How To Be A Good Team Leader
By Steve Hill
What makes a good team leader? Should the team leader be very strict, very friendly or something some where in the middle? A few years ago I was promoted to the role of team leader after spending two years as being a member of the same team. I was not exactly sure of how to approach the role and decided to consult a good friend of mine who had held a similar role for a different company. I would like to thank this friend, who is called Ian, for his invaluable advice. In this article I will describe the advice that he gave me and how I went about leading this team of ten people.
I was based in the insurance industry and worked in the compliance department of a very famous life assurance company. I had been a member of a team of ten people whose role was to ensure that our clients had received the best advice, that the policy they had taken up was affordable for them and that the policy had been sold in conjuction within the compliance regulations.
Even though the role may on paper seem quite a boring one I actually really enjoyed it. I liked the people who I was working with and we had a bit of a laugh throughout our working day.
Then one afternoon I was called in to see the head of the compliance department. He informed me that my team leader was about to leave the company and that he wanted me to take over. I was quite flattered and duly agreed to take on this new challenge.
I now had to be the boss of all of my fellow team members, this was quite a daunting task. I decided, after seeking the advice from Ian, to be quite a relaxed team leader. I would offer continued training to each member of the team and would be happy for them to talk to each other, as long as all of the work was being completed to the required levels of quality.
Each month, I awarded the top member of the team an extra half days holiday as a way of thanking them for their hard work. The competition for this little reward was red hot and it certainly helped to improve productivity.
I made each member aware that I was now the boss but that I would be very approachable. They could see me with any questions that they had and to give me their ideas to improve the team.
I held this position for around a year before also moving on to pastures new. I would like to think that I was a well liked and respected team leader, I was certainly pleased and proud of my achievements during that period.
Stephen Hill runs The How To Stop Stammering Centre, he has a number of websites including:
