All Cooped Up

A recent friend and co-worker made a tough decision to leave the project and take on a leadership role at a startup.  He was very strong technically and a good leader – a rare combination.  I thought about the challenges he’ll be facing as he starts to build his new team from scratch and it reminded me of when I had to do the same.

I keep this list in my notebook as a reminder to me of what I try to aspire to.

Best of luck Jim!

Teamwork

• Encourages a participative approach to work, fostering cooperation, pride, dialogue and trust.
• Creates strong spirit and morale.
• Let’s people finish and be responsible for their work.
• Defines success in terms of the whole team and creates a feeling of belonging among team members.
• Works well with others to achieve team goals.
• Consistently places team priorities above personal priorities.

Resource Usage

• Consistently completes all assigned projects within budget and gains approval if project will exceed budget.
• Allocates resources in the most productive and efficient way possible.
• Minimizes rework.

Managing People

• Provides ongoing guidance and positive reinforcement to improve performance.
• Provides challenging tasks and assignments and will work with people who need improvement.
• Consistently evaluates, provides feedback and develops employees to their next level of performance.
• Shares and/or delegates power and authority with staff.
• Shares rewards with staff.
• Provides corrective and/or progressive disciplinary actions to modify/improve inappropriate behavior or performance.
• Ensures staff are properly selected, used, appraised and developed, and treated fairly.
• Effective at managing a diverse workforce.

Communications

• Presents ideas and information both verbally and in writing in a clear, concise manner.
• Shares the information people need to know to be successful.
• Informs others on a timely basis.
• Consistently shows a great deal of understanding, courtesy, tact, empathy, and concern when addressing others.
• Demonstrates very effective listening, questioning and interpersonal skills.
• Follows direction.

Credibility/Dependability

• Maintains an excellent record of punctuality and plans absences in advance.
• Keeps promises and commitments.
• Consistently completes projects accurately and on time and is very thorough when performing work and is conscientious about attending to details.

Leadership

• Inspires, motivates, guides others toward goals.
• Coaches, mentors and challenges staff and adapts leadership style to various situations.
• Consistently demonstrates decisiveness in day-to-day actions.
• Takes unpopular positions when necessary.
• Faces adversity head on.

Strategic Planning

• Actively and effectively contributes on a consistent basis to drive technology strategy and indirectly drive overall corporate strategy.
• Has broad knowledge and perspective on the strategic issues facing the company.
• Can anticipate future consequences and trends accurately and creates improvement strategies and plans.
• Consistently makes sound, well-informed decisions.
• Clearly understands the impact and implications of decisions.

Operations Planning

• Anticipates and adjusts for potential problems or opportunities.
• Implements or utilizes strategic plans on a day-to-day basis.
• Organizes work, sets priorities, determines resource requirements.
• Determines short- or long-term goals and strategies to achieve them.
• Coordinates with other parts of the company.
• Monitors progress and evaluates outcomes.

Prioritization

• Ability to recognize which tasks are more important at each moment and to distinguish between urgency and importance.
• Allocates attention, energy and time effectively to avoid getting into crisis or trouble.
• Consistently avoids last minute efforts and scrambling – works smarter not harder.