As you take over your new leadership assignment and forge your team, you need to be sensitive to how each individual will be motivated. Great leaders tailor their management styles to the recipient rather than approaching the top team from a one-size-fits-all perspective.
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The team you construct will magnify your management methods and your message. Who you are and how well you recognize the strengths and weaknesses in your skills will directly affect how effective your team is. In fact, everything about your team is a reflection of you - for better or for worse.
As astonishing number of managers surround themselves with people of similar backgrounds. But Jeff Immelt explains that he looks for team members who can complement, rather than supplement, his strengths and weaknesses.
Letâs face it, no one, regardless of how experienced or talented, is equally adept at every aspect of a job. In any case, as Immelt points out, even if you are above average across the board, no leader has the time to concentrate on every aspect of the job, especially in the earliest days of a new position. Think about where your personal involvement will yield the most leverage and where someone else might do an even better job.
One of the key talents of any leader is the ability to identify the truly critical issues and establish a short list of top priorities to keep people focused. It is important to make the complex simple. We donât mean simplistic, but easy to comprehend and take action on.
As you involve more and more people in the change process, you may feel as if youâre treading water. This feeling comes from having to introduce and convince each new wave of people as your changes percolate down through the organization. During your first year there will never be a time when your strategic agenda isnât being criticized, questioned, and debated. Be patient, and remember that the new converts will need the same time that you and others did to get it.
Even though itâs crucial for a new leader to show that he or she fits into the culture and âgetsâ it, the paradox is that you donât want to settle in too comfortably if the culture needs modification. But of course, changing a culture is never as simple as ordering it to be so, especially if the organization is very proud of its traditions. And what organization isnât?