The Finance Leader Podcast
The Finance Leader Podcast
Uniting Individuals with Leadership: A Discussion on Improving Team Performance
Ready to transform a group of individuals into a powerhouse team? Joins us as we share invaluable strategies that will elevate your team's performance to unprecedented heights. By harnessing the synergy of trust, communication, and fair play, we illustrate how leaders can foster an environment ripe for growth, innovation, and collective achievement.
This episode is a treasure trove of actionable advice, revealing the secrets to creating a cohesive and dynamic team. We bridge the gap between individual potential and collaborative success with Stephen's guidance, leaving behind the perils of micromanagement and favoritism. Your journey to leadership excellence begins here, and the path is illuminated with the wisdom of a true connoisseur of team-building. Tune in to experience a masterclass in cultivating a work culture where everyone thrives and the sum truly is greater than its parts.
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For more resources, please visit Finance Leader Academy: financeleaderacademy.com.
- Please download the Goal Setting Workbook that follows Episode 115: here
- 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.
Last week I summarized the 10 key leadership principles that we each need to grow and develop. And this week I'm expanding on that list by talking specifically about improving team performance. There are so many factors to consider especially specific conditions for your situation when trying to help your team improve a little better. But we can work to bring our team together to break down the communication barrier and deliver greater results. Through leadership and better team engagement. We can build a team that trust each other, and can perform greater beginning today. Please enjoy the episode. Welcome to the finance leader podcast where leadership is bigger than the numbers. I am your host, Stephen McLain. 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 121. And I'll be talking about improving team performance. Helen Keller said alone, we can do so little together, we can do so much. I love leadership. But I also love building teams that work together well, and that perform at the highest level. It's a great challenge. It takes communication, and it takes investing in yourself and in your team. We grow ourselves we grow our leadership, and we grow our team members and that will grow our overall performance. Often, improving team performance means a better system. Though I do believe this is true. It also means you set up your team through effective leadership, clear and consistent communication, treating people fairly, giving your team members opportunities to grow and excel and providing a team environment that allows for discovery, risk taking growth and learning. We can achieve all of that and it always begins with us. In the last episode in Episode 120, I talked about my 10 key leadership principles to help guide you on how you build a team that matters. And that can perform at a high level leadership is a mindset that helps us overcome obstacles to achieve some amazing things. If you missed the episode. Please go back and listen because I believe it will help you in your own leadership, development and journey. You must begin with building trust. Trust is the glue that holds great teams together. When you have real trust on the team, you have people who will take more risk, which results in more growth and development. A team who trusts and appreciates each other will collaborate more and help each other more. We must be careful on competition though, you shouldn't be competing against a standard not against each other, and we must show no favoritism. When you lead based on accountability, merit, fairness, and how well you perform, the team will understand how decisions are made. Team engagement matters because you must be involved with your team to bring out their best and at the same time. Give them the room to do their work without excessive control and supervision. Let them grow. Let them make mistakes, also known as teachable moments. Build a team based on inclusion, merit and opportunity give people the opportunity to show you what they can do based on potential. I always recommend that leaders check their biases as they lead. So they are aware how they personally view people and situations. The more you know about yourself, the better you can lead and be an example of leadership, bring everyone together and give opportunities to show off what they can do. Those who are consistently doing well get more opportunities for greater responsibility, and their career will take off. What can we automate and what can we eliminate? I believe in automating the routine and eliminating any unnecessary task or process. What is your team doing that can go away by automating it or stopping it altogether? I always like to ask my team especially when you take over a team, what regular reports, emails and data they are sending and what is your current weekly meeting schedule. There's usually something they are working on routinely that can be easily be automated or even eliminated altogether. We talked about communication in the last episode in depth because it is so important to get right in the beginning. Clear communication eliminates confusion and brings people closer together. There is clarity when your team understands their tasks, the deadlines and the expectations. You will also have more buying in when You share relevant information quickly, so there is no guessing and no propensity for gossip, share and communicate what is happening. The moment communication stops is the moment you lose your team. As a leader, avoid micromanagement and rid yourself of people pleasing. a people pleaser leader will seek validation from their peers and more senior leaders while simultaneously treating their subordinate team members the worst and will micromanage and be little those they lead. Let's avoid both these tendencies, because they will destroy the team dynamics trust in any chance to perform at a high level. The people pleaser may enjoy short term results while leaving a path of destruction behind them, meaning their team members will feel used and unappreciated. I want to see this community do better. Lead with integrity lead with purpose, lead with character and if Mistakes happen make a plan. Don't be little lift others up instead. Please remember to sign up for the mid year goal challenge coming in June. I want you all to achieve the goals you have set for yourself. This year the bar is set high and we must follow through on what we want to accomplish. So please sign up at finance leader academy.com. The link is in the show notes. Our team's performance is often linked to our leadership and personal investment in the team. We need to positively engage with everyone individually and collectively to bring out the