Team management is a multidimensional task. Some parts are beyond your control.
However, on the human side, your influence may be decisive.
Here is the best you can do…
To manage your team by mutual devotion
Strange idea in a professional context, isn’t it?
However so obvious!
In order to achieve “mutual devotion”…
The manager has to be devoted to his-her team…
- Collectively, to provide them the best available work conditions and professional opportunities…
- Interpersonally, to each member of the team (caring for each individual and focusing on the best in him or her), always ready to help, mainly on professional matters with some availability for marginal private matters…
- Professionally, to his-her own work (for the common-good), with the idea to be as efficient as possible and, if necessary, to set an example for the people around.
Of course…
Some people at first will not believe it to be true but…
Your philosophy is: “As yourself, I am generous and good-willing but not stupid. You are cautious, it’s a quality, but you are clever too. You’ll understand that it’s reciprocal. My trust in you is an opening gift to you and I will renew it because, as you are cautious, I am patient, but of course, I expect you to act in a clever way, for the common good of you, me and the rest of the team”.
You are also aware that, if firing inefficient or misbehaving people is for you the last resort solution, it’s reciprocal: they can’t fire you either (without severely harming themselves).
Your professional lives are linked. You are married at least for a while during the working hours of the day.
Therefore…
Manager or subordinate, the only way to succeed within the team…
is to follow the “Golden Rule” of reciprocity
- Treat others as you would like others to treat you…
- Do not treat others in ways that you would not like to be treated…
- What you wish upon others, you wish upon yourself.
Does “mutual devotion” say more than the universal “Golden rule”?
Technically, no, but it gives to reciprocity the emotional touch we need when we work together.
In a football team, you easily pass the ball to players you like and really want to succeed.
If YOU or THEY hate or ignore some of the other members of the team, WE will lose.
So “mutual devotion” is…
– equivalent to “love your neighbour” without the religious reference ;
– it’s a love inspired by a common goal rather than by sex or family bonds,
– a friendship triggered by a common destiny rather than by personal affinities.