How do you develop your own cross-functional team leadership style and brand?

In my experience you also need to frame your communications to flow with the cross-functional language. For the public sector this may be accessing trauma informed phrasing that chimes with all team members and avoids silo’d jargon.

Developing your own cross-functional team leadership style and brand involves several key steps: Self-Assessment and Reflection: Start by conducting a self-assessment to identify your strengths, weaknesses, values, and leadership preferences. Reflect on your past experiences, successes, and challenges to gain insights into your leadership style. Define Your Leadership Vision and Values: Clarify your leadership vision and the values that guide your behavior and decision-making. Identify the qualities and attributes you want to embody as a leader and the impact you aspire to have on your cross-functional team.

-Identify the goals, challenges, and expectations of your cross-functional team. -Assess the strengths, weaknesses, and preferences of your team members. -Evaluate how you communicate, coordinate, and resolve conflicts within the team. -Determine how you measure and celebrate success. -Use this assessment to identify gaps and opportunities for improving your team leadership.

After evaluating our team dynamics, it became clear that there is a lack of trust among team members and towards leadership. This distrust stems in part from many managers having backgrounds from nations with repressive regimes. As a result, there is substantial frustration and anger within the team. People feel unable to express themselves openly.

How do you do this? I’m my experience you look to collaborate on sharing information on risk factors that lead to a shared outcome focus. The process of establishing governance around information (and data) sharing will root out the areas of common interest as well as the root causes of problems that will take hold of your joint interest.

-Communicate your values and vision clearly and consistently to your team. -Lead by example, demonstrating your commitment to your core values in every interaction. -Foster a team environment where members feel connected to the shared vision and purpose. -Regularly revisit and adjust your values and vision to stay aligned with team and organizational growth. -Encourage team members to align their personal goals with the team’s vision for cohesive progress.

Look around see what works Ask What kind of leader am I Your way your style its yours to make Mix ideas try learn Your team different skills one goal Make it your brand - Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek

During my MBA one of the lecturers comments stayed with me: "This notion of ones public and private self is impossible to maintain. To lead authentically, you must merge them into a single person and be transparently real..." So this is what I did and who I am. I lead teams of adults, so I don't micro-manage them - that just takes the joy out of work. Instead I build a comradery that supports, recognises and calls out good work, and has room for innovation and trying different things. When we get into a bit of churn, we change it up. Nothing's off the table. Suggestions are adopted and always reviewed to decide if they will continue, and I always celebrate team milestones, even small ones. Its a moment to soak up the greatness around us.

Something I've found helpful is to examine your personal values and seek a style that keeps true to them as the cornerstone of you influence. This helps when decisions are needed, they create a touchstone, and when negotiation is required because they identify common ground to build upon.

-Encourage continuous learning and growth within the team to keep improving. -Use feedback from team members to refine your leadership approach. -Demonstrate trust in your team's abilities to build a strong, cohesive unit.

I find that it helps to be clear about your vision from the start and walk the path of those values to demonstrate that you have integrity, even when it is tough, people want to know that you have skin in the game.

I find it useful to seek feedback from a wide range of people in you circle, those who simply want their light to shine upwards may foster short term success but ultimately it is your network that sustains you. Spend time talking, supporting, and being supported by all of those around you.

I would advise that flexibility and reflex are important, these are easier to achieve if you spend time getting your data and information into good governance. This means that you can innovate without gambling and take risks without being reckless.

I lead Agile software delivery teams, so we have an 'inbuilt' ceremony for this, a retrospective. Forthnightly retrospectives are a great pulse check on efficiency, destabilising incidents, and also morale. Issues on any of these fronts should force an action. What action? Any. Anything is on the table. The only rules are the ones we place on ourselves, so include them. Solutions could be simple as moving some meetings to afternoons right through to reducing allocated sprint workload, or owning interactions with a spicy client - whatever it is, its your job to pre-empt it where possible, recognize it, thwart it or shield the team from it, and manage it. How you run your retro (or equivalent) directly impacts the comradery within the team

Cross-functional team leadership isn't a one-size-fits-all approach. It's about creating an environment where different functions can come together, leverage each other's expertise, and work towards a common goal in a harmonious and effective manner. And the first step towards this is to truly understand your current situation. To assess your current situation, it's essential to adopt a multi-faceted lens, looking at strategic alignment, team composition, communication, conflict resolution, culture and performance. This will enable you to garner a richer understanding of the environment & make informed decisions and define your leadership style and brand in a manner that best suits your team and enhances its performance and satisfaction.

You're going to spend a lot of time with your team; more than your family - so consider time with them time with friends. You're also going to dump a load of effort into something irrespective of the outcome - so you might as well make sure it was worthwile by being successful, and make it fun so people enjoy themselves. How? Easy. Bake something and share it with them. Send them a thumping house track at 9am every Tuesday, and call it your 'Tuesday Morning Razzle?'. Pick flowers from your garden and share them. If one of them does something fun on the weekend ask then to dump a few photos in the team chat. Share positive client feedback broader then the team. Encourage them to innovate and support them. Real leaders take calculated risks.