Team lead as a psychologist: tasks, risks, tools of work

Hello! My name is Anastasia, a psychologist and I consult a lot of IT specialists. And I see a lot of similarities in the work of a team lead and a psychologist. What is it? Working with people, of course. And more specifically, what do you think? 





Common in the tasks of the team lead and the psychologist

Decomposition and delegation. People come to a psychologist to deal with some big problem. It is very similar to how a team lead decomposes a task. With the help of a psychologist, people find out what they are responsible for. And in the activities of a team lead, delegation is important, the division of work between team members. In fact, both are about how not to take on too much. 





Balancing distance and proximity. In a therapeutic relationship, professional closeness is important, because a person tells the psychologist the details of his life. And the team lead works with the involvement of the team, with the corporate culture and builds such relationships so that the employee can communicate with us openly, can share what is important and interesting for him. 





But it is important for both the psychologist and the team lead to remember about the distance. If a psychologist begins to merge with his client at a consultation, begins to build friendship or romantic relationships, then the therapeutic work is destroyed. And if the team leader goes into friendship with his team, goes with her after work to the bar, and even discusses which gender is unpleasant, then team management ends. The team leader is friends with his team, because he really wants to be good, he wants to be loved and treated well. This can be fraught with problem setting. 





Devaluation and magic. I call this "doing magic." It happens like this: the team thinks that the team lead is not doing anything, sits in his computer, and everything happens by itself, without his participation. The magic is happening. Such comments can be found here, on Habré, and on Facebook. And the fact that the team is effective at the same time, and the tasks are solved on time, the team can forget about it, and team leaders, unfortunately, sometimes forget about it too. Due to such a harsh assessment from the team, the team leader may lose his sense of self that, in fact, this happened due to the competent setting of tasks. The same thing can be heard sometimes about the work of a psychologist: "How is it, Anastasia, you only asked me 3 questions, and we got to this topic?" 





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Perhaps one of you is now thinking: “Why do I need all this? I'm a team lead! I know how to manage people, people are a resource. " 





I offer you a different perspective on this issue: all people are individuals. With empathy, self-confidence, being sincere, you become, among other things, a more valuable, effective leader. That's why you need all this.





I'll tell you more in the next article. 








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