Leading people at work is an untidy business. There seem to be lots of loose ends – interactions with people that didn’t go as planned, schedules and orders could have been better planned if there was more time – and there never is more time, day-to-day hiccups that flare into conflict, plus many changes – some of which we don’t understand.

And when there is a spare minute or two many leaders look to be better at being more confident at supervising, at making expectations and information clear, at working with their teams to prioritise and meet timelines, at resolving conflict, at having more constructive conversations with people.

Building confidence, strengthening communication skills, better planning – worthy improvement goals all, and enhancing leadership skills in these areas might make a difference to team performance.

The difficulty with development programs to increase leadership skill is that – when there is a rare diagnosis before the prescription – the skill of the leader may be assessed and not the performance of the team of which the leader is a member.

Leaders inspire teams to produce a result – they get work done through other people. To decide how to help leaders get better at achieving results through others – let’s assess the performance of the team of people working together and the conditions under which they are performing. Then let’s use those assessment results to help decide the right development needs of leaders.

About Joe:  Joe Moore is the founder and principal of Kimber Moore & Associates. Joe and his team are highly skilled in helping leaders, managers and staff deal with uncertainty, change, complexity and conflicts before they escalate into situations that are more volatile. You can read more of Joe’s posts and contact him here