taking the first steps. Anyhow, they are the ones directly helping you do your job, and respect is one of the key factors in any good relationship.
Trust Them
There are two kinds of people. The ones thinking that trust is to be earned, and the others who trust people from the beginning, only to lose it if they get let down. I personally belong to the latter, but I find worth mentioning that trusting someone doesn’t mean being naive. You still have deadlines to meet, you still have to make sure your team is producing quality work, so there is a very thin line between being trusting and being too loose.
Don’t Lose Control
There is an old saying: Trust is good, control is better. You may be shocked to find out it belongs to no other than Joseph Stalin, but I consider this only proves that even villains can be pretty wise from time to time. Even if you are lucky to have competent people in your team, you still have to find non-intrusive ways of keeping track of your schedules and commitments. Thinking about that fine line again…
Don’t Micromanage
While being confronted with stressful situations or tight commitments, you can easily turn into a control freak. You may feel the need to know every aspect, every detail, in order to be able to have everything under control. Humans however, are not that “multi-threaded”, so they need to surround themselves with trustworthy and skilled people who they can rely on, rather than trying to squeeze every bit of information into their 20%-used brain.
Listen and Make Sure They Listen to You
You want to be constantly aware of your people’s needs and problems, while making sure they know your expectations. You have every reason in the world to be attentive while in meetings with your fellow leaders and managers, but also to be able to leave relieved that they all know your team’s status or your personal points of view, when the meeting is over. Finding the right ways to communicate is therefore crucial, and yet so different from one situation to another.
Never Wait
Leaders aren’t waiting, they’re acting. Being reactive, or even worse – passive, isn’t part of a leader’s job description. A good way to tell if you are being proactive enough is to ask yourself this question: Usually, when my manager asks me something, do I know the answer on the spot, or do I have to find it out? If you are always being told what to do, you probably aren’t much of a leader after all.
Be What You Want Them to Be
Being a leader means heaving people follow you. But if they find you worthy in any way, they will also borrow from your way of being, more or less consciously. Your behavior is therefore crucially determinative for their own, so unless you don’t want to be surrounded by jerks, make sure you’re not one. Unfortunately, negative behaviors are easy to imitate, but the good news is, positive things are also quite catchy.
