Mostly Asked Leading Team Interview Preparation Guide

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☛ Focus on results and productivity and not the time clock
☛ Align people with the stuff they are good at
☛ Align people with the projects they are passionate about
☛ Put your best performers on your biggest opportunities
☛ Find the balance between aggressive and realistic goals
☛ Trust your people -- and let them know it
☛ Avoid blame
☛ Foster innovation by killing projects the right way
☛ Don't provide all the answers -- make your employees think
☛ Build consensus by letting people know "why"

Your boss is probably the most important person you need to communicate with. Take time to understand fully what your boss wants from you and your team if you know exactly what she likes, and how he/she prefers this to be delivered, you will be better able to meet with his/her approval.
Do not be afraid to ask your boss to coach or mentor you. You can usually learn a lot from him, but he may not be proactive about offering this. If you are approaching your boss for advice, make sure you have thought things through as far as you can. Introduce the subject with a summary of your thinking, and then say where you need help.

I like people I lead to know that there is plenty of opportunity for input. I do not have all of the answers. I want others to be exploring and suggesting new things and I often seek out review and input from team members I respect.
But there are also moments when a decision must be made and people need to have clear direction. You can not be afraid of making the unpopular decision so much that you do not make a decision at all.

Demonstrate to the team that you are invested in the success of the organization, the stated objectives of the team and the success of each individual in that order and before any self-serving objectives. You do this with sustained action over time, not with words.

A coach pushes people. If you are not asking people to do something they have not done before, you are not setting the bar high enough.
A coach also supports. When someone is not finding their way or is not succeeding, you help them. In either case, ample use of the word "we" is often helpful.

It is not enough as a leader to articulate your group's objectives once and assume everyone is on board. Refer to the established goals throughout your project and use them to frame accomplishments and interactions.

This is often said, but that does not make it any less critical. Of course every leader wants to stack their team with "A" players. You either have some of these or you need to find some. But you also can not expect to only work with "A" players otherwise, your leadership would not be needed.

Here are a few keys for leading a team:
☛ Establish the team objectives
☛ Get the right people on and off
☛ Demonstrate your commitment
☛ Be a coach
☛ Make decisions

When you move from being a worker to a line manager, you need to develop a new set of skills, and make use of new tools and techniques. These will help you with the key management activities of organizing, motivating, developing and communicating with your team.

There are a number of common mistakes that new managers tend to make. Take care to avoid them. These are:
☛ Thinking that you can rely on your existing job knowledge and technical skills to succeed as a manager. It is essential that you take the time to develop good management and people skills as well - these can be more important than your technical skills.
☛ Failing to consult regularly with your boss, in a misguided attempt to show that you can cope on your own.
☛ Approaching your boss without having thought a problem through, and without having considered how the problem could be solved.
☛ Embarrassing your boss, or letting her get a nasty surprise. Follow the "no surprises" rule.
☛ Doing anything that requires your boss to defend you to others. This can cause your boss to "lose face" with his peers and superiors, and it makes it look as if his team is out of control.
☛ Failing to talk to your customers (whether internal or external) about what they want from yourself and your team.
☛ Using your authority inappropriately - make sure that everything you ask people to do is in the interests of the organization.

However much you hope that you will not have to do it, there comes a time in most manager's careers when they have to discipline an employee. Discipline may be subtly different from basic feedback, because it does not always relate specifically to the employee's work. You can give feedback on their phone manner, for example, but handling problems with timekeeping or personal grooming can need a different approach.

Here are some team leading skills:
☛ The Importance of Delegation
☛ Motivating Your Team
☛ Developing Your Team
☛ Communicating and Working With Your Team
☛ Managing Discipline

As a team manager, you are likely to be chairing regular sessions as well as one-off meetings. Meeting of all kinds, and regular ones in particular, are notorious for wasting people's time, so it is well worth mastering the skill of running effective meetings.
Many meetings include brainstorming sessions. As a team manager, you will often have to facilitate these, so you will need to be comfortable with doing this. There is more to this than simply coming up with creative ideas, as you do when you are just a regular participant in such a session.

Communication skills are essential for success in almost any role, but there are particular skills and techniques that you will use more as a manager than you did as a regular worker. These fall under two headings:
☛ Communicating with team members
☛ Communicating with people outside your team

Teams are made up of individuals who have different outlooks and abilities, and are at different stages of their careers. Some may find that the tasks you have allocated to them are challenging, and they may need support. Others may be "old hands" at what they are doing, and may be looking for opportunities to stretch their skills. Either way, it is your responsibility to develop all of your people.

Another key duty you have as a manager is to motivate team members. There are two very different approaches to motivation, which depend on the fundamental assumptions that you make about the people who work for you. If you believe that they are intrinsically lazy, you believe in Theory X, while if you believe that most are happy and willing to work, you will tend towards Theory Y. Make sure that you fully understand these theories they will fundamentally affect your success in motivating people.

The top priority for team managers is delegation. No matter how skilled you are, there is only so much that you can achieve working on your own. With a team behind you, you can achieve so much more, that is why it is so important that you delegate effectively.
Successful delegation starts with matching people and tasks, so you first need to explain what your team's role and goals are.

Be a leader with the intention of letting the people around you showcase their abilities. Allow them to give advice and suggest ideas by posing questions that encourage interaction. Being a leader does not mean being a know it all, keep learning from your team.

Give your team some credit and praise in front of others. Some people may find this uncomfortable, but I think that letting other people know how well your teammate is doing can really boost their self-confidence and help them maximize their performance.

In other words, be the facilitator. Be the one who sets up other people for success by getting them the ball in the right situation to score. Make your team's job easier by helping them understand their objectives and giving them a plan, then just let them work.

Sometimes people get irritated with one another. This is common when groups of people are working toward a goal together. As a leader, you need to have a plan of action in place that allows quick and effective resolution of any problems between team members.

When your team gets tripped up, do they know they can look to you for leadership in resolving the situation? Always be available to answer questions and solve problems. This will build team morale and loyalty.

Communication is crucial to the success of your team. Meetings keep everyone up-to-date on the status of projects and any changes that may need to be implemented.

There are two major aspects of this. You do not do all of the work, and you do not delegate all of the work. You simply lead by example and give others a standard to follow.

Focus is important if you want to attain your goals. Having fun as a team can be good and can create team loyalty, but if you as a leader do not set mini-goals and drive the team to complete them, you will find yourself falling behind.