best to create an environment for trust and then on to excellence. Now let's talk about improving your team's performance. Number one, building trust and flexibility. Creating a team environment that fosters growth begins with trust. Do your team members trust each other? Do they trust the company leadership and do they trust you? honesty, fairness, leading with integrity, showing up with the right attitude and forcing accountability across the team and much more helps to build team trust. Number two, hiring and team alignment. When getting a new leadership role. We often inherited a team in place already, we have to fit in and then begin to create the environment for everyone to win together. We need to learn the critical tasks and requirements and begin to set a standard of excellence. We want to hire and build teams based on inclusion and merit. We provide opportunities for all to Excel but it is up to each person to grasp the opportunities available to grow and to show off their potential. We give more opportunities based on merit, results achieved attitude and willingness to expand their skill set and abilities. One key task you have to accomplish early is to determine if the required tasks, projects and KPI metric portfolio is distributed properly does it make sense? Number three team engagement. To be a leader means you have to engage with your team, you have several key tools as a leader, to engage with your team to align your expectations and to encourage more collaboration. The routine one on one meeting with each person is invaluable. It is precious time to talk over issues. It gives your team members time and opportunity to talk over projects any obstacles they may have any assistance they may need and any pertinent personal issues like plan, PTO, or anything else of significance. If you are not doing the routine and one on one meetings, please start scheduling them now. You will not regret it. One more important tool is the weekly team meeting. We don't want more meetings. But we do need the most important meetings to align the team to address issues to enhance communication to recognize top performance and many other important issues. The weekly team meeting when done effectively actually works to improve overall performance. And then anonymous feedback through employer surveys is another helpful way to know how to better engage and grow our team. Feedback requires us to reflect on our own performance, our attitude, and our approach. Number four task and time management. We are often buried in endless tasks, projects and ad hoc requirements and the everyday fires that must be put out. So it is good to have a few tools to help with managing our to do list. This is where leadership helps a lot. I mentioned it in the last episode, as that you should be setting priorities for your team to help focus on the most important automating routine tasks is our first job. reports that must be submitted on a set day and time can be set up to be run. I recommend working with it to see what can be automated next is to determine what tasks can be eliminated. I found many times over the years that reports that were being submitted on a routine basis are often not even required any longer. This is a huge time saver. When you dig into what is being submitted by your team, and another key tool at your disposal is delegation. I personally use the Eisenhower Decision Matrix to help me decide on priorities, and when to delegate a task and when to delete or eliminate a task, I recommend it to everyone. There are many styles of tools like this out there. But this is the one that is simple and so easy to use. And again, it's the Eisenhower Decision Matrix. Don't forget that you have to delegate so you also can focus on what is important for your level. Number five development, I believe that every team member including the leader should have an individual development plan to identify goals, training requirements, skill developments, and any CPE that needs to be earned. The IDP is an investment document for your team, you and the organization is investing in each person to grow that person and to help them achieve their goals. Development also includes opportunities to Excel by way of assignment to key project teams. This can develop key skills and give an opportunity for FaceTime with senior leaders so you can show off your abilities and skills. Number six, accountability. The best level of accountability is when the team holds each other accountable. And it doesn't always require the leader to do so. This requires a higher level of trust and expectations. What is your team's expected level of performance? And does each person buy in to that vision and ensure you keep everyone accountable? No favorites here, everyone must measure up to the standard. And finally, number seven, clear and consistent communication. I talked about this in the last episode. clear and consistent communication paves the way for excellence. When your team knows what is expected on a task. It is so much easier, your team becomes more confident and ready to accomplish even more. Now for action today. What are your thoughts on how your team performs? Do they meet deadlines? Do they meet the expectations for the quality of work they are submitting? Does your team work on developing critical skills? Are they ready for greater responsibility? Are they collaborating when they need to? Or are they always operating alone? Not everyone is at the same level. So you need to work with each person to help them achieve what you expect them to accomplish. And set the standard for excellence which begins with your own performance and mindset. Please go to Finance leader Academy for more resources. I offer a self paced online course called advanced your finance and accounting career. Developing a promotion strategy that sets you apart you will also find several free resources to help you again that's finance leader academy.com. Today I talked about improving team performance. Last week, I shared my 10 key leadership principles this week, I wanted to enhance that list with areas to further help team performance. I want to see you grow in your leadership, and also your ability to improve how your team performance. It's important that the team works together to achieve common goals and to move in the same direction. When you enhance and improve your communication and set priorities. You have won most of that battle. I hope you enjoyed the finance leader podcast I am focused on helping this community to become more confident finance leaders capable of transforming organizations. You can find this episode wherever you listen to podcasts. In this episode helps you today. Please share with a colleague and leave a quick written review. Until next time, you can check out more resources at finance leader academy.com and sign up for my weekly updates as you don't miss an episode of the podcast. And now to lead your team and I'll see you next time. Thank you
