Stuart Brown @StuartKBrown: what are the best ways to bond with team members when leading a project?
ANSWER:
Everyone at heart is a child. So you want to be the parent. What does a child want?
– to know firmly where they boundaries are. They will test those boundaries over and over but if you are firm about the boundaries then they will love you for providing the safety of those boundaries
– protection from those who will hurt them. Which means to be a good team leader you have to manage the people above you so they let the people below you alone.
– they want to be fed. So fight for their salaries, fight for their projects and ideas.
– Always be constructive. If someone has a bad idea, break it down and really go over why the idea doesn’t work and perhaps together you can find a way to transform the idea into something that works. most people don’t know how to be constructive critics. The way to do it is to make sure you are really working from a place of honesty inside yourself and then constructively make the idea better or explain how the team member can be better if they realize why the idea doesn’t work.
– Most important: Never take credit for anything. ALWAYS give credit for everything.
– Sit with your team members. Let them know you are fighting the war on the same side as them.
– When good things happen (a project is delivered) treat your team members. At my first company, I brought in a massuese every Friday. A small cost to me had great benefit to the employees and actually helped them reduce stress. I was the only one who didn’t like to get the massage. I don’t like it when people I don’t know touch me.
When you give, you will receive.