The 4 roles in a team and the courageous manager

*this is a guest post by Raluca Chinole, first published in Romanian leadership magazine Cariere, here

Those things that make us DIFFERENT also help us to become SUCCESSFUL. In a team, the more different the people are the better. There is yet one condition for turning these differences into pure success – a manager who knows how to leverage them.

Today, the word manager defines a whole mass of people and most frequently it constrains and confines their own performance and that of their teams.

Behind professional performance – which could help you access a management position – there’s one essential element that few told you about. It’ is connected to the abilities of leading and coordinating a group of people and, once acknowledged, it can lead to extraordinary results.

Alex used to manage a team of team leaders within a multinational company. All of them were highly trained to do their job, but that didn’t automatically mean they made up a functional team. Their departments often happened to miss deadlines, ended up in conflicts and lacked communication.

For quite some time, Alex kept asking for the same things from his colleagues: to look at things from a distance and build up vision, to come up with ideas to develop the company and to “get out of the cave”. But while they were keeping up with their individual tasks, the duties of their teams were always neglected.

Alex strongly believed that everybody had to be and act in the same way: always come up with ideas, analyze, have good communications skills and implement management ideas. What was the reality? One of them always had ideas. Another loved to challenge them. One kept analyzing. Another used to speak only when it was already too late. As a consequence, half of their conversations were STUCK IN THE MUD.

In time, Alex discovered how to use these different energies in a constructive way, instead of trying to make them be alike.

For example, he discovered that the ideas that one colleague generated EVOLVED into a better shape after the other colleague would question and analyze them. Then, once they decided which way to go, it was best to give the communication guy the mission to SPREAD it in the company. Afterwards, to make it happen, they needed a person who could put the plan into action and follow it step by step till the end.

There are four unique roles:

THE CREATOR: That person who always HAS IDEAS and finds new ways.
THE COMMUNICATOR: The One who EMBRACES and PROMOTES the new ideas, focusing on building relations and on the human side of any move.
THE ANALYST: The person who analyzes an idea, has the objective in mind and draws the RIGHT WAY to reach it, making sure that it is feasible before getting to the next level.
THE DOER: Is the one who makes the dream come true and DELIVERS the actual results, without forgetting the important details.

There can be one more role, a rare one, who integrates all of them and, in case it’s needed, it can replace any of them. But teams can survive without it.

So what does being a COURAGEOUS MANAGER mean?

Alex for example was bold when he decided to pay more attention to people, discover their profiles and delegate the right tasks. He was bold when he stopped asking them to be just like him, or to be alike. He was bold when he accepted that he himself didn’t have to match all the roles at the same time and started focusing on what he did best.

Many managers feel that their position is in danger if they acknowledge that another member of the team is better at doing a certain task. So they tend to push that person aside, to deny his merits and even delegate tasks that he won’t be able to handle.

But the truth is that a manager is evaluated in terms of different things than his team members. A manager’s good result is to responsibly lead his team towards success. And this is possible only by harnessing each member of a team. And the beautiful and useful DIFFERENCES between them.