Leading a team might sound challenging, but only if you have hands-on experience in leading, will your team lead. We tell you a few essential things you need to take care of while starting off with your team responsibilities.
When you start working on building a company, after quitting your full time nine to five job, the transition resembles nothing less than a dream.
While your idea is the foundation of the company, your first recruits are the building blocks of the same. Once the company starts growing, you might have to give up what you’re good at, and manage your team.
Leading a team might sound challenging, but only if you have hands-on experience in leading, will your team lead.
We tell you a few essential things you need to take care of while starting off with your team responsibilities.
1. Process ownership
Starting a company is a team game, as everyone has the potential to lose something. But at the end of the day, the company is your brain child. You gave up on a lot to pursue what you wanted to. Because you’re still experimenting things, failures are bound to occur.
As the founder, you are responsible for every success or failure the team faces, irrespective of your involvement in the project. So, rather than pointing your finger at someone else in the team, own up to your failure and take the right measure to rectify it.
2. Collective decision making
Be it time, money or efforts, your employees do not have any of these surplus enough to waste. Because you are the one leading, you will always be the one who makes the final call. However, every member of your team will have to live with the consequences of your decision. So, the best case scenario to come up with a solution, is to encourage your team to give their inputs, and take their suggestions into consideration.
3. Reality check
Let’s face it. Maybe you’ve had more experience that anyone else you hired for your organization. There’s also a chance that there are people who are more knowledgeable and experienced than you are. Articulation of problem solving or decision making with your team is very essential, especially in the early phase of your launch. Moreover, your employees feel wanted and take it as a note of appreciation when their perspective is taken into account.
4. Be accessible
Because you are a first time founder, it is not possible to you to be present at your workplace all the time. You have clients, investors and other essential meetings to attend. But at the same time, you should forget that your team is working on your dream. So no matter how far or how important meeting you are in, be accessible or choose a representative, who can convey the team’s decision or suggestions to you.
5. Inspire and get inspired
Yes, you thought of the idea and laid the foundation. But there could a number of things and procedures you are not aware of. The best part of working in a team is inspiration and learning. While your employees look up to you for inspiration, there would be a lot you can learn from them. After all, they are the building blocks of your enterprise.
The number of your first recruits does not matter as long as quality work is done and targets are achieved.
But as the team lead, you are expected to fulfil a few duties towards your team. Success tastes sweeter when it is shared.
