are

[Deleted User]

as

dave330i

Make sure your underlings know how you like your coffee.

Learn to delegate. Even if you could do the same task in half the time, you should give the task to your underlings.

zmoney14

Teach your staff how to do things, don't just tell them how to do it.

Meditator

Lead by example. Expect them to do their best. Be tough minded but also show the caring and concern for their personal stuff. Remember you are there to make sure that the job gets done, and team members are the one who do the job- but don't micro manage. Don't let them boss you around, put your foot down when you must. If everyone is doing what they are supposed to all if not most of the time then you have a good team- reward them as such (free donuts will be nice)

nerdinhiding

Never ask your employees to do things that you would not do yourself, lead by example is the key. Be fair on reviews but honest. Don't be shy on reprimands if they are due because if you are then your top people will resent the under performers even more in addition to you.

networker050184

Lead from the front, not the rear. Don't ask your guys to do anything you wouldn't do. As a team lead it's all about sharing information and ensuring people have what they need to succeed.

DevilWAH

Talk to your staff. I mean it, have coffee with them once or twice a week, talk about where you would like to see the team go, feel free to disccues what you think needs to be changed to get the team where it needs to go. Some staff love to chat to the boss, others feel threatened by it, and all of them at some point want to ***** about management. So let them have space a a team with out you, if the go of for tea and don't invite you along don't worry and if you over hear them moaning as you walk past, don't jump in, walk on by and make a note to organise a meeting or disussion where you can address it.

Management is the art of delegating work, or telling people what to do. If you manage your team you do all the brain work and they do all the leg work.

Leader ship is about getting your team to think for them selves and motivating them to work together towards a common goal. In a well lead team the task of delegating roles becomes redundant because members of the team naturally take on the role that fit there skill sets, allowing you to get on with planning improvements and development.

And be prepared to fight for you team, if you feel management above is being unfair, speak up. If a member of the team is not pulling there weight make sure they know you expect better (but do give them the opportunity to explain and sort it out before you run to HR).

AS my old boss use to say, "you can teach some one to be a good manager, but you can teach some one how to be a great leader". And its true, Leading is about weighing up the situations and responding in a way that motivates the team, keeps the moral high and drives it forward. every member of the team will have a different personality and skills, and to be a good leader you need to be able to show each member of the team what you expect and require and most importantly a seance of attachments as you pass each milestone.

People say "lead from the front" and this is almost a byproduct of good leader ship, its a lot easier to teach your team the qualities you want them to have, by demonstrate them and doing them yourself, than trying to write a process for them to follow.

N2IT

The key IMO is to be patient and learn what type of leader you are.

Leadership styles - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Herzberg has and X Y theory you may want to look into. Pretty simplistic but effective. (More for awareness)

This isn't the best place to go, the descriptions I am familiar with consist of the developer, dictator, and several other leadership styles. It's important to understand what style you lean toward and understand the strengths and weaknesses of your style. If you want to take it a step further you may want to see how that style matches with other styles. Example Laisse Faire vs Dictator etc.

chmod

Keep a close relationship with them, keep track of what they are doing and provide feedback on time when needed but in a constructive way.

I like one on one meetings, 15 minutes to discuss personal matters, how they are doing, how they feel, try get as much feedback as possible. Try to be fair i don't give the best schedule to a person forever and ever and try to balance as much as possible, have them compete with themselves not with each other for example: who sells more computers this month get a bonus check instead of that you can offer something to all the guys that increases their sales X amount this month in comparison to last month get something even if it is not money per se and if the entire team/department increases the sales up to this amount we all get this and that and blah blah blah and them to the person that finishes on top you give them something.
This could be instead of sales ticket closing ratio or whatever.

Try to get some spare time for coaching, have meeting with the entire when to share how the team is performing, you can delegate technical leadership to the persons that stand out so they feel important, people like to be recognized and like to feel part of the team success so you have to make sure you can achieve that.

This are just some tips and not all of them are applicable to your situation but the concept is the most important

Claymoore

My brother recommended this book to me, and it helped correct some of my flaws that really surfaced when I moved into a senior lead / management role. It turns out many of us are successful in spite of our flaws - not because of them.

What Got You Here Won't Get You There

PurpleIT

Claymoore wrote: »

My brother recommended this book to me, and it helped correct some of my flaws that really surfaced when I moved into a senior lead / management role. It turns out many of us are successful in spite of our flaws - not because of them.

What Got You Here Won't Get You There

Not to turn this into a book review thread, but part of being in a leadership role is doing your homework and to start that should include some reading.

The One Minute Manager is a quick read and a little simplistic, but it has a nice philosophy behind it.

The First-Time Manager helped my wife out quite a bit when she moved into a leadership position.

I am sure there are dozens of others that people here can recommend, but I think the most important thing when reading any of these books to is to have an open mind, but don't drink the kool-aid.

