“Congratulations, Pat has just been transferred, and you need to take on his role as a team lead starting in two weeks.”
I received a call from my boss in the middle of a family dinner during my annual vacation. I was excited, nervous, and sad. Excited, because this role would give me an opportunity to manage 14 people. Nervous, because Pat was a highly respected team lead who had big shoes to fill. And I was sad as because I had to end my vacation abruptly.
Does this sound familiar? Your hard work is rewarded with a bigger role where you need to manage a team. You are excited, but nervous how to go about it. This article will help you to remove that nervousness.
I was already a team lead but not of great success — it was a steep learning curve. There were times I was frustrated, as nobody used to listen to me. Pat was my role model. He was knowledgeable, full of energy and a great motivator. Now I was alone in the wilderness and knew that I needed a plan of action that would help keeping me, my team, and stakeholders comfortable with this transition. Need of the hour was a robust plan before skepticism defeats my confidence.
When Pat’s departure was announced to his team, they were visibly upset. Tears started rolling out from few members. I knew that this was primarily because they were losing Pat but feared that they were concerned about my leadership.
In case you are all wondering what my plan was to succeed, I implemented the following strategies:
Understand the process:
I reached out to Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) for an overview of the process. At the beginning of the session, I mentioned,” You all are doing a fantastic job. This session will help me appreciate the process improvement ideas you have. I will work with you to promote those ideas in senior management.”
Their eyes brightened. We followed these steps:
- I went through critical process documents to outline sequence of the topics.
- The team members used that to create a 4-week training plan.
- After the completion, we had a session where team members presented their process improvement ideas which I appreciated more because of the training they provided.
- I nominated those ideas in our management meeting and one idea won “Champ of the Month” award.
Increase your stake with stakeholders:
The stakeholders Jim and John were perceived notorious. At the drop of a hat, they would escalate small issues to senior directors. Some of my peers cautioned, “Are you sure you want to do this job? You will end up playing a three-way ping pong game with the team and the stakeholders.” That was a relief for me. You read it right. It was indeed a relief, as even slightest improvement in stakeholders’ relationship would bring brownie points.
I set up one-on-one meetings with Jim and John. Before they started complaining about the service, I comforted them saying, “You are a great partner. I know you have some pain points. My goal will be solving those.” At the end of the meeting, I agreed to set up a fortnightly catch up and created a tracker with their pain points. Within a few months they started coming to me first with their issues. We were able to resolve all in a timely manner. Here are some steps I followed:
- Scheduled a bi-weekly meeting to get their feedback on the process and team members.
- Created a tracker with pain points and was able to show a downward trend in number of issues.
- In some of the meetings, I used to invite some of my team members to present their ideas which would not only make our stakeholders gaining more confidence on the team, but team members also gained visibility.
Together we can do more:
The most difficult aspect of my job was to win my team members’ trust. Ramji, my mentor, gave me a great advice. He told me when you replace a leader you need to do two things — first, understand what he was doing well and second, what he was not doing which you are good at.
Though Pat was a great leader, he was not very consistent, e.g., conducting monthly one-on-ones, weekly team meetings, creating a career plan for everyone. In my first team meeting, I said,” It’s an honor to work with all of you. I know I cannot replace Pat as he was a role model for me as well. My main goal is to help you grow in your career. With all your help, our team will go places.”
I started implementing these ideas to make us more organized:
- In weekly team meetings, everyone was encouraged to speak about their projects.
- Redistributed projects across the teams, to balance the portfolios. This would also help me to nominate more people for awards. During my tenure, five received awards.
- Nominated us for a team award every month, which we won twice.
- The SMEs were empowered to take on more responsibilities.
- With an organized career plan, two team members were promoted within a year.
After implementing these strategies, my conviction rose to take up bigger challenges in my career. I did not fill in Pat’s big shoes, I just created my own. Now it’s your chance to shine in your organization by applying these tips. I could see you at the podium of a great leader.
