Recession has showed how vulnerable our economy is. Now is the time for leaders to bring their teams together, encourage them to perform better and work with them towards a better future for everyone.

2008 was the year of recession and cost cutting. To combat the pressure, organisations had to resort to harsh cost cutting steps and layoffs. Companies are reeling under the pressure and for some of them, it has become a matter of survival. At such times, effective leadership becomes more important than ever to keep the team together and motivate them to deliver better results.



We present some leadership tips for team managers that may be of help in sailing through the tough times smoothly.



Get involved: Most of the times managers or team leaders just distribute the work amongst the team members and wait for them to deliver the end product. This approach needs to be changed now. Now is the time to get involved in every stage of the project and provide your knowledge and skill set to create better products. Active participation does not just lead to better allocation of work but also ensures that issues, if any are sorted out quickly and work doesn’t get affected.



Define processes, procedures and team structures: Ensure that there are proper procedures and processes in place to define how work has to be done. Make sure that proper research has gone into defining these processes and everyone sticks to it. Similarly, clearly define the team structure and responsibilities so that everyone knows what is expected out of him/her. Following well defined processes and structure reduces the probability of mistakes and leads to better productivity.



Enable knowledge transfer: Now is the time to enable your team members through the required knowledge transfer. Talk to them and understand the kind of problems that they face and then give them the required knowledge and support to solve the issues. This enables the team members to perform better and has a positive impact on their productivity.



Encourage open communication: Lots of things go wrong for the lack of open communication and you definitely cannot afford to lose out on important project at this time due to such small issues. So, establish proper communication mediums and encourage open communication between team members. This ensures that the communication flow is smooth weeding out the probability of work getting affected due to lack of communication.



Show them the big picture and give assurance: Share the organisational goals and objectives with your team members and tell them how important their role is. Give them job assurance and ask them to stand with the organisation in these times of trouble. This not just relieves them of worries but also motivates them to perform better.



Tough times call for tough actions. This is not the time to worry and let it affect your work. This is the time to come together and encourage everyone to perform their best. The situation is definitely going to improve. Remember, this too shall pass!