John Adair's 100 Greatest Ideas for Effective Leadership

Idea 11: Briefing

Briefing or instructing a team is a basic leadership function, usually conducted face to face. A briefing is an opportunity to:

• Create the right atmosphere.
• Promote teamwork.
• Get to know, encourage and motivate each individual.

Before and after any briefing session, in order to ensure that the question of ‘what is my role in all this?’ (which will be on everyone's mind) is answered, you need to ask yourself these questions:

1. Does every individual know exactly what his/her job is?
2. Does each member of the team have clearly defined targets and performance standards agreed with me?
3. Does each person clearly know at the end what is expected of him/her and how that contribution or that of his/her team fits in with the purposeful ...