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How to Get Your Teammates to Follow Your Lead

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Re: How to Get Your Teammates to Follow Your Lead

#51
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hello. Article author here. You can do this and it might be the appropriate approach in some situations, but you run the risk of degrading your reputation with management. Putting aside the personal risk, I tend to think of maintaining your reputation with your teammates as more important in the long run than accomplishing something or being right about any particular issue, since it preserves your ability to persuad…

Perhaps it's a subtle point but how do you contrast your comment with this part of the article: >> When I explain this process to junior team members, an objection is often, "I don't feel like I have the authority to do this. This is a job for our leadership." They feel that a person must be empowered to make a change before they can venture to do so. That's not true. Team members become senior not because they are d…

You make a good point. The junior team members I'm thinking about felt they didn't have the authority and so didn't approach leadership with a plan. I'm not saying they should assume responsibilities without direction of leadership, but rather that they can follow step 1 in the article regardless of their level in the organization. Even a senior person must follow the direction of leadership, the difference is that the senior person knows that they can approach leadership with a plan.

Re: How to Get Your Teammates to Follow Your Lead

#52
post #42

An often-overlooked political tool is the one-on-one meeting. If you need to push a difficult decision, speak to decision-makers (this can include teammates) and convince them one by one. When it comes up for a group discussion, you will already have a winning proposal.

Isn't this just classic office politics? Imagine you're pushing for the opposite decision and some other person is going around having closed door meetings with everyone to convince them otherwise. Maybe it's effective but man I'd rather not participate in an environment like that.

You aren't going to have time to resolve everyone's concerns in one large meeting. One on ones are better for hashing out the idea and looking for compromises. Usually there is not some other person you are directly competing against - if there is then it's worth looking at the bigger picture of why you are competing in the first place when ostensibly your on the same team.
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