The Finance Leader Podcast
The Finance Leader Podcast
Bonus Ep 71 - Finance Team Success: A Journey of Leadership and Engagement
Imagine unlocking the full potential of your finance team with the right leadership and engagement tools. We kick things off by venturing into the realm of leadership, exploring its intricate responsibilities, and stressing the significance of setting the vision, maintaining high standards, and becoming a role model for your team.
As we move forward, we dive deeper into the nuances of team engagement, demonstrating how your actions can mold your team's success trajectory. We'll replay episode 107, offering handy team member engagement tools that you can readily apply within your team. The goal is to create an environment where team members are positively engaged, productive, efficient, and motivated, leading to high-quality output. Don’t forget to check out the Finance Leader Academy for free additional resources.
Episode outline:
- Why team engagement is important,
- Team engagement tools you can easily use, and
- How to go to the next level.
Please connect with me on:
1. Instagram: stephen.mclain
2. Twitter: smclainiii
3. Facebook: stephenmclainconsultant
4. LinkedIn: stephenjmclainiii
For more resources, please visit Finance Leader Academy: financeleaderacademy.com.
- On the website, you can download the Become a Finance Leader Guide. You can use this guide to build your Finance Leadership skills so you can help senior leaders develop and execute the strategy.
- I also offer a course, Advance Your Finance and Accounting Career: Developing a Promotion Strategy that Sets You Apart.
Hi, this is Stephen McLain of the Finance Leader Podcast. This is bonus episode number 71. How are you and your team doing this week? Leadership is literally an everyday exercise. It's an everyday role and responsibility. Leadership does not stop and it does not take a break. That's the heavy burden of leadership. As a leader, you have to continually set the vision, set the work agenda, set high standards and set the example. Every day you are being watched and copied for your behavior and your approach. Your team will emulate what you do in work, product quality and even in your attitude. So you have to be aware that what you do and say is important to team success or failure. So this week I want to share an on-core replay of episode 107, team Member Engagement Tools you can easily apply. Team Engagement is such an important daily exercise that it can affect how well your team members succeed or not. Team members who are positively engaged are more productive, more efficient and more motivated to do a great job. And Team Member Engagement begins with us as leaders. We must be leaders of great character and integrity. Positive Team Member Engagement leads to growth and high quality output. Invest in yourself to be a better leader so you can further invest in your team to help them achieve greater potential. Now here's the episode outline Number one why team engagement is important. Number two, team engagement tools you can easily use. And three, how to go to the next level. Also, for additional resources, please visit Finance Leader Academy. The link is in the show notes On the site. You can download. Become a Finance Leader Guide Now. Please enjoy this Encore episode, episode 107, team Member Engagement Tools you can easily apply. Thank you for choosing the Finance Leader Podcast. Until next time. Thank you for listening. Take care. Team Engagement is such an important daily exercise that it can affect how well your team members succeed or not. Team members who are positively engaged are more productive, more efficient and more motivated to do a great job. And Team Member Engagement begins with us as leaders. We must be leaders of great character and integrity. Positive Team Member Engagement leads to growth and high quality output. Invest in yourself to be a better leader so you can further invest in your team to help them achieve greater potential, and you will see amazing results. Please enjoy the episode. Welcome to the Finance Leader Podcast, where leadership is bigger than the numbers. I am your host, stephen McClain. This is the podcast for developing leaders in finance and accounting. Please consider following me on Twitter, facebook, instagram and LinkedIn. My usernames and the links are in this episode's show notes, thank you. This is episode number 107, and I'll be talking about team engagement tools we can use to bring out the best on our team, and I will highlight the following topics Number one why team engagement is important. Number two, team engagement tools you can easily use. And three, how to go to the next level. Author and inspirational speaker Simon Sinek said when people are financially invested, they want to return. When people are emotionally invested, they want to contribute. I hope you all are having a great day and a great week, or maybe a great weekend if you are listening on the weekend. I am very grateful you are here choosing the Finance Leader Podcast to help with your journey to become a better finance leader. We all want to become better at leadership in our jobs. I am an advocate for you to apply leadership to every accounting and finance function, role, task, project and requirement you may have. As finance and accounting leaders, we get to make a difference, to drive strategy and to maximize the resources the company has for the best return. We get to do this, but we must go beyond our spreadsheets and our analysis to form relationships with leaders and stakeholders around the company. To help you in your finance leadership development journey, I have a new written guide for you called Become a Finance Leader. You can download it for free at the link in the show notes or go to financeleaderacademycom and download it there. Again, it's free and it will help you with your mindset and the finance leader insight cycle so you can help leaders throughout the organization. Today I'm going to talk about team member engagement as a critical leadership function. We must be involved with our teams so they can also be successful. This is not micro management I despise micro management but be present, be involved, set priorities, see where your team is stuck and what opportunities do they each need to move forward in their careers. Don't overlook your everyday team engagement. If you step away too much, standards can slip, priorities get forgotten and our work becomes secondary. The company is relying on us to help drive results and maximize our resources and to determine our financial capabilities so better decisions can be made. We as leaders need to be consistent. Leadership always starts with us and how we approach our duties. Are you showing up every day with a great attitude, ready to lead. It's that simple. Sometimes Are we displaying great character and are we not allowing gossip and other treacherous activities in our presence? Are we setting the right example for others to follow? It always begins with us. Our finance and accounting functions require us to collaborate and engage because often our technical requirements can be complicated. It can be challenging to go beyond the expected task, to find strategic insights, which can be the difference between success and failure against our competitors. One of the most important factors to team engagement is to bring the right people on the team and to avoid the wrong people. Character matters more than skills. If you bring the wrong person on the team, you can destroy the morale and functionality of the team. Be cautious who you hire. I know this very well. Now let's talk about team member engagement, so we can