How To Empower Your Team Members

As a Team Leader what can you do to empower your team members? Let’s take a look at some ideas as to how you can approach this and get the most from your team.

Maybe you’ve seen them; the employee who is doing extremely well at their job. What can you do to continue to develop them? Are they perhaps ready to take on more responsibility? Or perhaps they need help with discovering and developing their strengths further so that they become more confident. The latter is where you come in as the team leader.

You will most likely be the one to encourage them to build their strengths and gain more confidence in themselves. By helping your team members grow within the company you are empowering them to take on more responsibility and to make better decisions.

How Do You Empower Them?

Begin by helping them learn and develop their skills. If they feel like their skills are being under-utilised, they may begin to wonder about moving on or in the worst case may even start to doubt their abilities. Help them improve their abilities and learn new skills so they can play a stronger role when contributing to projects. Give them access to courses and training. Allow them time to undertake a project in an area that they are passionate about and would like to develop in.

Think about how you can delegate specific tasks which will help them grow in areas they are interested in pursuing. Don’t leave them to their own devices in unfamiliar territory. Instead agree with them that you will be available for support until you and they agree that they no longer need your guidance. Gradually give them more responsibilities.

Continue empowering your team members’ confidence by being supportive of them. Build a strong foundation by connecting one-on-one with individuals. Really listen to their concerns and show them how much they are already contributing.

As the team leader you will have influence over who does what projects. Use this to help build someone’s confidence, giving them work they are good at and will be interested in. Their confidence and motivation will bloom when they have a chance to use their skills.

Setting Expectations

Let them know what your expectations are from the beginning. They need to know what the end goal is for a project for them to feel truly empowered. Be sure to clearly share what the short-term and long-term plans are for the company and for each project they are asked to do.

  • Give objective feedback regularly. Let your team members know how they are doing and what they can do to improve.
  • Create an environment that encourages your team members to grow and learn new skills.
  • Provide your team with all the information they need for any project you ask them to do that they normally don’t do.
  • Give your advice when it’s needed or asked for. Be available for your team members by making it easy for them to ask questions or get your feedback on something. Always let them know you are happy to answer their questions.

As a successful team leader you need to learn how to empower your team members to discover and develop their strengths and feel more confident in their abilities on the job. Help them make confident decisions, learn new skills and take on new projects with confidence.

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