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Lots of managers I meet in training or at events tell me how they now lead team of staff and volunteers.  And what has happened over the years, is these teams have got bigger and bigger, as settings have continued to grow or extend their services.  The single most common things said to me is: ‘I never imagined I would lead a team’ and ‘how do I do it?’

One thing for sure, is working in teams is essential and is the preferred way of working for most organisations.  But it needs some thought.

Our starting point is clear roles and responsibilities.  But we also need to know how group dynamics affect teams – this is something I have written about before.  As is the importance of leaders being able to apply and adapt their leadership styles to each and every changing situation that naturally occur in teams.

Teams do need to have: a definable membership; an identity, interdependence, interaction, feel sustainable, and an ability to act as one together.  And successful teams: communicate, know individual roles, commit to excellence, follow the leader, know their strengths and weaknesses, have common goals and vision, and appreciate individual input and team effort.

The challenge is that all teams are a living, constantly changing, dynamic force in which people come together to work.  And as Adair (1986) identified they are tasked with balancing the needs of: the individual, the team, and the task.  And in attempting to achieve these three aims, each team must openly discuss their objectives, assess ideas, make decisions, and work towards their targets together.  Tasks need to be defined, planned, allocated and resourced, and quality needs to be checked against the plan, which should be adjusted if needed.  For individuals, all need to have their personal needs met, receive praise and encouragement, be given status in their role, supported to grow and develop at their pace, and recognised for their individual abilities and qualities.

It is the team that holds all (including the leader) to account by setting standards, maintaining discipline, building team spirit, encouraging and motivating (so all have a sense of purpose), sharing skills and learning/training together, and ensuring effective communication throughout.

It is those teams that do all this and achieve outstanding practice or service, that impress me most.  They are not mutually exclusive.  You can’t have one without the other.  But it needs constant attention, as teams change whenever anything changes in the team.  In teams that can easily include: new members joining or established members leaving, the job changing, different roles and routines emerging, new users or customers requiring changes in practice and structure, and new policy changes as well.  Which is why thinking about working in teams and leading them is a constant occupation of the leader.

It not easy being a boss. And so many of us are in charge because no one else would do it, or we found ourselves here by accident.  That said, we all aim to be the best manager we can be, for as often as we can.

Despite our best efforts of trying to do the best and fairest things, sometimes the decisions we make aren’t popular.  Every leader needs to be prepared for that, and to be able to cope with the pressure of the team’s response – whatever that is, and however unpredictable it is.  Teams will always let you know what they think, indirectly or directly.  They can react by withdrawing or being silent and uncooperative, or they can share little complaints or niggles – all the way to something much more dramatic, and difficult to manage.

When you are a leader, you have a team, and most people in that team are constantly watching your every move.  They are often thinking: “I wouldn’t have done it like that”, or “that was the wrong decision”, or “if I was the boss I would do it this way”. Other team members simply look on in awe and wonder as leadership would be the last thing they would want to do themselves.

The ability to listen when being a leader is well documented.  I’ve said before, that talking gets you into leadership, and listening keeps you there.  It is listening that helps you to make decisions, the right decisions, something that is important to remember on those occasions when not everyone likes the decision you inevitability have to make.

Sometimes explaining and demonstrating your decision making process is enough to appease even the most disgruntled team member.  Saying things like, I have listened, it wasn’t an easy decision, and I had to balance lots of different issues, but in the end I have decided x, and this may be disappointing for some, but I think it is the right decision to make.

Teams needs leadership and direction, certainly when they are forming or storming (Tuckman 1965).  The type or style of decision making you need depends wholly upon the stage of development your team is in.  When a team is new or has changed and depends on its leader, you need to be directive, decisive and swift, any dithering now will be disconcerting for the emerging new team.  Make the wrong decision at storming stage, when the team is struggling to settle into new routines, and sub teams will be talking about you in the corridors or car parks for weeks.  So consulting and listening is key.  At the point that roles and routines are emerging, you can consult more and move to a collaborative decision asking process, edging towards democracy.  That’s a different matter altogether.

“Often any decision, even the wrong decision, is better than no decision” Ben Horowitz

If you manage or lead a team you will be all too aware how it can change from month-to-month, day-to-day, hour-to-hour, and even minute-to-minute.  A fully functioning and happy team can become one that is non-productive and unhappy very quickly.  Often, but not always, caused by unforeseen changes or events.  And every time a team member leaves or joins, or different configurations of team members come together, the team can go through these development stages.

As leaders it is vital we understand the dynamics of team development.  I have found Bruce Tuckman’s 1965 model by far the most useful one to support my leadership and team development.  It’s a popular one in our leadership training too.  The four main stages are: forming, storming, norming, and performing.  A few years later he added a fifth: adjourning.  But it’s storming I want to focus on here.

The storming phase is one every team will go through, and it will experience it regularly.  This may be a brief phase, but unmanaged, could last for considerable amounts of time.  Unchecked and it will damage your team and your business in little or big ways.  It’s often caused by change and uncertainty.

