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About this lesson

The most powerful way to influence someone as a leader is to understand them. Understand who they are and what in their lives already motivates them. Once you understand them it is easy to lead them and get them to a high performance level.

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Quick reference

Background

Once you understand your team, it is easier to lead them and get them to a high-performance level. Get to know your team’s culture, professional strengths and weaknesses, and be their friend.

When to use

To be an effective leader you should always work to understand the background of your team members.

Instructions

The most powerful way to influence your team as a leader is to understand your team. You can start by understanding your teams background. There are three parts to their background.

  • Cultural Background
    • You want to be sensitive and attentive to an individual or a groups culture and their customs. If you have someone from a different country, you need to take into consideration their customs to help connect with them.
    • Find out what makes them comfortable and what their model of the world is.
       
  • Professional Background
    • Find out what your team members are used to, what they like and what they dislike in the work environment and find out how they are most effective.
    • Look at the individual’s strengths and find the jobs and projects that utilize their strengths.
    • Look at the individual’s weaknesses to see if you can help them improve their weaknesses or to pull them out of certain projects.
       
  • Personal Background
    • Become friends with your team members.
    • Stay clear on their outcomes and their duties, but show that you care.
    • Studies show that productivity goes up by 15% or more when team members feel like they have managers that care about them.
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  • 00:04 Step two of exceptional leadership is, understand your team.
  • 00:10 The most powerful way to influence your team as a leader is to understand them.
  • 00:17 Understand who they are, what in their lives already motivates them.
  • 00:21 And once you understand them, it's easier to lead them and
  • 00:25 get them to a high performance level.
  • 00:28 The first thing you need to understand when understanding your team
  • 00:31 is understanding their background.
  • 00:34 And there's three parts.
  • 00:36 So the first part is their cultural background.
  • 00:40 Because especially here in America, we have to be sensitive and
  • 00:44 attentive to an individual or a group's culture and their customs, okay?
  • 00:48 So we really wanna take that into account.
  • 00:51 So if you have somebody that's from a different country, or you're working with
  • 00:55 a group from a different country, really think about, what are their customs?
  • 00:59 What makes them feel comfortable, right?
  • 01:01 What are the things that they believe already?
  • 01:04 And when you can come at them through their model of the world, through what
  • 01:09 their background is, now, you're going to connect on a whole different level.
  • 01:13 Does that make sense?
  • 01:15 Okay, good.
  • 01:16 So the second one is their professional background.
  • 01:19 Find out what they're used to.
  • 01:21 What do they respond to?
  • 01:22 What do they like?
  • 01:23 What do they dislike in the work environment?
  • 01:26 And how are they most effective, okay?
  • 01:29 So you might wanna have a conversation with the recruiter.
  • 01:32 Or maybe you had a conversation with them, right, and their professional background.
  • 01:36 Because you wanna look at two things.
  • 01:38 Number one, you wanna look at their strengths, right?
  • 01:41 So what are the jobs and projects that utilize those strengths, okay?
  • 01:46 I had a client, I came in to help them get to the next level,
  • 01:52 and we were looking at their customer service department.
  • 01:55 And there was one person in particular that they said, well, you know what,
  • 01:58 she's just not so great in customer service.
  • 02:01 So I sat down with her and we were talking, and she told me this story, and
  • 02:06 here's what happened.
  • 02:07 When she got hired on with this company,
  • 02:10 she was hired on in the accounting department.
  • 02:13 Do you know where this is going?
  • 02:15 She's an amazing accountant.
  • 02:17 She gets to look at numbers all day, she likes the way they work,
  • 02:21 she likes the numbers, she can analyze them, she can do her job.
  • 02:24 Fantastic, right?
  • 02:25 Doesn't have to have a whole lot of interaction with others, right?
  • 02:29 Maybe her coworkers, but certainly not with the clients.
  • 02:32 So she said she came to work one day, and they told her,
  • 02:36 you know what, you're no longer in accounting.
  • 02:38 Now, you're in customer service.
  • 02:41 What?
  • 02:42 From over here working with numbers, not with clients,
  • 02:45 to on the phone with clients all day.
  • 02:48 Is that a shock?
  • 02:50 Yeah!
  • 02:51 And her personality, we're gonna talk a lot about personality types, and
  • 02:55 her strengths, her strengths were over here in accounting with numbers.
  • 02:58 Her strengths were not over here in customer service, okay?
  • 03:02 That's like trying to put the round peg in the square hole and
  • 03:05 just trying to shove it in there.
  • 03:06 It's not gonna work.
  • 03:08 Good, next, you wanna look at their weaknesses, okay?
  • 03:13 So how do you improve those weaknesses, or is it even necessary, right?
  • 03:18 Do you need to pull them out of certain projects, or are they a fit for
  • 03:22 your company, right?
  • 03:24 These are tough questions we have to ask ourselves.
  • 03:26 But we have to look at their weaknesses, their strengths and their weaknesses.
  • 03:30 And the third thing you want to really look at in someone's background
  • 03:33 is their personal background.
  • 03:35 Become friends with your team members.
  • 03:38 Stay clear on their outcomes, right, and their duties,
  • 03:40 especially if you're authoritative, but show you care.
  • 03:45 Studies show that productivity goes up 15% or
  • 03:49 more when team members feel like they have managers that care about them.
  • 03:54 So get to know them, right, get to know their hobbies.
  • 03:57 You guys, your company or your department can do charity events, picnics, mixers,
  • 04:02 dinners are great, holiday parties, incentive programs, right?
  • 04:07 Or you can do something small and
  • 04:08 easy like morning huddles before their shift, right?
  • 04:11 The Ritz Carlton has amazing culture and customer service.
  • 04:16 And every morning before their shift, they do a little huddle.
  • 04:19 They talk about maybe a positive testimonial that came in.
  • 04:22 They've got a quote for the day.
  • 04:24 And they discuss how they can continue to make this possible that day, right?
  • 04:31 So those things show that you really care, you're building a relationship.
  • 04:34 You're getting to know these people as people, not just workers or
  • 04:39 staff or employees or team members, make sense?
  • 04:42 Okay, so quick recap,
  • 04:43 there are three things you wanna look at in the background.
  • 04:47 You wanna look at their cultural background, you wanna be sensitive and
  • 04:50 attentive to an individual or group's culture and customs.
  • 04:53 Number two, the professional background.
  • 04:55 What are their strengths?
  • 04:56 What are their weaknesses, okay?
  • 04:58 And number three, you wanna get to know their personal background.
  • 05:01 Show them that you care, right?
  • 05:04 Get to know them personally.
  • 05:06 Great job, and we'll see you in the next video.

Lesson notes are only available for subscribers.

Exemplary
02m:28s
Beliefs
07m:10s
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