Deepdive #6
Team Leads
The backbone of organizations
Foundation for a successful organization
Team Leads, or those in a managerial or leadership role responsible for the day-to-day leadership of a team/department/project group, form the connecting link between strategic objectives and daily operations. They represent the organization’s culture and play a key role in attracting, developing, and retaining talent. However, in practice, identifying and effectively training strong Team Leads is a challenge. Often, they don’t receive the support they need to excel in their roles. Team Leads are expected to have all the answers but frequently lack the guidance and resources to perform their roles effectively and consistently.
Why good Team Leads are indispensable
In a competitive and tight labor market, talent retention is a significant challenge. While turnover is normal, the alarming fact is that 52% of departing employees say their departure could have been prevented. What was missing? A strong, engaged manager.
More than half of departing employees stated in previous survey that their manager never talked to them about their development, growth goals, or future within the company in the three months before their departure. This lack of personal attention and dialogue was often the decisive factor for their departure. When no one talks to employees about their future within the organization, it is no surprise that they decide that such a future simply does not exist.
‘People join companies. They leave managers.’
The crucial role of Team Leads
Team Leads have a direct and decisive influence on the engagement and motivation of employees. Managers who do not actively pay attention to the development of their team members unintentionally contribute to their departure. Research confirms: employees stay for culture and opportunities, but leave due to a lack of guidance and attention.
Additionally, Team Leads play a crucial role in retaining talent. If you want to keep talent engaged and motivated, you need more than good intention: you need strong Team Leads. But they do not emerge by themselves - they need to be developed, trained, and supported in their role. Without strong Team Leads, retaining talent becomes a difficult battle.
The impact of Team Leads: connecting strategy and daily success
The role of a Team Lead varies from company to company, but one thing is universal: their impact on how an organization operates and develops is enormous. Without strong Team Leads, retaining talent remains a challenge, and achieving the company's strategic goals becomes difficult. Team Leads not only ensure daily success but also contribute to a culture that binds and motivates employees. They form the connection between strategy and execution and play a key role in three essential areas.
Daily Management
Team Leads translate business goals into concrete choices and priorities in daily work. They ensure that teams operate efficiently and purposefully.
Consistency in Cultural DNA & Team Dynamics
As ambassadors and guardians of the desired cultural DNA, Team Leads are decisive for the atmosphere, collaboration, and team spirit within the company.
Talent Development and Training Capability
Team Leads play a crucial role in training less experienced team members. They enhance both content-specific knowledge and collaboration skills, ensuring that culturally desired behavior is passed on and safeguarded.
The Pitfall: The Dreaded 'Peter Principle'
The Peter Principle illustrates how promotions within a hierarchy often lead to positions where someone no longer excels. An employee who excels in their field receives promotion after promotion until they land in a leadership role for which they lack the right skills. From that point, further growth becomes challenging, and the person remains stuck in a position where they do not perform well.
This mainly occurs with content experts. Their strong subject knowledge often leads to promotions to leadership roles, but leadership requires entirely different skills, such as managing people, resolving conflicts, and motivating teams. Without these skills, things go wrong. In medium-sized companies, where Team Leads often function as 'working leaders', there is often a lack of guidance to develop these leadership skills.
The result? An excellent specialist is faced with tasks for which they are not suited. This not only frustrates the employee but also harms the team. Strong subject knowledge alone is simply not enough to lead effectively.
This is the Peter Principle in action: a missed opportunity for both the employee and the organization.
Identifying Talented Team Leads
It's clear: not every good employee is also a potential team lead. Therefore, it is important to know what qualities a future Team Lead truly needs and avoid placing the wrong person in the role. This is not about skills that can be easily learned, but about innate talents that exist in an individual. Of course, experience can help develop these talents, but what isn’t there naturally cannot be developed.
Intrinsic Motivation
Sounds like an open door, but it is not. Out of good intentions (and also career prospects), many people want to fulfill a Team Lead role, even though they don't really aspire to that role. Truly good potential Team Leads have the drive to guide and develop others, rather than just career prospects.
Empathy
Potential Team Leads show understanding of others, can empathize with different situations, and sense what is happening within a team.
Communicative skills:
Potential Team Leads are naturally good listeners and able to communicate clearly and effectively. They show interest in others, prevent miscommunication, and proactively inform others.
