KevinTest
With how the world is today, there are a lot of distractions that can prevent people from performing at their best on a Team. Whether it’s stress on the task itself, or worries about home life, or simply being distracted by other things that you do on your own time, any lack of focus can be detrimental. As a leader, you need to rely on your leadership skills to bring everyone’s focus back on the task at hand and ensure that everyone is doing their best.
One of the great traits of a leader is the ability to keep their team focused on the mission, while still allowing everyone to excel and be successful at the same time. The ability to ask for input along the way, without anyone getting side tracked. Encouraging teammates to come up with new ideas, as long as they do not deviate from doing anything else that they become disruptive or counter-productive to the task is one of the most important leadership skills you can have.
It’s very easy to find your team in a scattered state of affairs, either physically or mentally. And it’s equally as easy to make the mistake of not giving them the proper guidance that causes team member to invent the wrong way to do something, creating inefficiencies and slowing down the project or the production rate. Good leadership skills make use of diplomacy in building the team’s strength – diplomacy being the art of letting others get your way, I have a feeling my wife has mastered this.
When it comes to working with teams, a leader needs to realize that there is only one leader but that a confidence must be instilled in the rest of the team so that they feel comfortable in making decisions, and making the right decision for the right reasons, I think this is what we hope and pray for our children. The idea is always to find ways on how we can be more efficient and while providing continuous guidance, in getting things done the way you want them to, can be time and physically draining. Building your team’s (could we insert family here, instead of Team?) confidence will save you heartache, and while they may occasionally make mistakes, they will also learn from those mistakes?
If your team mates (family members?) are afraid to make a mistake because of the fear that they will end up losing their credibility with you, then they will stop making decisions and that will put the burden back on you and make it impossible to delegate properly. This in turn would cause you to lose focus on your own tasks, and the whole team could quickly fall into chaos.
So in managing a team or leading a family, and needing to keep them focused, never forget to rely on some of the most basic of your leadership skills – offer guidance, be clear in communicating goals, and build their confidence as individuals and as a team, and as a family.
Photo credit: alessandro pucci / Foter.com / CC BY
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Photo credit: Michael Dales / Foter.com / CC BY-NC
I know that I often struggle and lose focus. Especially if the task takes a long time to complete. Therefore I wonder if the lack of commitment looks like lack of focus from time to time.
This is very true. I note that leaders need to find creative and impactful ways to accomplish this with virtual teams – a slightly more challenging task.
Kevin, a lack of focus can look like a lack if commitment. Getting things refocused can be easier than creating or restoring commitment.
Leaders need to be able to tell the difference.
Maybe it is my ADD/ADHD that reduces focus from time to time. And folks may interpret that as a lack of commitment. But, what if it is the other way? What if folks lack of commitment is misinterpreted as a lack of focus?
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