Member-only story
How to Help Your Team Members Achieve Their Goals
“Let me know how I can support you, what support do you need”. These messages from leaders, although given with the best of intentions, can leave team members speechless. Some team members will be able to think of resources they need, and possibly what support they might need from other departments, or time they need. If they have done a similar task before they will have a good idea of what it takes and what support they might need from their leader.
But if they haven’t, they might not even know where to start, let alone know what support they need. In these situations they really need their leader to offer some suggestions of what support they might need, possible risks to be wary of, and key stakeholders. All this information gives the team member a good head start on the task, and the support they might need.
Give them Challenges
As a leader, part of your job is to draw on your experience from the same or similar tasks, and use that experience to help the team. Handing over a task to someone, and viewing it as some sort of test to see if they ‘have what it takes’ really isn’t a good idea. The goal is to help the team member learn these skills, and as a leader, you’re in a great position to help them learn. It is a good idea to give them challenges that will stretch them a bit, and develop…
