Summary

The website content discusses the leadership transformation of a Team Lead in an IT Support company, emphasizing the importance of personal growth and development in team members over solely focusing on job performance.

Abstract

The article narrates the personal journey of an IT Support company's Team Lead who has significantly improved their leadership skills by focusing on the holistic development of their team members. Initially lacking in leadership knowledge, the author learned through experience and reading various books, adopting the philosophy of fostering personal growth rather than just job-specific skills. The author highlights a list of skills that contribute to successful leadership, including communication, problem-solving, decision-making, and the ability to listen to feedback. They stress the importance of a supportive environment that encourages making mistakes and learning from them, as well as the need for a collaborative team dynamic where members work for the collective good rather than individual gain. The article concludes with the author's encouragement to become a better person as a means to improve team performance and achieve greater success.

Opinions

The author believes that good leadership involves nurturing team members to become better individuals, not just better employees.
They emphasize the value of good communication skills, starting with the ability to listen effectively and engage in meaningful dialogue.
The author suggests that a troubleshooting approach in leadership is essential, involving understanding problems by asking the right questions and learning from mistakes.
Problem-solving is seen as a critical skill that can be improved with practice and a task-oriented mindset.
Decision-making should be encouraged at all levels within a team, with leaders supporting their members even when they make mistakes.
The author points out that receiving feedback, both positive and negative, is crucial for personal and professional growth.
A non-complaining attitude that focuses on providing solutions rather than dwelling on problems is considered a game-changer in both professional and personal contexts.
Customer satisfaction is highlighted as a key motivator for teams, with a positive attitude being the key to success.
The author advocates for team unity and collective rewards over individual bonuses, fostering a culture where team members naturally support one another.
Admitting to mistakes is presented as the first step in problem resolution, with the author encouraging openness and a proactive approach to fixing errors.
A result-oriented mindset is promoted as a way to maintain motivation and focus, ultimately leading to better team performance and personal success.

I am willing to provide you my most guarded secret. Just keep reading.

The Little Secret That Makes Good Leaders Great

It took me a lot of time to figure it out, but after I did, I have increased my results big time.

I work from 9-to-5 for outsourcing IT Support company and I’ve been the company’s Team Lead for 3 years now. But I haven’t always been successful.

While I have been a good tech guy when I got promoted, I did not know anything about leadership and management. I had to learn a few tricks from old dogs and without having a mentor, I felt the need to search it in various books. The method worked.

I do not remember the name of the book where I had read the idea, but in my head, it sounds like this “make the people become better persons, instead of just becoming better at their jobs”.

But this is always easier said than done. I tried to inflict everybody on the following skills.

The skillset of highly successful people is the following:

good communication skills
a troubleshooting approach
the ability to solve problems
the ability to make decisions
the ability to listen to feedback
do not complain, propose solutions instead
the need to make the customers satisfied
the need to fight for the team, not for themselves
free to admit their mistakes
to be result-oriented

Good communication skills

Before you will be able to communicate efficiently, you need to learn how to listen. It takes patience and you sometimes need to lower your ego, but you cannot have a dialog without actually listening.

Do not hesitate to ask all the required questions to figure out what’s not working. You cannot fix a problem if you do not understand what the problem is.

And this is not an IT Support skill, but one also useful in life.

A troubleshooting approach

Before you can solve anything, you need to understand what’s not working. If possible, let the customer show you how the problem behaves.

Next, ask the proper questions and try to figure out a possible cause, if it had happened because of something the client did or not.

Working in IT Support helped me become a great problem fixer in life, so I am currently the guy that fixes others’ problems.

The ability to solve problems

To solve problems, you should think of them as small tasks you need to check on an imaginary list. The more problems you solve, the better you are.

If you judge things like this, you will succeed.

This ability is a life-changing one. And to master it, you need exercise. The more problems you fix, the easier it will be for you to fix more problems.

The ability to make decisions

To enable others to feel free to make decisions on their own, you need to support them when they make mistakes. Listen to them and support them.

90% of the issues can be fixed so you will gain more as a manager if you just encourage your team and teach it how to perform better.

If you give people the freedom to decide and make mistakes, they will get used to it and, with exercise, they will make good decisions.

This is a very useful skill in life also. Allow the people around you to decide, don’t micro-manage everything.

The ability to listen to feedback

This is very difficult because nobody likes to be told that he was wrong.

Good feedback is a little dangerous because people get relaxed after they receive it and they tend to make more mistakes. You should be honest about it but keep your people-focused.

Bad feedback is even worse and you need to handle it in a good manner. I try not to get angry in these situations, preferring to help the person understand what he or she did wrong.

If you do it wrong, the person you are talking to gets defensive and will not understand anything.

This skill is very good in real life also. Receiving feedback the right well will help you evolve.

Do not complain, provide solutions instead

If you want to be better, stop complaining. Stop gossiping others and start proposing solutions. It is really important to take hard things positively and to work for solutions.

But a bad attitude does not change anything. You accumulate frustration and if you don’t talk about it, it will consume you.

I work with my people to fix the problems that occur and provide solutions that will help us not have the same problems.

This is a game-changing attitude also in life, not just at a tech support company.

The need to make the customers happy

A very important thing you need to do is to try to do everything to make the customer happy. This way, it will be easier for you to motivate yourself.

It’s always better to get your energy from positive things and to fight to achieve more positive things. I think that positiveness is the key to success.

This is also a valuable skill in life, keeping yourself motivated is very hard.

The need to fight for the team, not for themselves

I hate individual bonuses and rewards given only to a few members of the team.

To my mind, everybody needs to work as a team and each member has to back up his colleague, in every situation.

Having a solid team means that people help each other without requiring anything from the other and this enables everybody to evolve.

You need to stop working only for yourself and team up with the others because a solid group will force you to be better.

This skill is also very useful in life, not just at a tech support company.

Feel free to admit you were wrong

The first step in fixing a problem is to let others know about the existence of the problem. You should take the courage to admit that you were wrong and work to solve the issue, instead of trying to hide it.

Everybody makes mistakes, but almost all of them can be corrected. This shouldn’t be a drama.

I do the same in life and you should do.

Be result-oriented

To achieve big success, you need to be result-oriented. This mindset will help you always stay motivated and focused and will provide you energy to overcome future problems.

Sometimes, you need to find the quickest solutions possible and if you succeed this, you will become better at everything you want to do.

Getting good results is crucial in any life of work.

Someone told me once that the better my team was, the less I had to work. He is right, but people will never want to be better for the team, but themselves.

Better people make better team members who make better teams.

Start becoming a better person right now! The faster you do this, the more you win.