Developing Yourself As a Team Leader

SHORT ANSWER QUESTIONS

DEVELOPING YOURSELF AS A TEAM LEADER

Understand the roles and responsibilities of the team leader

1. Outline the role of the team leader(12 marks)

The team leader has authority over team members and is responsible for set a team’s direction and co-ordinating the team efforts to ensure the work required is completed. One main role a team leader has is to be a communicator. This is crucially important as the team leader must ensure that all team members are completely clear about the work demands placed upon them. They need to understand completely the work required, the deadline for the work and any specific commands/methods involved in the work. In the team I currently work in there are weekly meetings in which the team leader can make sure that all team members are aware of the work required in the week ahead. It is also an opportunity for all members to learn about all the work being undertaken by the team. This means all aspects of the project are discussed with all members although it might only concern the work of one or two members. This ensures that the whole team are aware of the work going on around them and should an emergency situation arise then none of the work is totally unknown to any member and they could help out easier. The meeting is also an opportunity for the team leader to remind members of any upcoming deadline. Recently the team had a statutory consultation period on closing a school underway and there was a tight timetable to read, analyse and respond to all the correspondence received. The team leader reminded the relevant team members that this work was their priority and reiterated the importance of completing the work by the deadline. Clear communication is part of the foundation to any successfully lead team.

Another important role a team leader has is as a coach. It is vitally important that the leader develops his staff to ensure they remain interested in the work and are keen to complete it. When team members are completing the same work day in and day out there is a danger they could become stagnant and not perform to their capabilities. A successful team leader will endeavour to keep their team members interested by introducing new challenges and aspects to their jobs to develop each member. In my current post the team leader will give impromptu general feedback to the team on a specific work package. He will thank the team for it’s completion and give his opinion on which aspects were most successful, will then note any less successful aspects and ask whether the team members can suggest any improvements. This could be in the way research is gathered, collated or presented or the method in which it is sent to the client. The current team has had some problems understanding the way in which school building capacities are calculated. There is a specific formula which creates school capacities based on the exact size of the rooms and their use. It is not straightforward and lack of understanding lead to confusion regarding the capacity of one school. This lead to the team leader to instruct a member of staff to spend time with an external officer with understanding to coach him in the process and then return and share that understanding with the remaining team members. The current team leader also provides the opportunities for team members to develop. When the team leader is unable to attend a meeting he will allow a team member to attend in his stead after briefing them on the meeting contents.

Another role of a team leader is to co-ordinate. This means that the leader must be aware of all the work aspects his team is performing and co-ordinate effectively. In the team I currently work in the team leader will ask for updates regarding certain work packages at different intervals. He will ask team members whether work is still ongoing and whether there are any problems, if the work is taking longer than predicted then the work may be shared between members to ensure it is completed on time. As part of the statutory processes involved in school re-organisation there must be a statutory notice published. One member of the team is designated to create the notice and make sure the legal department is satisfied with the notice’s contents while another team member is responsible for contacting the newspapers and organising the notice to be published in a certain edition of a paper. This requires organising as the notice must be ready by a certain deadline in order to ensure enough time for the newspapers to include the notice, send a proof to the team for approval, and then complete any amendments by their printing deadline. The team leader will keep abreast of the situation to ensure that there is no time wasted unnecessarily.

A team leader should also be a problem solver. It is inevitable that problems will arise, despite the best planning efforts to avoid them. They can arise unexpectedly and require immediate attention until resolved. A team leader must discover the core of the problem and address it so that the team can continue in their work. Problems can be small or large and require the team leader to become involved. In my current post, due to the nature of the subject, school organisation, problems can arise very quickly in the public domain and need immediate response. The communications department recently contacted us needing urgent information for a newspaper before they went to press without a comment from the Council. This required the team leader requesting information from a number of team members to ensure the information was collated by the deadline.

