You all have heard the term “owning your team”, or maybe you have not. This is an important concept for leaders of today and hence its pertinent to assess yourself on this dimension. Many of the first time managers and sometimes even experienced ones struggle to implement this well and would appreciate a more concrete plan of action. This is my attempt to break down this concept into simple explanations and offer actionable steps to implement this.
A simplistic definition is: As a leader, you take the responsibility when your team falls short of delivering, and credit the team for jobs well done.
How do you know if you are doing this well? IMHO, the two broad categories are following:
- You as a leader: Are you genuinely interested in developing your people and do you dedicate time and energy to achieve that goal ? Do you communicate frequently and contextually to keep the team aligned with business deliverables ? Do you provide clarity of goals, roles and deliverables to your team ? Do you know when to delegate successfully?
- Team accountability: Is your team growing on a continuous basis? Is the team getting better at their deliverables? Do you have KPIs to measure the team’s efficiency(measure of time and resource use) and effectiveness(correct priorities and alignment with business) ? Is accountability built into the team’s mind? Is the team engaged
These 2 categories of work go hand-in-hand to bring you in a state of “ownership mindset”. If done well (the answer to each question above is YES) then, as a deliberate leader, you would have built a high-performing which delivers and that will enable you to completely own your team.
But, if not, there is work to be done and implement the ownership mindset for you and your team. If this sounds abstract, fuzzy or unachievable, I would be happy to do a deep dive with you and (e)Nable you by devising a concrete plan of action within the bounds of right context and nature of work. I am looking forward to listening, learning and brainstorming with you and providing an outside-in viewpoint.
I can be contacted at Nabler (https://nabler.us/contact-nabler).
#leadership #accountability #highperformingteam #ownership #nabler
