Tuesday, July 15, 2008

What makes a good team lead?

In a previous post, I talked about what I think makes a good team member, and in order to be a good leader you must be a good team member.

So as a leader, you should think about what makes a leader good from the eyes of their team. Is it their movie star good looks or their willingness to bring in donuts? I sure hope it is neither even if you like donuts.

Your team (and you) hopefully look for most of the following statements to be true when thinking about your team lead or manager:
  • be an excellent communicator, and good at using the tools at their disposal to plan and organize the team's work load;
  • be self-confident, and strong within their domain of knowledge;
  • makes reasonable, objective, and consistent, decisions within their boundaries;
  • be able to mentor and coach the team to achieve maximum performance;
  • be able to inspire the members of the team;
  • to understand and choose the correct style of leadership based on the situation;
  • to demonstrate integrity at all times;
  • to be trustworthy and honest;
  • to be an excellent problem solver, both with anticipating and solving the problems;
  • to be able to handle stressful situations
  • to respect you.
So, can anyone think of anything else to add to the list?

2 comments:

Sargsyan Tigran said...

I think another important thing for the team leader is devotion. Team lead should demonstrate his devotion to the job. This could be a good example for the people in his team.

Jason Mawdsley said...

Indeed, this is also known as "Leading by example".