1. List the responsibilities of the team leader within the team(8 marks)

There is a long list of responsibilities for team leaders within the team. Being approachable and available for discussions with team members is central to an effective team leader. Should team members have a problem or need help the leader should be approachable for private discussions. In the past I have been given too much work to do in a short period of time. During a statutory consultation period I attended and took minutes for a 5 hour Monday evening meeting and the minutes were promised by the end of the Friday. During that week I had another evening meeting on the Wednesday that lasted 3.5hours, other responsibilities and had to get different officer’s comments on the draft minutes. In order to complete the work by the Friday I had to work unreasonably long hours. I approached my manager to discuss this and it was agreed that the deadlines for producing minutes would be given by myself so that I wasn’t placed under unreasonable pressure again. The fact that I could approach him was invaluable as I would not have been able to maintain that work level for long.

The team leader must set targets for the team members so that the work programme direction is clear and to ensure that every member plays their part. When setting targets the key is to place realistic targets for individuals and not put impossible targets that would demoralise staff from the beginning. The school organisation team often receives information requests from the Welsh Government with specific deadlines. The team leader breaks the request up into sections and shares the work between team members. Each team member is required to discover the answers to their sections of the request before the meeting where every team shares their information.

1. Outline the limits of the team leader’s authority and their accountability (12 marks)

The team leader has more power (authority) than the team members but is also accountable to their own manager who has senior authority. There is therefore a limit to the team leader’s authority and this is then where the senior officers would become accountable. The team leader in our team has overall control over the team’s finances, he can spend the money as he sees fit but will be accountable to senior officials should the team go over budget or should there be any questions about the finance. When a new member of staff was joining the team and required a monitor, keyboard and mouse to accompany his laptop although I (a team member) organised their requisition, the team leader had to authorise their purchase. However, had the new team member required a removable storage device then a senior officer would have been required to authorise it (very strict restrictions on the use of these devices).

The team leader has responsibility for leading and managing the people within his team. In the team I am currently a part of the team leader is responsible for authorising leave and co-ordinating it so that the office is not understaffed at any time. He can sign leave cards and authorise time off for doctor’s appointment, dentists etc but cannot authorise leave without pay. Should a team member require time off without pay a formal request must be made that would be presented to senior officials for consideration.

The team leader can make decisions to a point regarding the work undergone in the school organisation team. There is a statutory process that must be followed which limits decisions in some respects but the timeline and manner in which the team works is decided by the leader. The Council’s cabinet must choose which model to consult on (i.e. which school organisation proposal to proceed with) but the timing of that consultation and the information included in the consultation is decided by the team leader. Senior officers will have some input when reviewing the final draft but the team leader is responsible for deciding when to consult, in which format and the depth of information included.

1. Give an example of a situation that would need to be referred to someone with senior authority (8 marks)

Recently, while the team leader was on leave, a request was made by the communications department for confirmation and validation of a statement for a newspaper. The newspaper’s printing deadline was fast approaching and the communications department needed approval from the school organisation team to send the Council’s statement. It was crucial that the information contained within the statement was accurate, as any incorrect information regarding school organisation can have serious consequences. The school organisation process that include school closures is a very emotive subject that everyone has an opinion on. This is understandable as most people either have a direct or indirect link to people working in a school or with children attending school. Any incorrect information published could have subsequent consequences, should any data be incorrectly published and the Council then used different data, it would undermine the purpose of the figures, as people would lack confidence in the Council’s ability to produce the information. In this instance the statement included data pertaining to surplus places in schools. This is the ‘empty’ spaces in a school, the capacity the school has based on the building size, minus the actual number of pupils attending the school. As I was the only team member present there was no choice but to refuse to authorise the statement and refer the communications department to someone with senior authority outside the team.

