Leadership through Facilitation

Working in teams that have diversity in backgrounds and skill sets is practically a necessity to solve challenging problems. Bringing together the right team has been the pillars of my experience as a leader, but I’ve found this is only the first step. Developing a process and executing on ideas as a team is a whole other ballgame. Here are the three biggest challenges I’ve faced in building my skills as a facilitator.

Delegation

Leading a 650 student class with a team of 20 Teaching Assistants is a challenge in and of itself. Unfortunately, I decided in my first semester as Head TA, I had to prove myself and took on much of the course’s responsibilities. Predictably, I went through a reckoning. Only through hitting a breaking point and through the advice of friends did I come to see that a leader’s job isn’t to do all the work themself. I had chosen team members who were experts in their areas, and I was doing a disservice to the whole team by not letting them utilize their skills. This shift came not a moment too soon — the COVID-19 pandemic swept instruction online, and it was all hands on deck. All hands on deck only works if all hands are involved in the process and carefully delegated.
One side effect of involving more people means there are more cooks in the kitchen. After considering everyone’s opinions, you have to be prepared to make tough decisions in the name of operational effectiveness and agility. Knowing you’ve collected all stakeholders’ opinions and weighed each approach helps you stay confident in divided decisions.

Cross Functional Teamwork

A frequent piece of advice offered to leaders is to surround yourself with people who are talented and experienced in areas you aren’t. No doubt, this is exceptional advice. However, building cross-functional teams then necessitates being able to bridge differences. From variances in communication and operating style, having variety in your team members’ skill sets and backgrounds poses a challenge in team collaboration. Learning your team members’ distinct vocabulary and operating styles is necessary to be able to successfully orchestrate diverse teams. Helping bridge the gap then encouraging your team to do the same helps guarantee you can leverage the exceptional people you’ve chosen to be on your team.

Leading Team Members Older Than Yourself

Leading team members who are older than myself is an experience I still consider strange, but it’s so frequent of an occurrence that without fail, I get a question on it in all my PM interviews. As a TA, I interface with professors who have never taught the course before. Part of this means I have to muster the courage to define the scope of their lesson plans! (So not all existing materials have to be re-written.) As a PM intern, my responsibility was essentially to tell designers, software engineers, and data scientists what to do! I’ve found building credibility and a rapport is the first step. Establishing yourself as a capable leader through a strong work ethic is a must, particularly when older generations view younger generations as lacking in motivation. Older co-workers often have more experience, and leveraging their experience allows you to make more informed decisions and signals to them that you acknowledge and value their experience.