The characteristics are many. The easiest one to spot is that small sub-groups and cliques are formed, the team seems split and not as a whole.  There is also unhappiness with or even challenge to the leadership, the former being more difficult to spot from the leader’s perspective than the latter.  Look out to see if there are there grumblings in the car park, the corridors, or quiet corners? What is body language telling you?  It’s quite normal and healthy for people to have conversations in smaller groups, but what’s not good here is if they are complaining and negative and don’t work to positive solutions. Indeed when you are working with the team, you’ll find that decisions don’t come easily either, as members struggle to confidently share their views and opinions, and there’s a sense people vie for position, role, and status.  Silence is another indication as people don’t feel confident enough to speak up, agree or disagree.

Your job at this stage is to ensure the team focuses on its shared and unified goals.  This prevents them focusing all of their attention on their relationships and emotional issues.  You need to be prepared to change course, or slow down or even speed up plans to support the ironing-out of these creases.  Overall, think about how you are coaching individual members to work through their concerns, and with the team as a whole.  Using motivational selling style techniques is vital too – at this stage you’ll be needing to put more effort into selling ideas and agreements than in other stages.  Do that, and you’ll be moving towards forming, before you know it. But that’s a different matter altogether.

Okay, so you asked the question, are you ready for the answer?  Feedback is a way of learning more about our effect on others, and our behaviour and performance as a leader and a team member.  It should be embraced, valued and always listened to.

Done well, it is constructive.  It supports our self-awareness, offers new ways of thinking, and encourages or shows us the way to continuous self-improvement.  So often, we focus on our skills in giving feedback.  But we need to pay equal attention to how we are receiving it as well.  Negative feedback isn’t useful, instead constructive feedback should be – but it needs to be both well-given and well-received.

Giving:  Starting and ending with the positive is a pretty well-known principle of feedback; the praise sandwich. Everyone needs encouragement, on a fairly constant basis.  Starting in this way opens the receiver’s receptiveness to listen.  Being specific is the next challenge.  Avoiding general comments helps focus precisely on the skills that need to be considered.  Saying ‘you were wonderful’ is nice but it doesn’t have the same punch as ‘you solved that complaint quickly, positively, and in a helpful way’.  Now focus on what could change and offer alternatives ‘it would help the customer if you gave eye contact and spoke more slowly’.  Use careful language choices, express your feelings and speak for yourself, for example ‘your tone of voice made me feel upset’, is much better than ‘you were rude’.  The receiver is wanting your carefully considered opinion and view point.  After which, they have a choice to use the information they have received, or not.

Taking:  What is absolutely vital is you are ready to listen, without interrupting and jumping to your own defence.  Allow people to finish, to complete sentences, hold the silences. It can be so easy to quickly butt-in, reject it, qualify it, and argue your case instead.  The person feeding back is giving their views and opinions, think about where they are coming from.  They are entitled to their view, they are committed to it.  And you are entitled to your view and to disagree, but only if you listen and consider it first.  Be clear about the message received.  Use paraphrasing techniques or repeat what has been said, to check you have understood correctly.  Get a balanced view by asking others what they think about your feedback, what is their feedback?  It’s no surprise that everyone doesn’t agree or have the same views.  And is there some feedback you aren’t getting?  If so, ask for it!  And finally, decide what you will do as a result of the feedback.  Otherwise, it is a wasted opportunity.  Use it to continuously grow and develop, to lead and to be a great team member.

Being able to change in business and in life often requires swift action.  Sometimes you need the nimble manoeuvrability of a speedboat rather than the hulking awkwardness of an oil tanker.  One can turn 360 degrees in an instant, the other has a turning circle as wide as the ocean.

Through business recovery in the next few months and years, there will be winners and losers.  There will be businesses that thrive and prosper, there will be others who remain the same, the rest will struggle, become smaller or disappear altogether.

Key to a sustainable future is the ability to manage the ‘here and now’. One must ensure that what you are offering right now is what people need and want and will actually use and pay for.  Now not later. Businesses really do need to scale themselves according to current demand.  That may be bigger than before, or staying the same or becoming smaller. Whatever, it should be affordable and should avoid sinking the business or household into further debt or stacking up other liabilities.  This requires some tough and emotional decision-making.  It must be done.  Avoid it at your peril.  We simply do not know what is going to happen next, so base your decisions on what you know and risk assess and scenario plan, think about the what ifs.  Build up your analysis through clear thinking and by talking to others to gather their thoughts. Be prepared to change your mind the next day, week or month.

By becoming smaller now, yet sustainable and as light as you can be with all your liabilities, you will be in a much better place to respond to future opportunities and steadily grow again – if that’s what you want.  Please be sure of what you want. Don’t unthinkingly aim to return to what was.  Key questions: Is that/this needed anymore?  How has the world moved on?  How have you changed?  What do you want out of your future work and life?  Listening to the lessons these answers give is hugely important.

We must all change and understand our attitudes and capacity to change. Are you change-phobic (metathesiophobic to be precise)?  How prepared are you to change?  Are your batteries running low or are they charged up and ready for the challenge?  How fast and able are you to effect change?  Ask yourself all these questions and use the answers to create your action plan and assemble the support you need. If you need to find a change enthusiast to buoy you up, get one and get one now.

It is a good thing to have the energy of a speedboat but think things through before acting too impulsively.  Things could get messy.  But avoid the risk of retreating to a slow and lumbering movement, like an oil tanker, if you are doing this to escape or avoid the inevitable. Time is money after all.