BE ABLE TO SEEK FEEDBACK ON THEIR WORKPLACE PERFORMANCE TO IDENTIFY STRENGTHS, WEAKNESSES AND AREAS FOR IMPROVEMENT

1. Gather feedback from others on your own performance from different sources as a team leader/potential team leader, interpret and give a summary of feedback gathered and use this feedback to list areas for improvement (32 marks)

Feedback from your Manager:

My manager completed a ‘Management 360° Questionnaire’ regarding his experience of working with me to highlight my strengths and weaknesses. We then discussed at length his responses and he gave me feedback on areas for improvement. As I am not currently leading a team, on the managing people and driving performance sections he marked me on the way in which I manage people that I work with from different departments as I haven’t had the opportunity to manage people in the traditional hierarchy sense. As part of the job I liaise extensively with departments such as finance, legal, school admissions and property. Often asking officers which I have no authority over to complete work by tight deadlines. It became apparent during the discussion that one of my main weaknesses during this work is dealing effectively with poor performance (marked as a 3 on the 360° questionnaire). I completely agree with this assessment as on a few occasions I have requested specific information from an individual and they have responded but not with the exact information requested. Rather than go back to the individual for more information I have either done the work myself and got someone else to check it. I should go back to the individual and explain more clearly what I would like.

A very similar weakness is that I don’t delegate appropriate responsibilities to others (marked as a 4 on the 360° questionnaire). This I am aware of and completely agree with. In the past I have requested information from our research officer and as I don’t like the way it is presented I will re-revise the presentation. Most of the work will be go to public meetings and as such I think should be presented in a professional manner. Rather than send the information back to the individual to be revised, I change it myself. I realise I do this as it will take the least amount of time in the long run, rather than wait for the individual to do it but that is not delegating effectively when there are a number of other things for me to do rather than someone else’s work.

Here is the completed ‘Management 360° Questionnaire’ by my manager .

Completed 360 was provided here

During this year’s job appraisal with my manager it became apparent that my main weakness was the lack of personal development. I had not attended any training courses from March 2011-May 2012, missing out on the opportunity to develop my skills. Although the team is busy we discussed the importance of attending courses to learn new skills which would then be available should new opportunities arise for different experiences. My manager did state that it was not lack of wanting to develop, as I have attending a national meeting in his stead representing the Council and internal meetings with union representatives. We agreed that attending some training courses would be a priority in the year ahead and that he would authorise attendance and the time from the office to attend. The details of the courses discussed are below:

(Review record was provided here)

The ‘weaknesses’ of the 360s and Appraisal are fed into the action plan on the following page:

Copy of relevant section of job appraisal form.

Within my job appraisal we discussed and noted some personal targets that we agreed would develop my skills further. One of these was to be involved in the completion of business justification cases regarding funding opportunities with the Welsh Government. We decided it would be highly advantageous for me personally and the team as a whole that I contribute to the business cases so that I gain further experience and bring fresh ideas. This will be a new challenge and a new aspect of the job but will provide invaluable new skills.

Copy of relevant section of job appraisal form. This was provided here

Feedback from your colleague/peer:

Two colleagues completed a ‘Management 360° Questionnaire’ regarding their experience working with me. One colleague did not complete some aspects of the questionnaire as I am not in a team leadership post. It became apparent from one colleague that I do not reward good performance (marked as a 3 on the 360° questionnaire). I have given this response a lot of thought to try and see why my colleague feels like this. I think it links with my managers feedback that If I am not happy with work from colleagues that I will re-do the work myself. I think that because the work received from colleagues is sometimes not in the format acceptable for the public domain and I need to re-format it that I may not reward my colleague for the initial work. I must therefore make a conscious effort to return to colleagues and ask for them to re-format work before rewarding the work. 360 feedback was provided here

Here is the completed ‘Management 360° Questionnaire’ by one colleague .

Another colleague completed the 360° Questionnaire stating that there is not the opportunity to get experience in the ‘managing people’ section which contribute to the low marks in this section. The lowest mark, not in the managing people section was “I review personal development consistently” (marked as a 3). This I concede is a weakness as previously discussed and it re-iterates the importance of taking action regarding this weakness.