Leading Beyond the Numbers: Building a Team with Purpose

If you show leadership qualities in your career, or even just stick around long enough, you will probably wind up managing a team.  Leading from where you are and leading a team are two related but vastly different propositions.

"Leading from where you are" means showing initiative and elevating others even when you don’t have the title or the power. It’s influence without authority.

Leading a team takes that same idea and pumps it with steroids. Now you make the decisions, enforce expectations, and drive productivity.

Often you are subject to quotas, goals, or the dreaded KPIs.

How can you possibly lead, motivate, and lift up a team, while simultaneously collecting and analyzing data, and doing your own tasks to boot?

Let’s dig in!

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Know the people (including yourself)

We’ve touched on Emotional Intelligence in other posts, but it’s worth retreading a little here because good management starts with understanding yourself!

Take a hard look at why you react emotionally and identify the most frequent triggers.  Call a team meeting and say some of these things out loud. 

“Hey, just FYI, I can get snippy under stress.  I know this about myself and I am working on it, but I want you to know up front so you can call me on it if needed.”

Stating the problem and allowing your team to call you out establishes a feedback loop and lets them know that you trust them.  Just make sure you are prepared for them to do it!

Next, take a look at your strengths and weaknesses.  Once you have a good inventory look for who might be able to fill your gaps. 

“Alright everyone, I am a very organized person, but I tend to focus on the big picture.  Who is good with details and granular analysis?”

Establish a list of KSAs (Knowledge, Skills, & Abilities) for your team members, then look for ways to engage their strengths in their work.  Ask questions like:

“What activity do you enjoy the most here at work?”

“If you could take one thing off your plate, what would it be?”

“What are ways you think management can help or improve your role?”

“What comes next for you and how can this role help you get there?”

Doing this work early, and revisiting it every time the team changes, lays a strong foundation.  It creates trust, establishes roles, and clearly outlines the material you have to work with as you move to the next phase of leadership, building the systems

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Know the Systems

Systems usually come in two flavors: mandated from above and internal to the team. 

Mandated systems are those imposed on your team from upper management, the C suite, or even the government.  Even if you are the CEO of a company, there will still be mandated systems like legal compliance, tax and financial reporting, and HR functions.  Get to know these systems first as they are usually non-negotiable.  If the team is struggling in this area, then you know where you need to start. 

Internal systems are things a manager can establish for their assigned team.  Most companies refer to them as “processes.” Some larger corporations (think Disney, Netflix, Apple, Google, Etc.) will already have clearly defined processes for almost everything.  That being said, there are usually some systems that managers can establish, such as:

-            How available you are to your team and how they should schedule time with you

-            How you recognize accomplishments

-            What information will you share with the team (and through what means)

-            Feedback mechanisms

Feedback is an essential part of management and it should go both ways.  I once worked for an organization with well over 500 employees.  There were annual reviews, but they only went down the org chart.  There was no mechanism for the employee to give feedback to their manager.  I made sure to carve out time at the end of each review to ask things like:

-            How would you rate me as a manager?

-            What can I do to help you in your role?

-            How do you feel like we are doing as a team?

Doing this gave me a much clearer road map of where I needed to focus and how I could better serve my team. 

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Know the Stats

You can’t lead a team well without knowing how they’re performing. But here’s the trick: the numbers are not the whole story. They’re just one part of the picture.

Yes, you need to know your KPIs, benchmarks, quotas, and progress toward goals. That’s part of your job now. But if you only focus on the stats, you’ll miss what those numbers actually mean.

What story are the numbers telling?
Where are the hidden wins and quiet losses?
What’s trending in the right direction, even if it hasn’t hit the target yet?

Look for patterns not just in performance, but in behavior, engagement, and morale. Did output drop after a major process change? Has someone’s work quality declined since they were moved into a new role? Did a recent hire bring in energy that’s lifting the whole team?

Numbers are data. People are the context that make those numbers come to life.

Take time to review the stats regularly, but don’t become robotic about it. If someone misses quota but just led the team through a tough stretch or trained two new hires, acknowledge the full value of their contribution. Use data to guide decisions, not justify autopilot.

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Make the Decisions

Here’s the part a lot of new leaders stumble over: the responsibility to decide. When you lead a team, indecision is not neutral.  It is a decision, and often a damaging one.

That doesn’t mean you should rush. It means you should learn to trust your process, trust your people, and then act.

Good decision making requires a few key things:

• Clarity of values: Know what matters most. Your priorities should shape your choices.
• Awareness of consequences: Who does this effect? What are the potential tradeoffs?
• Input from others: Consult your team, but don’t ask for consensus where it’s not required.
• Courage: Sometimes, the best call is the hardest one to make.

There will be moments when the decision you make won’t make everyone happy. That’s okay. You’re not there to please everyone, you’re there to lead them forward. Do it with integrity, explain your reasoning when appropriate, and be willing to adapt if new information comes in.

But once you’ve weighed the inputs and made the call?

Own it.

Your team doesn’t need perfection. They need direction.

If you make the wrong call?

Own It.

Mistakes happen and hindsight is 20/20.  Part of your job in leading a team is taking the heat for the team and the decisions you make. Leadership is a two-way street.  You might be the one that decides who stays and who needs to go, but you are also their advocate. 

Great leaders know their people, their systems, their data, and still lead with heart. If you can balance structure with empathy, and decision-making with listening, you won’t just hit your goals, you’ll build a team that thrives.