What makes a successful Team Leader?
This quick list is a great start.
By Andy Houlihan
I’ve just begun team-leading my third group of LRTT Fellows overseas. Only a few days ago, I returned from Uganda after co-leading the first ever January LRTT programme. Last year, I led the Tanzania 2016 Fellowship. Fresh from Uganda, I thought it’d be a great time to reflect on the ingredients for success as an LRTT Team Leader.
I hope this advice will contribute to a successful experience for you as a Team Leader, your partner(s), and your team even outside LRTT. The list if by no means exhaustive, nor is it ordered according to importance. Indeed, in composing each point on this list, two, three — five — new ideas would spring to mind. It’s merely a collection of recommendations based on my observations having held this post a few times now. These may not resonate with everybody who has been an LRTT team leader, or team leader elsewhere for that matter, for experience is personal. Additions to this list (there could be so many more) or further elaboration to points included are most welcome and feel free to include in comments below. Enjoy.
1. Talk
Communicate as often as you can with your Fellow team leaders and encourage them to do the same. I cannot labour this point enough. A lot can happen sometimes, very often in fact, all at once when you’re on the Fellowship. So ensure channels of communication are kept open and two-way.
Don’t act in isolation; inform your colleague(s) of any new information you’ve received or or tasks you’ve done. If you get into the habit of forgetting, postponing — or worse — , withholding information, then you can land yourself, your colleagues, your team, and your Fellowship as a whole into all sorts of trouble. Keep your colleagues apprised.
Communication may seem onerous, but you’ll naturally find a balance, a filter, for what needs to be known, and with what urgency, and what doesn’t need to be known at all. As a general rule of thumb, inform your co-team leader(s) of new developments that you have either undertaken yourself or have had passed onto you by others.
2. Receipting, Receipting, Receipting
Who knows if this is even a verb! Either way, neologism or not, ensuring you’re on top of your receipts is essential. It’s an unglamorous thing but, if you don’t keep on top of it, it becomes a huge task at the end of your Fellowship. Worse, you may have to deal with it when you’re back home. Additionally, not uploading and consolidating your receipts on a regular basis can result in you losing the odd one — which is often the one that you really, really did not want to lose. Don’t let receipts build up, keep on top of them.
3. The Debrief
Talking to one another each day, face to face or over the phone, is a separate concept from the debrief. I love debriefs because they’re the glue that holds teams together. A debrief should occur in a calm, private space when all team leaders are present. Five minutes can be more than enough for a high quality and effective end of day or morning debrief if all present are, well, ‘present’ themselves.
Talk often takes place during the hectic goings-on of a Fellowship day, a quick text or phone call, a stolen 30-second catch up in a corridor before meeting the district head of education. But allows you as Team Leaders to look back on the day’s talk and occurrences, successes and failures, and a chance to look forward to the days ahead too. In the Fellowship, debriefs allow time for everyone to review, reflect and hone your next steps.
4. Know Your Team
This sounds deceptively simple. Of course you should know your team. But to what extent — by face, by name? By when should you know them all, and what’s it even to ‘know’ someone? How well can you be expected to know 25 people you’ve have only met once or twice before, sometimes only virtually?
It’s not about how well you know your team. It’s about how well your team members think you know them . It’s about framing the experience from their perspective. Check in on your Fellows. Ask them how they’re doing. Socialise with them. Do this evenly, with different people each day, and don’t have favourites. You’ll naturally warm to certain people more than others; this is human nature. But don’t neglect your team for the sake of your own enjoyment. Invest in each of your Fellows. Get to know them — ask them questions and be interested in them as people. Like a bank account you can make a withdrawal only once you have made a deposit. Similarly, if you invest in your team regularly you’ll be able to call in favours and make ‘withdrawals’ when you need them most. Know your team.
5. Give small, timely rewards
It’s been a long day, a tough day. For whatever reason. Long bus journey. Disappointing afternoon conference session. You have a stomach ache. Showers are cold. No power. Ad infinitum.
