As a leader, it's important to understand how to get your team members to pull their own weight and be accountable. A successful leadership style involves empowering your team while still holding them accountable through effective follow-up strategies. You need to identify those who aren't pulling their own weight and address any underlying issues that could be causing undertow in an organization, even though you likely already have a full schedule.
Let's explore leadership techniques for managing a team effectively, ensuring that everyone is pulling their own weight.
Team project roles
Let me set the scene. Do you remember back in school? It could be high school. It could be college. You had to work on a team project with other classmates.
What kind of player were you on that team?
Were you the one that coordinated everything? Were you the one that got everything done? Were you the one that hung back and waited to see what was going to happen?
The same dynamic exists in the workplace today. As a leader, you need to identity team members that aren't pulling their own weight. You need to ensure that the entire team is working together to accomplish the goal.
Importance of follow-up
Your team can be successful when everyone is pulling their own weight. But as the leader of your team, you need to follow up to ensure that this happens.
Often in teams, everyone knows who the weak link is. When we let that sort of thing continue, it causes what I call undertow.
Undertow in an organization is when everything looks fine on the surface, but things are happening under the surface that we're not seeing. Undertow will cause issues if it isn't addressed.
One of the most important things that can happen is following up with your team. But as a leader, you have a million things taking up your time. Who really has time to follow up?
Effective follow-up strategy
If you're like many other leaders I've worked with over the years, you don't have a ton of extra time to do the follow-up. So how can you empower your team while still holding them accountable? How can you ensure that everyone is pulling their own weight?
As you delegate tasks, make it your team member's responsibility to follow up with you. When you delegate something, ask your team member, "When will you be able to send me an update on this?"
This helps to ensure that follow-up is happening, and it also empowers your team member to take ownership of the task.
As a leader, it's important to understand how to get your team members to pull their own weight and be accountable. By delegating tasks and asking for updates, you can empower your team while still holding them accountable through effective follow-up strategies. This will help create an environment where everyone is working together towards common goals, resulting in greater success as an organization.
Clint has nearly 25 years of experience developing and directing organizations' recruiting and sales strategies, as well as coaching and mentoring "C-level" executives. His expertise is in training inside and outside consultative sales teams in new business development, profit and loss management, sales compensation, key account management, and product/service positioning. Specialties include corporate sales training, public speaking, hiring assessments, and business development structuring.
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