By that I mean be open to ideas that may be foreign to you, but don't assume any one book has all the answers or is "right". You also have to be true to yourself; you will likely have to push your boundaries, but if you are flat out uncomfortable with a given approach or don't believe the words coming out of your mouth your employees will sense it.

murdatapes

Not too far I was in the same shoes as you xmalachi. I got promoted to team lead last year. My currently role is more supervisor than team lead. It's a big move man. When I first started out I couldn't delegate crap. My team looked at me as, "you can do it, so do it." That was a killer fore me because I could do it and wanted to do it. So of course I did it. Here's the problem when I did do most of the work and was not delegating. I was working a load balancer issue one time, and did not see I had a irate customer about to leave for another company. It was escalated to me by a manager. I told the manager, "I was working on an issue." She says, "no, what you do is delegate that work and you take care of this customer as this is what you do now." So after working on technical issues all the time, I know had to refocus my energy into the team, technical 2nd (at least in my department).

The biggest first challenge I had was to get the team to buy into, this is what I do now. That was rough. But it worked, because it took time. I was telling them to address issues I normally would of addressed by myself. I was coordinating meetings with them, doing talks to get them ampped up for the day and duties. This was all new to me. But a year later, I love what I do. Tell you the truth through, this is the reason why I am now jumping tracks from tech to management. I made that decision 6 months into the new role. I still love the tech side, but know my passion is motivating, leading and making sure my team members are successful and successful into that vision that the department/company has. You are the voice now. Your team eventually(after they get over the fact your role is changing some what) will look for you to get things done, or to move things up the chain to get things done.

You will be fine. I would say from experience, work on your communication skills, assertiveness, vision, and trust. If your team trust you, that is first step. Trust you to get their back. Trust you, that you will tell them the truth so they can be better at their jobs. Trust you, to trust them, to give them things to challenge them to help them grow.

You'll be fine. Never know you may end up like me, and actually liking so much, you want it to be a career. PM me if you have any questions on situations. Again, i was in your shoes just last year, so I am not to far off, but had to learn quick of my new responsibility, and wouldn't change it for nothing.

N2IT

I thought the one minute manager was very light and like another poster mentioned, too simplistic.

paul78

N2IT wrote: »

The key IMO is to be patient and learn what type of leader you are.

I would agree 100%. One think that I have learned is that it really doesn't matter if you don't know your own self. Your own self-awareness of your personality and tendencies will serve you better long term than any type of process. Leadership isnt a process that you can just recreate. Its an art.

I am not sure if I can articulate it properly but - not all leadership styles work in all situations. It doesnt mean that you need to adapt your style but to be succesful longer term, it's important to understand the type of job, role, and culture where you can be successfull.

paul78

Good luck and hope you get the formal promotion soon. It must be quite exciting.

My only other advice is to not force it. I've seen a lot of overly gung-ho new leaders start off by implementing new changes, team meetings, etc. Start off as though you would start any new job. Learn the lay of the land even if you have been working in that organization for a while. You may become exposed to new organizational topics and issues which may not have been shared with you in the past. There are probably going to be new expectations by your own management and leadership - find out what they are first. And try to understand why they think the team needs a team lead where none existed before.

Good luck.

dave330i

1 more thing. Don't sechdule Friday late afternoon team meetings.

the_Grinch

My favorite boss was at my last job and that was for one reason: he took the hits. Allow me to explain this a bit better. If someone on our team messed up (or supposedly messed up) when upper management came down on him he took the initial hit. When they got done chewing him out or "discussing" how terrible we were, he'd then call the engineer in question to his office. From there he say "you remember working on X issue? what exactly happened?". He'd hear your side of it, ask questions, and then follow up with asking for your documentation (ticket, notes in the runbook, procedure you followed, and your communications with the customer). If your ducks were in a row, he'd acknowledge you did what you needed to do and let the matter rest. A few times he asked me to speak with the management in question showing my actions so they saw that perhaps the customer was mistaken or we did everything we could at the time. But the fact was you never left you out to dry. Eventually though, if it kept reoccuring, he'd no longer fight for you as should be expected.

Communicate with your team. Take the initial hits for them, but get both sides of the story. Give feedback, positive and negative. Managers/leads tend to only tell you when you screwed up, it's nice to hear when you did a good job. Find out their goals and if they align to the companies help them obtain them (be it training, certification, etc). See that they are recognized when they do a good job. Remember that complaints go up, not down.

veritas_libertas

@TheGrinch: Sounds like my current supervisor.

N2IT

@ Dave that should be the golden rule. Scoffs are rookie PM's who pull this nonsense.

dave330i

N2IT wrote: »

@ Dave that should be the golden rule. Scoffs are rookie PM's who pull this nonsense.

When I was working at a startup, the owner always scheduled an all-team meeting on Friday @5pm at lease twice a month. The startup didn't go anywhere.

Sponx

Congratulations on becoming the new team lead!

+ Acknowledge your staff for when they do well, or go above and beyond!
+ Always lead by example, and do a great job!
+ Be down to earth with your staff, and coach them with real world examples.
+ Have fun, make the job rewarding, be social.
+ Be aware of your moods, and how you're communicating to them.
+ Trust your staff can get the job done, even if you can do it faster. You have to learn delegation.
+ Make sure there is no favoritism... You can like one employee over the other but don't give them less work, or be less abrasive when you need to be.

My recommendation would be to also read this book: Strengths Based Leadership: Great Leaders, Teams, and Why People Follow: Tom Rath, Barry Conchie: 9781595620255: Amazon.com: Books.

Good luck!