Ready to be a better leader in your business? Whether it’s just you right now, or you and a very small team… this episode has so many takeaways for you! I’m chatting with Tianna Tye — an Industrial-Organizational Psychologist and Team Dynamics Consultant. As an online business owner herself who has lots of experience leading small, remote teams… she gets it. And the conversation we have here about leading a small team is full of insights!
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I can’t wait for you to hear the wisdom in this episode about leading a small team. Make sure you tune in to the full interview to hear everything Tianna has to teach us! Here are some questions I asked her along with a preview of her answers!
How do you lead yourself as a team of 1?
Automation
For the most part, we all start as a team of one and while that is really awesome, it is also exhausting. Tianna says that the FIRST thing you need to do before you dive into leading a small team is to take a peek at the backend of your business and see what things need to be cleaned up and automated before you even think about hiring another person.
Tianna says to use a daily work log to track all of the things that are done daily as well as track what things are not getting done. You can download Tianna’s daily work log here for free and get started on this step today!
Along with doing this step, she encourages you to identify things that can be automated with a system. Humans are too capable and their time is too valuable to do things that an automated system can do.
Getting these things in order when it is just you is so important because you don’t want to hire someone onto a sinking ship!
Delegation
This is one of the first steps in getting ready to grow your team. Tianna says that when you are working through your daily work log and paying attention to the tasks you do, it starts to become clear where you can use help from another team member.
Tianna says that if you are making smart hires, those team members will pay for themselves, take some weight off of your shoulders, and also help drive the bottom line in your business.
Zone of Genius
Tianna tells us that after you figure out what things you can automate and delegate, the only things that should be left on your plate are the things you like to do!
Please don’t hear me say that you NEED to be hiring additional team members. If you are not emotionally and financially ready to hire, then wait. You want to make sure you are prepared for the responsibility of bringing someone else onto your team before you do so. Tune in to the full episode to hear Tianna and I dig deeper into this!
How do you combat imposter syndrome as a leader?
Tianna, first congratulations to those of you who are feeling hesitant about bringing on new team members! I know that sounds weird but the reluctance to just bring on new hires means you recognize the responsibility that you are signing up for with leading a small team and are taking it seriously!
In addition to that, Tianna says that the best way to go about starting this process is to have a plan. Make notes of what kind of leader you want to be and what things work for you. You don’t have to create a company culture that stresses you out. Great leadership will come from having a plan for leading a small team.
Tips for creating a company culture
Core values
The biggest thing for creating a great company culture is core values, Tianna tells us. She says that your team members knowing and seeing these are important because they tell them how they should show up and how they are supposed to do the work that they do.
Knowing what your team stands for can help you stay accountable.
Organization
Tianna says that even when you are leading a small team, your business organization is really important. Take the time to set up systems that you and your team members can easily follow to ensure accountability and consistency.
Documenting the process of how you do things is always a great idea. It makes it easy to hand things off to team members later on. This is something I have done as I prepared to grow my team in the past and it makes the transition so smooth!
Also, if you are hiring someone to do something for you that you are not good at, you could have them document their process since they are the expert.
Virtual Team Meetings
Tianna says that one of the biggest challenges with leading a small team, especially a virtual one is that you miss out on small talk and have a hard time getting to know each other. She recommends creating space for small talk with your team members.
This could be something like scheduling a coffee or lunch break together or even just carving out a few minutes at the beginning of your team meetings to just chat. This is not a work chat, but just checking in on life and it helps bond your team together. Ice breaker questions are always a fun option here!
Make sure you check out the full episode to get all of the great tips and tricks that Tianna has for us in this episode. I hope you have gained some great insight into leading a small team from Tianna! Send me your favorite icebreaker questions on Instagram or to hello@elizabethmccravy.com.
Meet Tianna
Tianna Tye is an Industrial-Organizational Psychologist and Team Dynamics Consultant from Atlanta, GA. She has dedicated her career to helping online business owners build and lead a dream team that can help their businesses scale and thrive!
Tianna’s expertise in hiring, leadership, and virtual teams make her a CEO’s secret weapon for managing all things on the “people” side of the business. When she’s not creating content via her podcast TyePod or curating team retreats, you can find her cuddling her two dogs and her firefighter husband with a nice glass of Cabernet.
