What's My Role? In an effort to be collaborative, leaders can create confusion and frustration for their teams. See if this sounds familiar...

Sara walks into the weekly team meeting, and as leader, reviews the agenda items. The first item is one she provided, and it involves making a decision on XYZ. She asks for the team's thoughts and ideas on XYZ and a robust discussion ensues. Eventually, Sara interrupts and asks the group, for the sake of time, to move onto the next agenda item. At next week's team meeting, Sara announces a new initiative to address XYZ. Members of the team react with various facial expressions and mumblings that clearly communicate their lack of receptivity to her announcement. Sara is left feeling a little confused, as does her team.

What's not working about this scenario?

Sara forgot to make the decision-making process explicitly clear with her team. People want to know their role in the process and can easily become frustrated if they assume they have a vote in the decision, and find out that all the leader was looking for was input.

Think of the decision-making continuum from the perspective of each team member, as follows:

no say--little input---a lot of input --a vote/consensus --team decides-- I alone decide

For an individual on the team, it is very helpful to know where on the continuum this decision will fall. As the leader, it is important to explain the process that will be used for each decision before any discussion occurs. That way, members are clear as to the role they play.

Coaching questions:
- When the process has been unclear recently, what was the impact to the team?
- How are most decisions made within your team?  ¶ 8:35 AM