Running a team is one thing while running a team successfully, even if you are not the leader of the team you still need to be cautious of how you act as every single member is a cog in the machine and can have a big impact on the final results. In a successful team, every member needs to have a role and stick to it, as well as valuing the roles of all the other members.
Within this article, we are going to be answering the question of how do you interact with the team and giving multiple valuable tips on how to properly utilize this.
Plan How to Communicate in Advance.
Before you start a project it is important to figure out how you are going to communicate which can include the actual methods such as through Facebook, Twitter, Skype or email as it is very important to keep the team conversation, discussions and overall communication in ideally one place as it stops people forming separate groups within the team and makes everything a lot easier and quicker. For example, you do not have to contact one person using email and then a separate person through social media.
Furthermore, if the team is not large, it may be good to have a group chat or an email group this works best with teams of max five people otherwise it becomes too crowded and important instructions and input gets drowned out.
Apart from just deciding on the form of communication, it is also good to set out general rules in order to give everyone a chance to get involved as well as promote healthy teamwork such as giving everyone the ability to ask questions, make suggestions and complaints as well as banning people from making fun of people from doing so for example.
This may seem over the top, but if the team is made up of members that are strangers it is good to set up in order to prevent any potential problems in the future.
Look out for the Leader Material.
If you are growing a team or are simply a member of the team it is good to look out for what is known as ‘leadership material’ which is someone who commands authority and is also respected this does not mean that it has to be someone loud who just talks over everyone. But someone who is knowledgeable and experienced with team organizational skills also being extremely useful.
Another factor that is a sign of a good leader is someone who is constantly looking to improve and learn which is key as every business sector changes sooner or later and you need people who will want to stay on top and not let it go to their head that they know absolutely everything, this means that you need a leader who is willing to consider the opinions and suggestions of even the lowest-ranked members in their team.
This is important, for example, if you are building up your business you need to be thinking about people that you can employ down the line in order to spread out the tasks and decision making for continued efficiency.
While if you are a team member, it can also be beneficial to build a close relationship with a more authoritative member in the team as you can learn a lot from them about how to behave as well as knowledge about the industry that you are working in.
Promote Honesty.
Promote honesty is important, as you do not want team members to be purposefully hiding the truth from you and other team members in order not to embarrass themselves and to pretend that they are doing better than they actually are.
Very often, a small white lie can develop and develop into something much larger that can potentially cause massive problems down the line.
Keep Differences in Mind.
When answering the question of how do you interact with the team, it is important to highlight the importance of constantly keeping differences in mind.
The world is a diverse place with billions of people all from different backgrounds and all that have diverging views on the same topics, this needs to be kept in mind as not everyone will think like you and even if the majority of people in the team do or pretend to it will not build a good culture in your team and can alienate some members which will only break down communication and lead to inefficiencies.
Some topics are just best to be avoided; the biggest example of topics to avoid is politics, as in the majority of cases that it becomes the topic of conversation it only works to cause arguments and major rifts. Therefore, it is just best to keep to work-related discussions and more light-hearted themes to talk about.
Don’t Be Selfish.
A lot of people have the mentality when working in a team that they need to stand and be the best performer, which can lead to people sabotaging each other on purpose in an attempt to get the upper hand. This is the worst thing that you can possibly do as it will just show your superiors that you are a bad team player, which for a lot of jobs is a deal breaker and can lead you to eventually getting fired no matter how hard-working or qualified you may be for the job.
Instead, you need to think about it from the point of view that if your team overall does well and accomplish the tasks that they were assigned, it will look good on everyone’s resume and allow you to show off-key job skills such as communication, teamwork, and organization.
If You Are in Charge, Take Ownership.
It is very easy if your team is doing good to take all the credit as the boss, and really there is nothing wrong with that, however you also need to take credit when your team is underperforming or failing at the task that they set out to do. There are many answers to how do you interact with your team regardless you always need to remember that even if you are the leader of the team that you are still a member of that team and whatever happens you were involved in it.
Even more, as the leader, you will be the one in most cases having the final say, so you need to be ready for the good and bad times. Being a leader and working in a team is not something easy, and even if you are very experienced in doing, so it can still take a lot of adapting and compromising in order for you to remain a valuable and productive member of the team.
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