5 Minutes on Fostering Shared Leadership On Your Team
Are you managing a team where only a few dominate and others seem to be just watching the clock?
Or is your team just a collection of individuals who report to the same manager?
Research shows that highly engaged teams, where each member participates more or less equally, are more productive.
So how do we get there?
First, let’s define engagement. It’s about more than just who is communicating.
It’s about shared leadership.
Shared leadership looks like:
Asking questions.
Listening attentively.
Taking notes.
Linking ideas together.
Volunteering for work beyond your job description.
Following through.
What would you add to the list?
Another way to look at this is how to know when someone is not engaged.
I’m sure you could come up with a few examples. Looking at your phone. Sitting back with arms crossed. Checking the clock and counting down the minutes.
Again, engagement is about so much more than who is communicating or not. It’s about being attentive and present.
Before we get into some specific strategies to foster shared leadership on your team, it’s important to pause and consider:
Does everyone on my team feel like they belong?
A foundation of safety and trust supports shared leadership.
Now, let’s get a little more concrete.
Four ways to foster shared leadership on your team.
Rotate key group roles among team members.
Facilitation, agenda creation, note taking, providing snacks. Engage team members in taking on different roles.
Your team could even help identify roles critical to strong team engagement. Maybe your team needs a timekeeper or a cheerleader. Maybe you need an enforcer that cuts people off when they’ve gone on too long.
It might be necessary or helpful to provide resources or training, for example in facilitation.
You can also set group norms for any role or task, while still leaving room for the personal style and preferences of the team member taking it on.
Set team agreements for engagement and ask team members to self-monitor.
Take time to define engagement with your team. Ask what helps them feel engaged. Reflect on times when they haven’t felt engaged and why.
Once everyone is clear on what engagement looks like and why it’s important, ask them to reflect on how they can increase their engagement.
Quarterly or twice a year check-in on specifics in the balance of listening and speaking, offering ideas etc. How is it feeling? What are team members noticing? What could use improvement? What new ideas are there to increase engagement?
Mix up team processes to build on different strengths and be more inclusive.
Pair up for a discussion, send reflection questions in advance, or let people email input that the facilitator can raise in the meeting.
A wonderful side effect of different facilitators is that each one will bring different ideas and strengths for engaging the team.
Take time as a team to reflect on what you notice working or not.
Hold a one-on-one coaching conversation with team members.
Whether someone is dominating, or doesn’t seem as engaged, check in with them.
Don’t forget to use what you’ve learned about coaching.
Try these coaching questions:
How do you think team meetings are going?
What have you noticed about team participation?
How can I best support your leadership in the group?
Ready to foster shared leadership on your team?
Take a few minutes to reflect.
How do you know when your team members are engaged or not? What does shared team leadership mean to you? Which of the four strategies would have the biggest impact on your team?
And before you go, here’s a quick reference for you. Print it out and share with your team.