Last week the company I work for, had an annual gathering where different events took place, one of which was an award ceremony for the best trainers in the field of personal development.

When my assistant’s name was called as a winner of the best trainer in my department, I was euphoric. I was overjoyed with such pure joy.

You know that precious feeling you feel when you know that you have contributed something to the success of some other person outside of you? Even if that person is one?

When my assistant was receiving his awards, I was saying to myself:

“Well done, Banchi. You have served this man well. You have helped him in becoming a great personal development trainer.”

When Tadious (that is his name) was asked to say something on the stage, he said that he would not be there without my willingness to coach him.

I am telling you this story because I was not willing to lead this man at first. When he came to my team two years ago, he can barely stand in front of people for five minutes without his entire body trembling. And yet he had told me repeatedly that he wanted to be a great public speaker like me.

I made many mistakes while leading this man into the path of what he wanted to be at first. I saw his fear of standing in front of people as a burden. (I have forgotten that I was once terrified myself of people’s eyes)

I expected him foolishly to be a speaker without showing him my own personal path.

I have forgotten an important law – the law of the Harvest: You reap what you sow.

How can I expect him to serve me when I have not served him?

Few months into our mentor and trainee relationship, a quote I came across made me question my leadership style (more on how a single quote changed how I lead now later in my article).

The important question we ought to ask ourselves as a leader is:

Do we want to lead our people because we want to be seen, to be heard because we want people to think highly of us and witness us in all our glory and mastery?

If YES is our answer, that is our downfall to our leadership.

We cannot serve others with that kind of intention within us.

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Your job as a leader is not to mold your team into some version of you, your job is to give them the courage and the confidence they need from you and the space to grow.

Many times, we see people leading a team by pushing them day-in and day-out to do things the way they want. We forget that the people in our team have their own voice. They have their own message. We forget that they want to do their thing in their own way.

Rather than reminding them what they already have, we cripple them by enforcing our power on them, expecting them to do everything the way we want.

I have been having the same difficulty when I was training my assistant to be a great personal development trainer like me. I thought that I was doing a good job of telling him to follow my instructions. I thought my job was to give instructions and that was it.

Oh, boy. I was so wrong. Not only was I not seeing how discouraging I was becoming by the method I was using, but I was also not seeing his unique talent to be his own person.

Why did I do these things? To be honest, I did not think I was doing anything wrong.

Until ……..

I came across a quote by Manuel Gruber that says:

“Be the mentor you wish you had.”

 The meaning behind those words made me pause and question what I was doing so far. I realized that I was not proud of my leadership style. I then asked myself:

“Would I be proud of my leadership style if I see myself as an outsider?”

The answer was a definite NO.

The quote reminded me that I needed to correct many of my leadership mistakes like yesterday.

I admitted to myself that I was doing a poor job of coaching my assistant.

Admitting the numerous mistakes I was making while I was leading made me choke.

· I expected my assistant to agree with me always.

· I did not really delegate tasks to him.

· Rather than value his ideas and opinions, I expected him to follow all of my instructions.

· I did not even give his feelings the attention they deserved.

· He listened to me, but I did not listen to him in return.

· Yes, we were talking to each other, but I doubt there was clear communication between us.

· I did not step away and let him do his work.

· Developing trust was not my priority.

And mind you, this assistant had personally requested to be under my leadership because he loves the way I deliver my pieces of training and he wants to learn from me.

I decided then and there that I wanted to be a better leader. I wanted to be the kind of leader whom people would wish to be part of.

I have come a long way now.

And I have become a good leader through continuous practices that have helped me.

I think we have to be better leaders. I think we can be better human beings.

Lewis B. Ergen was right when he said:

“The ratio of We’s to I’s is the best indicator of the development of a team.”

I think we can be exemplary leaders. If we do our best to be one.

Here are 13 helpful tips to develop your team – the right way:

1.Talk to your people, do not order them around.

There is no reason for giving orders. The meaning of ‘Team‘ is together everyone achieves more. You are part of the team, not an outsider. Use your position to engage with your people and to really connect with them.

2. Listen to them.

You can know the strengths and weaknesses of everyone in your team if you listen to them. The people in your team will know they are valued if you actively listen to them.

3. Ask their ideas and what they can do.

Just because you are in the position of leadership does not mean that you know everything. The day you think you know everything is the day of your funeral. The more you ask, the more you learn. The more you participate in your team in the overall work, the better you develop your leadership skills.

4. Consider their ideas as valuable.

John Maxwell said it best:

“You add value to people when you value them.”

Before you can see the talents behind every individual, you must first respect that person as an individual. Valuing their ideas regardless of whether you agree with them or not is your primary job as a leader.

5. Be aware of unspoken feelings.

Do not just concern yourself with the talents and abilities of all people in your team. Be concerned about their feelings as well. Whether feelings are expressed or not, they matter a lot. If you are not emotionally intelligent, then you need to be.

If you can’t have empathy, you are not going to get far with your team.

6. Encourage them to share their experiences.

You learn a lot from someone’s experiences. You can build your team to the highest level if you can learn to use the assets that you have at your hands.

The experiences of every individual in your team are your asset. Encourage everyone to share their work and life experiences.

7. Learn to manage disagreements.

Do not ever expect everyone in your team to agree on everything. That day will never come. Disagreements are parts of group discussions. In fact, you ought to learn a lot from disagreements. And you can if you are willing to do so.

Martin Luther King, Jr. said it best:

“A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus, but a molder of consensus.”

8. Let there be clear communication.

There’s a quandary I hear people talk about a lot in many teams which goes something like this:

“We are talking, but there is no clear communication.”

If you feel like your team is not communicating too well, you have to get to the root of the problem. You need to figure out what has gone wrong and how. Learn to be an effective communicator so that your team can learn from you.

9. Develop trust among your team members.

Are you a person whom others can trust? Can your team rely on you? Are you trustworthy? What have you done to earn that trust? Even though you cannot touch this precious feeling called ‘trust‘, it plays a vital role in your overall team.

A leader who has five people who trust him completely as a person and a team leader can go a long way than a leader who has 100 people as a team but no one from his team trusts him.

10. Remember the influence you have on your team. You influence them by your actions rather than your words.

You must lead by an example. You must do what you say you will do. Make sure that your words are incongruent with what you do.

If your daily habits are not aligned with what you are saying, then you will never gain the trust of your people.

11. Delegate.

Being a great leader does not mean that you do everything yourself. It means you know who can do a particular task better.

The more you learn to delegate, the stronger you become as a leader. You gain cumulative results as a result of your delegation. Your people will be able to develop new skills and gain knowledge. You lighten your workload. You get respect from your team. You can achieve more.

Everyone wins.

12. Step away and let them do their work.

The best leaders step aside and allow those on their team to do what they do best. If you control them, you fail in leading them. Control leads to compliance.

13. Remember that everybody makes mistakes.

Do not forget that you once have made many mistakes yourself. Repeatedly. Maybe you still do.

Make sure your people know that it’s better to make mistakes and learn from them than not doing anything at all. Coach them that mistakes are part of the process and that they have the power to be better than they were before if they learn from their mistakes.

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Related: Check out my article on leadership entitled ‘You have forgotten—-!‘