Team Leader Training Course - 2 Days

The purpose of this Team Leader training is to equip you with a set of techniques and communication skills, that will allow you to be more successful in your role as a team leader.

In order to be successful, you must master the following six team leader skills:

1. Clarity of purpose - goal focus
2. Clear communication and accurate language
3. Time management and delegating skills
4. Rational conflict management skills
5. How to inspire and motivate yourself (personal management)
6. How to inspire and motivate other people (leadership qualities)

Success means the achievement of a goal. Therefore, a clear goal focus is the most important quality of the successful Team Leader.

The goal must be clearly communicated to every member of the team, so that everyone understands what is required.

Any ambiguity, or misunderstandings, will cause confusion and error. Therefore, Team Leaders must master the skill of accurate language.

Ask eight questions that relate to your goals and how you can achieve them.

SMART targets suggest the following eight questions:

1. What is the goal you need to achieve?
2. How do you specify that goal using numbers?
3. How do you specify that goal using words?
4. How would you measure progress?
5. What abilities do you need to improve?
6. What resources do you need to acquire?
7. What is the time limit?
8. Is that limit reasonable or over-optimistic?

Exercise: Develop your skills by practicing with a real-life example.

Every day, you leave impressions in the minds of other people.

How do you want to be perceived by the people in your team?

What impression do you want to leave?

What team leader and personal qualities do you want to be known for?

Exercise: Develop your skills by doing a practical example of "Impression management".

Clarity of Purpose is the starting point of all achievement.

A good sense of humour is important.

How can humour work add value to yourself and the rest of the team?

How have you seen the mis-use of humour cause problems at work?

The correct and incorrect use of humour in the workplace.

Exercise: Develop your skills by practicing with real-life examples.

Team leaders must know how to communicate their message with clarity and accuracy. There should be minimal chance of misunderstanding.

Team Leaders must not give any vague instructions. They must be able to define their message and always be able to explain precisely what they mean.

Exercises: Develop your skills by practicing a real-life example.

Affirmative instructions means talking about what you CAN do, ie the can-do portion of the job.

Negative instructions means talking about what you CANNOT or WON’T do, ie the NO-CAN-DO portion of the job.

Team Leaders must talk about the can-do portion of the job.

Practice exercises in turning the conversation from the negative to the affirmative.

We influence each other by the way we speak. Sadly, some people emit too many negative vibes. For example, the phrase: “Don’t worry” is a suggestion to worry.

Good Team Leaders are conscious of using only affirmative language.

Exercise: Develop your skills by practicing with examples.

Never attack a person's character as you will trigger a negative emotional response.

On this course delegates will learn how to verbalise conflict messages correctly by being more factual, objective and specific, without becoming emotional and opinionated.

You will learn the difference between objective and subjective language, and why, when in conflict, you should only use objective language. Tell them precisely what is wrong, in non-emotional, factual terms.

Use reason to resolve conflict, not avoidance nor high emotion.

As a Team Leader, how you handle conflict is important. You need to know exactly how to:

• Use logic to resolve conflict; not anger, upset or too much emotion
• Resolve a conflict quickly; before it escalates into something more damaging
• When you should compromise, and when NOT to compromise

Never attack a person's character. If you attack their character, you will trigger a negative emotional response. You will learn how to verbalise conflict messages correctly.

Be more factual, objective and specific, try not to become emotional and opinionated.

Learn the difference between objective and subjective language. When in conflict, use only objective language.

Tell them precisely what is wrong, in non-emotional, factual terms.

Distinguish between reasons and excuses for not doing something: have a different policy for each.

Know when to give ground and compromise and when to NOT compromise.

Exercise: Develop your skills by practicing real-life conflict examples.

Time management is the art of making the maximum progress in the minimum time and effort.

Time management is about organising yourself and your team, so that they are always doing the right things, in the correct order.

Good time managers do not necessarily do the easiest things first. They do the most valuable things, in the most logical order.

Team Leaders do things in the right order:

• Q1 Crisis: High value, late work
• Q2 Productive: High value, preparation, prevention and planning
• Q3 Busy: Low-value busy-work
• Q4 Fruitless: Waste of time activity. Gossip

Distinguish between being "Busy" and being "Productive".

The Team Leader's most hated enemy is the “busy but non-productive day”.

Have you ever had one?

Team Leaders do battle with these three-time wasters: Self; Others; Systems (SOS).

1. Your own bad habits: How you mess-up your time management
2. Other people: How other people mess up your day
3. Poor systems: inefficient systems within your organisation

How to limit the damage done by SOS.

Our time management questionnaire will discover exactly how you could improve your time management.

Delegation is the art of entrusting a task to another.

Reasons to delegate.

How to delegate a task.

The common errors to avoid.

You can’t do everything simultaneously, therefore you must prioritise.

Prioritisation is the science of putting things into the correct order.

Manage your priorities by means of a decision matrix.

The power of an idea lies in its application.

Decisions fall into the following six categories; each type has its own decision matrix.

• Prioritisation by value
• Prioritisation by logical sequence
• Yes or No binary decision
• Which one, or what kind?
• Problem - cause – solution
• Problem – implication – counter-measure

The advantages of using a structured approach to decision making.

Manage interruptions by means of the 80-20 principle.

The 80-20 principle suggests that 80% of the value of their message is contained in only 20% of the content.
Your task is to discover the 20% of their message that contains all of the value.

Interrupt the interrupter.

Emails can be a distraction. We will analyse how you can best manage them to minimise the problem.

Emotional management.
Positive mental attitude.
Mindfulness.

The attitude of the team has a profound effect on the results the team is able to achieve.
The Team Leader’s role includes creating and sustaining a positive mental attitude, especially during tough times.

Every problem contains the seed of an equivalent, or a greater benefit.
Your task is to find it.

Improve your understanding of how you can affect the emotions of others and how to instil in them a more positive outlook.

Understanding the principles of Emotional intelligence (EQ).

Learn how to avoid accidentally demotivating staff.

Everything you say to your team influences how they feel. And everything they say to each other influences how they feel. Often, work conversations result in negative emotions, which then act to hamper progress.

“Conversation control” is about listening to the emotional component of work conversations and, whenever necessary, changing their content so that the emotions are, for the most part, positive.

All successful action can be described by a simple five-part formula.

1. Clear goal – Purpose
2. Formulate your best plan in writing
3. Take consistent action
4. Gather and evaluate the feedback, both positive and negative
5. Make progress by continually adapting and evolving the plan

The valuable role of constructive feedback.

How to ensure your negative feedback is seen as a constructive communication.

How will this Team Leader management training course help you to get the best from yourself and others?

Personal action plan for Team Leaders.