A small gesture that’s timely can set right or at least mitigate any negativity or deflated atmosphere. Pass round some biscuits on the bus (and don’t expect them back). Get everyone a soda back at the accommodation. Give your team a lie-in and push breakfast back an hour on a planning day. Play it by ear. You’ll know when the time comes for a small, timely reward. It can make or break a Fellowship, or at least a substantial part of it. It has little practical or financial impact in the long run, but the impact on morale can be immeasurable.
6. Have Physical Copies of Important Documents
‘But I always bring printed copies of my passport and insurance documents with me when abroad,”
I hear you say. It might be painstakingly obvious. Sure. Of course you have those with you. But what about you Fellows’ passport, insurance and emergency contact information? Their flight arrival times, dietary and medical issues? Important contact phone numbers and addresses, including your first night’s accommodation? You’ll need these, and many more. Have physical copies of important documents and keep them safe.
Don’t print or photocopy in excess or unnecessarily; nobody wants to be that person carrying the equivalent of five small trees in their suitcase. But don’t over-rely on tech or your phone: they’re not 100 percent reliable, especially outside familiar contexts. You’ll be working in areas with limited resources — literally. There may be no power, no phone signal or you might lose your phone. Have hard copies. Further to that, electronic copies may be old currency at home but the might not seem credible in a foreign context. A signed letter from the Ministry of Education permitting you to undertake conferences in the district sounds authoritative. But saved only onto your smartphone and waved in the face of an official, it could mean little to nothing of there is no physical copy. Have physical copies of important documents.
7. Manage Your Cash Flow
Plan ahead. How much is the coming week going to cost? Do you have enough cash to cover food, accommodation, conferences, and an excursion on the weekend? Don’t wait until the debrief on the night before a three-day safari to check whether you have enough Ghanaian cedis or Ugandan shillings. Factor in additional expenditure, last-minute fee changes and back-up money for emergencies. It can feel as though half, if not more, of your Fellowship revolves around managing finances. That’s because,it’s your responsibility as team leader to make sure that you have enough money to pay everything on time, with enough to spare. Plan ahead and manage your cash flow.
8. Hujambo? Webare Kugaruka! Akwaaba! Learn the Local Language
You will have travelled before (incredibly unlikely that you will not as a team leader, been abroad). You know the importance of knowing a few choice words, at least, in the local language of the country you are in to get by, to seem polite, to immerse yourself in the culture. When you are a team leader, knowing some of the local language is doubly as important. Firstly, you are a role model for your team. Whether they know it or not, your team will be watching you, multiple times a day, when you are communicating with your co-team leaders, with locals, particularly with locals. If you use the language, so will they.
Secondly, knowing some of the local language can pay huge financial and impact dividends for your Fellowship. Even a ‘Hello’, ‘Good morning Madam’ or ‘thank-you’ can mean the difference of securing an average discount on lunch or an excellent discount. Same when trying to chivvy along a slow-moving partner meeting or landing an extra Coke for everyone at dinner. Learn some of the local language, and use it.
9. Use What You Have
This comes in two guises. Firstly, use information your Fellows give you. This may be in a practical sense, such as knowing specific dietary requirements, or your Fellows’ e-learn responses or application form responses in one of your first in-country CPD sessions. Secondly, use what you have in terms of your human capital. If you have a special needs education specialist in your team, ask that person to run a session on planning a conference workshop on special needs education. If you have a language teachers amongst your Fellows, have them share best practice with the team on how to communicate with people who not learning in their first language. Has a Fellow told you in passing they are nervous about their first conference day? Pair them with someone more experienced, or ask them to deliver a part-deliver a CPD session to the rest of the team, even if just for ten minutes, to build up their confidence in front of other adults.
10. Lead by Not Leading
Lead your team by allowing them to lead. This might be allowing your Fellows to lead on evening activities post- or pre-dinner. After a long day of conferences this has the added benefit of taking the pressure off you to constantly entertain, giving you an evening off! More importantly, you’ll encouraging your team to develop as leaders. Fellowships aim not only to develop the skills of in-country teachers, but also the skills of Fellows themselves. Giving your Fellows opportunities to lead on in-country CPD sessions is a welcome weight off your shoulders. What’s more — it gives the group a fresh perspective and develops leadership within your team. Lead by not leading.
Are you a teacher? Find out about our Fellowship and Team Leading opportunities at lrtt.org.
