The role of a team leader is more than just planning strategies, assigning responsibilities and tracking work progress. Sakshi Gaba Dhawan tells you the ways in which you can find the hidden talent within your team
The best managers are the ones who not only get the job done but also propel their subordinates to deliver to the best of their efficiency. Recognising the strengths and weaknesses of the employees, playing to their strengths and ensuring that the team is greater than the sum of its parts are important responsibilities of a team leader.
Finding the hidden talents of team members and using them to the team’s advantage is one such key skill that can make a difference between a good manager and a brilliant one. All human beings are different, and people management involves recognising this difference and playing it to the advantage of the team. Not all employees can be fitted into a straitjacketed working environment. Some may need greater creative and work freedom to work to the best of their abilities. The true victory of the management is to spot different talents and help evolve and use them for improving results. Using a person to his/her strengths is key to a successful team drive. For example, a team may consist of four members — one of whom has good verbal communication skills, another might have good writing skills, a third may be good at creative ideas, while the fourth may be a good coordinator. If you entrust the third one with coordinating responsibilities and force the fourth one to come out with new ideas, the team would function below its capacity. However, when each one of them is entrusted with the responsibility they have a natural knack for, the team will emerge as more than the sum of its parts. Recognising these hidden talents and playing them out to the maximum is a key component of management skills.
Hidden talent exists at all levels of most organisations. But finding one out is a tedious task. let’s take a look at some easy-to-implement secrets that will change the way you look at things when searching for talent within your own team.
Always know your employees beyond work: Employees are always hired for definite positions but a manager who knows them well may find out their hidden talents in other domains. For example, a company hires a young fresher for a position of creative writing. However, the manager realises in due course that while the employee is not too good of a writer, he has very effective event coordination skills. This can prevent an unnecessary sacking by transferring the employee to the department of his/her strength. The key is therefore to always look beyond resumes. The best way to know about your employee is to know about their likes and interests. Informal communication is a useful tool to discover their hidden capacities. If you find out that one of the team members writes stories or dramas in private time, you can use his knack in designing creative programmes or put him in charge of the organisation’s newsletter which might be struggling for new ideas. Employee skills are an opportunity to take advantage of, either within your department or with another company. Remember that even if you lose an employee you have won an ally.
let your employees don new responsibilities: Giving your teammates a new challenge everyday will help identify their talents and hidden abilities better. Unless you give them new challenges everyday by not limiting them daily to the same chores, you will never know who is capable of what under pressure.
Not only will this help you understand their skill pool, but it will also give them much more confidence in their own abilities. Do not micro-manage their work. You might have a good method of getting results, but another person might have a better mechanism in mind. Focus on the result, and let the team take their own course.
Give them flexibility and freedom: One can’t bear their boss standing over his head all the time and asking for hourly updates. While some employees may adapt to this way of working, others may find it suffocating and might underperform. Giving your teammates freedom to work will help them explore their own talents. At the end of the day, every employee, irrespective of the size of the business in which he works, appreciates flexibility and some degree of freedom. Giving them a fair chance to contribute in any project according to them will give them more confidence to work.
Welcome suggestions and criticism: A boss who is welcome to suggestions is the one who is best able to understand his team’s hidden abilities. The criticisms or suggestions a team member comes up with during a team meeting can say a lot about his hidden abilities. Bosses who are not open to this will never find out what his teammates are thinking or ideas they might bring to the table. When someone in your team proposes something, never reject it outright without giving a proper ear to it. An inability to do so will inevitably lead you to lose great ideas and will leave your team mates disappointed and discouraged.
The writer is Manager (HR), Koenig Solutions