bring out the best on our team. Number one why team engagement is important. It comes down to this when employees are engaged, they are less likely to leave. Team. Engagement improves productivity and it improves performance. When employees are engaged properly, they care more about their work, there's less absenteeism. They are more likely to share new ideas, they start to love their jobs more and want to contribute more. Invest in yourself to be a better leader who can properly engage with their team. Number two team engagement tools you can easily use. I talked about the following team engagement tools in bonus episode number 57, but this is such an important topic that I wanted to share again Now. The first one is resourcing. Is your team properly resourced? There's nothing more frustrating as an employee when you don't have the right equipment and the right tools to do a great job. Have you assessed that your team is resourced properly? This includes having the right information systems that match the data requirements for your company. Assess and then coordinate for the resources your team needs. Also recommend what long-term system infrastructure investments that must be made. The next is training. Is your team properly trained? Does each team member have an individual development plan? Ensure you assess what training gaps you may have on the team and work to address those gaps. We are developing future finance leaders, so you need to go beyond the everyday Excel and analysis skills. We need to develop critical soft skills to drive strategic results and so we can learn how to work with senior leaders confidently. The next is new process development. Sometimes with change or with new requirements, it may require a policy or process update or a new approved efficiency. If you don't address required changes, your team may get frustrated and this can lead to shortcuts, which can lead to uncontrolled risk. Continually ask and address where policy or the process needs to be updated so we can avoid our team members creating their own policy. This can lead to disaster. So ask what needs to be updated. And the next is addressing concerns. How do you address issues on your team? One-on-one sessions can be great forums for asking for issues that you may not be aware of. Be approachable and open to suggestions so your team feels comfortable bringing concerns to you. The moment your team feels uncomfortable bringing concerns to you, you cease being a leader. The next is team culture. Does your team culture foster trust and high-goal achievement? What can you do differently to create a culture where the team feels valued and believes they can win? Team culture matters. Do you have bullies on the team? Do you have team members who are out of touch or have no filters? You want a team culture that encourages development and achievement in a place where people can be safe sharing new ideas. The next is improved communication. When we communicate clearly our intent, the purpose, our values and the vision, and then we also practice the same values, we start to set a great example. Share relevant information up front and learn to be a better, active listener. Continually try to improve communication with the team. The next is to provide opportunities for advancement. As leaders, we should create and provide opportunities for our team members to excel so they can advance in their careers. Challenge your team members so they can show off their potential for greater responsibility. Reward those who outperform the standard. Now I want you to assess where you can better engage the team and utilize these tools, and maybe others, to bring the best experience possible to develop your team. Number three how to go to the next level. Now here are a few personal tools to help you and your team go to the next level. And, of course, it begins with you, your attitude and your approach to other people. We have to do the self-assessment. So we ask ourselves, and maybe a trusted colleague, if we naturally inspire people who are around us or do we need some work with our approach? Do you think your personality, how you speak and how you relate to others as an asset or is it a hindrance to creating great team engagement? Do you set the right example? Do you conduct yourself with great character, with honor and with integrity. If not, people will pick up on it and will react, even silently react. You will lose your team. The opposite is true, and this is where I want you to be a leader who leads with positivity and high integrity, a leader who matches their actions to their words. This is the goal, and it takes commitment and practice. Again, I despise micromanagement, but sometimes we are forced into micromanagement because of whom we report to. If they micromanage, then we become one out of survival. It's a horrible, horrible cycle. But also, not being involved with their team is not the answer either. There is a middle ground where trust rules the day, but you also are guiding your team to the vision, not controlling every movement, but motivating in a positive way, holding people accountable, but also providing each person the decision to accomplish the tasks how they see it, as long as they are meeting the standard and meeting their deadlines. We have lots of middle ground to inspire our team to be their best, while not controlling everything they do. We lead by providing purpose, vision, by setting priorities, by eliminating obstacles and by finding ways for our exceptional team members to excel and to advance. Now for action today. What are you doing to improve team member engagement. Can you use any of the tools I mentioned earlier to improve how your team interacts? Also, what can you do to become a better example of leadership for your team? So review the tools and apply them where you can to make the best team member engagement strategy. Today I talked about team member engagement tools we can use to bring out the best on our team, and I highlighted the following points Number one, why team member engagement is important. Number two, team engagement tools you can easily use. And three, how to go to the next level. Our teams mean a lot. How they process information and tasks matter, and how we lead them matters even more. We have to show up and lead with great attitude and even greater integrity. We have to bring positive, growth oriented engagement to them. A team that is engaged with a great leader would be more productive and more motivated to be their best. I encourage you to learn how to engage your team so they are set up for success every day. We can all improve in this area. Review the tools again that I mentioned earlier, listening into bonus episode number 57, if you need to learn how to bring out the best in your team so they perform their best to help the organization achieve its goals. Next episode I will be talking about overcoming obsessive compulsive disorder. I am not a mental health professional, but I do understand OCD very well. I think I can give you a few tips if you suffer from OCD as a finance and accounting professional. I can't wait to share. I hope you enjoyed the Finance Leader podcast. I am dedicated to helping you grow your leadership skills, to change your mindset and to clarify your goals so you advance your career. You can find this episode wherever you listen to podcasts. If this episode helped you today, please share and leave a quick review so that others may find the podcast. Until next time, you can check out more resources at financeleaderacademycom and sign up for my weekly updates so you don't miss an episode of the podcast. And now go lead your team and I'll see you next time. Thank you.