Decisiveness
Potential Team Leads have the ability and courage to make clear decisions and take action. They understand their goals and can make daily choices that serve those priorities, keeping both the bigger picture and the impact on individuals in mind.
Self-awareness
Potential Team Leads are naturally reflective, able to assess their strengths and areas for improvement, ensuring ongoing growth.
Developing Team Lead skills
It is also about constantly developing concrete skills that form the foundation for successful leadership. Below you can see the five most important skills in which team leads must continuously become proficient:
Understanding Team Dynamics: understand how teams function, how group processes work, and how different personalities collaborate. This insight promotes collaboration and team cohesion.
Flexible Leadership Styles: know when to adopt a coaching, directive, or supportive approach. Adapt your style to the situation and the needs of the team.
Effective Conflict Management: learn to resolve conflicts without the team without disrupting the dynamics. Strong conflict skills strengthen harmony and productivity.
Motivation as a driver: develop techniques to inspire and motivate both individual team members and the entire team. A motivated team gets the best out of themselves.
Giving and Receiving Feedback: build the skill to provide constructive feedback and be open to input yourself. This creates a culture of continuous growth and improvement.
With these skills, Team Leads are not only able to excel strategically and technically, but also to effectively guide and grow their teams. Leadership begins with developing these building blocks
Create the right company-wide structure as a Basis for Success
Selecting and training good Team Leads is a good start. To then have them successfully and consistently fulfill their role, it is essential that employers create the right structure company-wide. This prevents each Team Lead from having to reinvent the wheel and ensures uniform management of different teams. The following elements are crucial:
#1: Culture
It is important that the desired culture is clearly and explicitly defined and illustrated in values and with behavioral examples. Team Leads are important representatives for the organizational culture. By clearly defining the Cultural DNA, it provides Team Leads with tools to lead teams in line with the company's values.
#2: Clear Role Descriptions
Ensure a clear description of the expectations and responsibilities of a Team Lead. A clear role description prevents ambiguity and increases effectiveness.
#3: Career Framework
For most companies, Team Leads are crucial for talent development. They guide talent, stimulate knowledge development, and assess the development of their team members. To help Team Leads embrace their mentoring and coaching role, a clear company-wide vision on the skills and competencies that need to be developed is indispensable. This must be documented in a career framework with growth paths and role descriptions.
#4: Practical Tools
Use tools and standardized processes to save time and ensure consistency. For example, a platform that facilitates feedback between teams and tracks annual reviews.
How to Support Team Leads Effectively?
Team Leads play a crucial role in the daily operation of their teams, but lack of time is a common obstacle. In many growing companies, the role of Team Lead is not a full-time function, but rather that of a 'working supervisor' role. This keeps them engaged with practical activities and enables them to use their expertise directly. The downside is that Team Lead tasks often come on top of their regular responsibilities, leading to insufficient attention. Practical support is therefore indispensable. By supporting Team Leads in these areas, you enable them to fulfill their role effectively without becoming overwhelmed. The result? Stronger teams and better outcomes.
#1: Recruitment
Give Team Leads a clear role in hiring new team members, supported by:
- Clear criteria for hard skills and cultural competencies.
- A standardized application procedure.
- Tools like an interview cheat sheet to conduct objective and efficient conversations.
#2: Talent Development
Help Team Leads motivate and support team members by:
- Creating a regular rhythm for setting growth goals and gathering feedback.
- Providing tools that allow team members to take charge of their own development, encouraging them to involve their Team Lead rather than vice versa.
#3: Talent Evaluations
Support Team Leads in critically evaluating performance by:
- Sharply defining role expectations, both in terms of skills and cultural competencies.
- Letting team members reflect on their own performance prior to evaluation discussions.
- Offering training for conducting constructive, impactful conversations.
#4: Management Information
Ensure that Team Leads can easily and consistently provide management information by:
- Using smart tools that relieve them.
- Turning data into concrete, actionable insights.
WRAPPING UP
The Power of Investing in Team Leads
Great Team Leads are indispensable links in your organization. But they don't just fall from the sky. It is therefore crucial not to consider every good employee as a potential Team Lead, but to recognize who has the right talents and motivation. By investing in Team Leads, you not only strengthen your organizational culture, but you also build a loyal and motivated team. An investment that more than pays for itself in the long run.