One-to-one
Coaching for Team Leaders
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The perceived wisdom relating to
effective teamwork puts the focus on the team leader as the arbiter of
team success or failure. In many instances considerable technical
support is provided for the leader but little attention is paid to his
or her aptitude, expertise or formal training in how to manage and
motivate psychologically complex human beings.
Wynne’s unique approach to coaching in the ‘soft’ interpersonal skills
empowers team leaders to negotiate clear performance objectives and
establish strategies to deal with the conflicts that inevitably arise in
group settings. The skills to build high performance, co-operative work
teams include strategies to integrate difficult personalities within the
team.
You don’t need rocket science to get people with diverse backgrounds,
work styles and belief systems to set aside differences and play a
significant role in the team. You need common sense and an
understanding of the way of thinking of people and groups that allows
you to notice and respond to how they are motivated, process information
and make decisions.
You can be coached to develop the skills to communicate clearly in an
empathetic way and grow your confidence so that you know how to insist
on full accountability for performance from every member of the team.
Shelle Rose Charvet author of ‘Words that change minds’ says, ‘If we
observe and listen carefully to how a person behaves and communicates
linguistically we can glean an understanding of how neurologically a
person puts his or her experience together to be excellent, mediocre or
awful at the things he or she does.’
It is incumbent on a team leader to assess accurately the strengths of
the team and evaluate where they are now in terms of performance. In
order to do this s/he needs to know his/her own strengths and weaknesses
and those of the team members.
How can you maximise on those strengths? One of the key meta-programmes
linked to motivation indicates the specific words which are most likely
to encourage or deter a person in relation to some plan of action.
Changing ‘Why did you do that?’ to ‘What did you expect to happen when
you did that?’ has a powerful impact. ‘Why’ sounds judgemental and
gives the message you must answer to me. ‘What’ is heard as an
invitation to share information.
Such easily learned techniques make the difference that makes the
difference.
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