Leadership Tips for New Team Leads: How to Inspire and Guide Your Team

Accepting your first leadership position is as exciting as it is intimidating. After all, you’re about to become responsible for a group of people. As a new team leader, you need to get the most out of individual team members as well as help the team function like a well-oiled machine. Ultimately, you’re responsible for what happens in your team and if the team fails to function as envisioned by upper management, you’re the one who must explain the team’s failures. Feel like you’re not up to the task? Well, check out this discussion where I share leadership tips that are specially designed for new team leaders.

Above, you see some of the skills and responsibilities required to become a good team leader. We’ll discuss each of these as we move through our discussion, but feel free to ask questions using the comment fields located below this content, and I’ll get back to you with answers.

Leadership tips for new team leaders

My best advice for new team leaders is to learn how to become servant leaders. Over the course of this discussion, you’ll see elements of servant leadership emerge so you can understand how to lead in this way and (I hope) appreciate why this modern notion of what makes a good leader is best in nearly every business.

In a nutshell, servant leadership is a leadership style that prioritizes the well-being of employees and other stakeholders over the success of the organization. Servant leaders focus on helping others grow and thrive and believe that this will ultimately lead to the growth of the organization.

Some characteristics of servant leadership include:

• Prioritizing others – servant leaders put their team first and may also consider customers and partners.

• Listening – servant leaders focus on listening to and understanding their team members rather than commanding them.

• Making unpopular decisions—servant leaders may make decisions that are negative in the short term but beneficial in the long term.

• Creating a safe environment: – servant leaders create an environment where their team members feel safe to take risks and experiment.

• Being open to feedback – servant leaders are able to accept feedback and change based on it.

Think of a servant leader as more like a coach than a boss. His/her goal is to get the most from their team by supporting them, training and encouraging them, and mentoring rather than punishing bad behavior.

Get acquainted with team members

Being on the same page as your team is crucial to long-term success. That’s why, rather than jumping into the nitty gritty of work, one of the first things you should do is get to know the people you’ll be leading.

Please familiarize yourself with their current roles and past experiences. Identify their strengths and potential areas for improvement. Spend time collectively and one-on-one to get a sense of everyone’s work habits, longstanding roadblocks you might be able to remove, etc. Doing this early on will solidify you as an ally with their best interest at heart and make members more willing to come forward with grievances or suggestions for betterment.

Set clear goals & expectations

Part of being a successful leader is creating an environment where the team’s efforts align with and contribute to the company’s greater vision and aspirations as closely as possible. This can be done by establishing clear goals that give everyone a sense of purpose and agency.

When delegating, consider whether someone is the best fit for a task, if they have time to accomplish it, or if another team member would benefit more by learning something new. On the other hand, you can adopt a results-first approach and demonstrate confidence in your team by letting them work out the details.

Either way, involve them in the process and make it clear their input is valuable.

When a team member or elements of the team fail to meet expectations, choose a non-confrontational meeting to discuss the source of the failure. For instance, at Johnsonville Sausage, this meeting uncovered that the problem occurred not through sloppiness but through equipment that wasn’t adequately cleaned by another team. Once you know the source of the problem, you’re now in a position to fix the problem.

Be a role model

The most effective way to get your new team to adopt positive behaviors is to practice what you preach. Professionalism, courtesy, accountability, and willingness to admit mistakes are qualities others will take as the norm and strive to imitate.

It’s essential to treat everyone with respect and be open to what they have to say. Also, while your new duties may focus more on enabling others to reach their potential, you should always be willing to dive right in and help with specifics if that’s what will help at the moment.

Ensure access to necessary tools

Some of your duties as a leader are managerial, which involves making sure your team has all the tools at their disposal to do their work efficiently. The specifics will depend on your niche and department. Still, any team would benefit from introducing something like a project management platform to centralize and streamline communication, track task completion, communicate better with remote teams, and generally boost productivity.

As team lead, you should also be aware of and promote safe working practices. For example, you could introduce password managers for teams to enable secure access to team resources and eliminate the data breach risks associated with weak and reused login credentials.

It’s important to evaluate factors such as ease of use, security features, and integration with other tools your team already uses. To help you choose the right tool, consider reviewing Reddit’s password manager comparison table to find the best options for securely managing team credentials and ensuring safe access to resources without compromising efficiency.

Create a positive work culture

Engagement and productivity benefit from a workplace where workers are genuinely happy to be there and feel valued. You can contribute to those positive feelings in various ways, from giving out deserved recognition through organizing opportunities for everyone to bond to celebrating team successes.

Promote mental health

Part of monitoring others’ performance is monitoring their mental well-being. Recognizing the signs of burnout and encouraging stressed-out individuals to take advantage of available resources will help them recover and get back on track faster.

Some ways to reduce burnout and alleviate stress are:

• ensuring everyone understands and performs their role within the organization
• offering flexibility in terms of work hours and allowing work from home when feasible
• allow for breaks during the day when the worker doesn’t have to deal with work-related issues
• set boundaries, such as disallowing emails during non-working hours
• treat every worker fairly
• encourage social connections between workers and their families – Google hosts movie nights for the entire family, which include food, drinks, and a movie. Other companies host a company sports team or family picnics.
• Allow open communication
• Offer distractions such as relaxation pods or something as simple as a basketball hoop

Conclusion

The responsibilities of being a freshly minted team lead can weigh heavily on one’s shoulders. No one will expect you to have all the right answers instantly. Learn all you can about your role and continue to grow as a human being, and you’ll become the kind of leader who truly makes a difference.

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