How to lead your peers

Leadership could be a grand success when the team gives the leader the benefit of doubt. There are no clashes of egos, when the leader has the trust over the team on the basis of the undoubted seniority/ skill. Often the best examples for leadership could be derived from watching cricket. Hansie Cronje and Steve Waugh gained enormous respect from their team based on their seniority and the father figure they possess. Sachin might have been young when he was handed over the captaincy and he might not have produced successful results, yet he never suffered the lack of respect purely as the result of his skill. Let us take your own example. Imagine you are going to a new job and you have the choice to select whom you will report to. You have two choices. A blue eyed guy who might barely be a year or two older to you. Or you could choose a middle aged person who is like more of a father figure to you. Now, given that you have no other information, most of you would rather go for the ‘father-figure’ person. This option will never hurt your ego. It may later turn out that the ‘blue-eyed’ guy might be a better leader than the ‘fatherly-figure’ person. But you will most probably give the benefit of doubt to the ‘father-figure’ person on the first impression. Similarly it might hurt you less if the most talented guy in your team leads you. Somehow that talented guy is a geek or an alien who is not a direct competition to you and your mortal competitors. It hurts your ego less. We are more open to report to the person who has the respect based on the seniority/ skill achievement.

Of course that might not be the case always. You might bump into a team with a peer like leader or there might be situations when you are filling the leadership role. Situations will become tight then. You don’t have the trust of the team by default and you have to earn every ounce of it. Peers might underperform when you are their leader, even when you deserve the leadership more than them. Dealing with this opens up a whole new challenge. It requires a whole different mindset. The formula for success is not so evident. The people management skill is the most precious commodity here. There are some options that you can try. In fact I will go ahead and share with you some solutions which I myself gathered from different resources. But before moving on to those pointers, let me reiterate the most obvious yet complex feature of leadership: striking the right balance between leading from the front and leading from behind.

Here are the few suggestion on how to successfully lead your peers. (Eloborated from source: http://stacistringer.wordpress.com/2008/02/18/how-to-successfully-lead-your-peers/).

1. Gain Trust- you must show your team members that you are there to work with them. Any peer will detest the very idea of them working for you. You must create the encironment where everyone works towards a common goal. Put the team ahead of you. You must be thier buddy. (as against the mentoring for younger subordinates).
2. Listen & Collaborate- Let your team members know their voice is important. That their ideas are valuable and you can work together to improve the path to your goal by working together. More heads are always better than one!
3. Avoid Micromanaging -As a leader, when you begin to micromanage you lose the trust of your team. You begin to take over their task and it becomes a one man show. This defeats the purpose of the team. Encourage your peers to share your responsibility of a leader. Do this not as an instruction but as a common consensus based leadership. A good leader must make thier peer subordinates feel more powerful.
4.Direct constructive criticism toward your goal - If team members are off task or moving in a different direction come together as a group and define your common goal again. Never put down a team member but build off what they’ve done and find a way to move on from there.
5. Express Each member is vital to group success- Without the team you as a leader will be alone to accomplish this goal. Every person brings ideas, personality, and passion to your team. Without certain members you may not be able to move forward. Be a cheerleader. Let them know without them this project would not be happening
6. Communicate -Without communication your team will go nowhere. Your team must trust that they can come to you for help if they are stuck. Without communication the team doesn’t know if they are moving forward or standing still. Communicate the good and the bad. Each member must be knowledgeable about all aspects of your project
There are some of my own suggestions. Let us come to that later. (If you had noticed in this article, I presented my opinion in a way of a suggestion/ information rather than as an instruction/ advise. One of the ways to lead a peer)