When to Let Go of the Reins: A Manager’s Guide To Letting Their Team Fly Solo
As a manager, it can be difficult to trust your team and let them take the lead. After all, you have worked hard to get to where you are and naturally want the best results for your team. However, there is a time when managers must take a step back and allow their team to spread their wings and fly solo. But when is the right time? Read on to find out!
Be Empowering & Encouraging
The key to having your team work independently is by being an empowering and encouraging leader. This means allowing them to make mistakes without too much criticism but also providing guidance when needed. It’s important that they understand that you are still in charge, but also that you trust them enough to give them room to grow and succeed.
Let Them Take Ownership
Another key factor in allowing your team to fly solo is by letting them take ownership of tasks or projects. This means assigning tasks with clear expectations but not micromanaging every detail from start to finish. Your team will appreciate being trusted enough to complete tasks independently while knowing they can always come back for help if needed. It’s also important that you provide regular feedback so they know what areas need improvement or praise for progress made along the way.
Set Clear Expectations & Goals
Finally, setting clear expectations and goals is essential for successful independent work. This means making sure everyone understands exactly what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, and why it needs doing in the first place. You should also establish metrics or criteria used to evaluate success so everyone on the team knows what they are working towards as well as how their performance is evaluated at each step of the process.
Train you team often
Not everyone comes in with the same skills and experience, and even the experienced team members need upskilling on a regular basis. Be sure to not only cover hard skills that are relevant to the task and job, but also on soft skills. Human behavior, communication, negotiation, persuasion, conflict management, time management; these are all skills that will be required for success, but most teams are typically woefully under trained.
Conclusion: Letting go of the reins doesn’t have to be scary or overwhelming; instead, it can provide an opportunity for growth both for yourself as a manager and for your team members as individuals who want more responsibility and autonomy over their work life. Remember, your job is to not be in the day to day activities anymore. You must be more conceptual about people and problems. Without the clarity to do so you and your team will never reach their true potential. With clear expectations, encouragement, training, and ownership taken over tasks or projects, managers can rest easy knowing their teams are better equipped than ever before!
Many people “talk” sales effectiveness, but few have demonstrated the ability to transfer that effectiveness to entire organizations for high impact. For nearly two decades Tony has not only shared his sales strategy to organizations all over the world, but he has consistently created high performing sales cultures that have impacted the bottom line of hundreds of organizations.