As a leader you are only as good as the team that you lead. It is a significant part of the role that you play to inspire and motivate the members of your team so that as a collective group you can reach and achieve the end goals that have been set. If you simply sit back and focus on your own goals rather than the collective ones of your team then you are not helping the team to grow as individuals and morale and motivation are likely to take a dive.
Here are just a few ways in which you can put your facilitation skills to the test and engage and inspire the members of your team.
Listen
The single most important thing that you can do in order to inspire you team and engage with them is to actually listen to what they have to say. Any team will be built up of a varied selection of people with their own strengths, and weaknesses, and whilst you might think that you know each team member properly sometimes the best ideas will come from the one you are least expecting. Listening will help you get the best results for the whole team and allow you to ensure that the support that is needed is provided.
Respect
Respecting the ideas and the members of your team is also a really important way in which you can inspire them. Whilst awards are a great way to acknowledge the efforts of the different members of your team there is nothing quite like making them feel that their opinions matter and the work that they contribute is important – this can be achieved with respect, and will ultimately give you a much more productive team.
Don’t micromanage
There is nothing worse than someone looking over your shoulder all the time, checking what you are doing, how you are doing it and even questioning if you are doing it the right way. Trust the members of your team to do the jobs that they have been given. If you have already proved that you will listen to them and that they are important to the team, they are far more likely to come to you if a problem arises, meaning you should have no reason whatsoever to be constantly checking on what they’re doing.
Be decisive
An important part of how you can inspire your team comes from showing that you can lead them when needed. This means being decisive when there are important decisions to be made, don’t delegate but step up and take charge when necessary.
Training
Sometimes it can be important to boost the skills that you team have in order to inspire them to improving the way in which they work. Change management trainingcan be a really effective way in which you can boost the skills that you team have and also your own skills to create a team who really do work in a cohesive manner.
