Have you ever worked with a group of people, and thought: I am leading, but no one is listening? I recently heard this from one of the youths I work with at our church. It hit home because I can count many times in my experiences where I have felt the same way. If I am genuinely leading, then would I have the feeling that no one is listening? If I feel like no one is listening, am I leading? Below are four questions to ask yourself, and will hopefully help you adjust how you lead.
Why does this matter?
I know that the project or goal you are working on is important (to you). Your team knows that the plan or goal you are working on is important (to you). Do you know why the project or goal you are working on is important (to your team)?
Answering the questions below will help your team gain focus on your mission and purpose. With a sincere drive toward the team’s mission, this goal will become more significant.
How does this project help the customers you serve?
How does this project help real people in the world around your team
What kind of experience will the members of your team get from completing this project?
Is there a bigger company goal that this objective helps to complete?
Who will the team be serving when they work on this goal?
Does this tie in directly with the team’s mission or vision?
Does my team know what success looks like?
If your team is somewhat successful, I will wager that you get a fair amount of complex projects. Large projects can lead to a type of blindness due to the enormity of the problem. This blindness can keep an individual from seeing how they contribute to the success of the project. Cheering the team on towards success and helping them to gain confidence is part of your job as a leader. To achieve that confidence, you might have to help the team understand the problem better. My prescription for this is to break the problem down as small as it can be. The adage says that you can’t eat an elephant in one bite.
Am I helping each individual with their goal?
The difference between a good leader and a great leader is that a good leader can get small objectives done with the people he/she leads. A great leader finds a way to make the individuals on the team successful, and in return, the organization usually completes much more valuable objectives. Are you positively contributing to each individual’s ability to achieve their goals? Do you help each individual to gain visibility in the team? Are you helping to increase the visibility of the team with their success? Doing these things will help the group see that you care about their goals and not just the completion of the objective. A small investment of your time and energy with the individuals you lead can pay huge dividends as the project progresses. Tracy Thomason wrote an article on a similar topic in this article, Servant Leadership In Engineering.
Do I have enough social credit on this team?
Social credit refers to the trust and engagement built with an individual or group. If your ideas are not well received, it is likely due to a lack of trust from the team. Is there one person with whom you have the credit to be heard?
When I began leading, I had to accept that my ideas sometimes fell flat with the team. Someone in the group would find issues with whatever great idea I had. People require trust to engage with a leader. If you are new or if your ideas are unique enough to the group, you might not have enough social credit to get the team to buy-in to the idea. Maybe you need to find one person that will listen and get that person sold on the idea. Building trust like this in the team lays a foundation of social buy-in, and therefore your opinion has more clout.
Final Takeaways
Leading a team has much more to do than what you say to your team. If people aren’t listening to what you are saying, consider that you may need to change your approach. Find a way to engage your team to the purpose of your project. Help them understand why they are doing this. Clarify why this goal is essential. For example, can you break the problem down so that it is achievable? Even if you are “the leader,” find the people on the team that can help you to gain the buy-in required. These are just a few ideas of things you can do if you find yourself in a situation where “you are leading, but no one is listening.”
Author: Cliff Colvin
Lead Software Engineer, serial entrepreneur and passionate about creating leaders.
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