Becoming a team lead
Many people become leaders without much warning. You do a job well, a vacancy opens, and suddenly you are responsible for other people’s work as well as your own. The skills that made you good at the job are not always the ones the new role needs. Suddenly, the work is about conversations, priorities, fairness and decisions made with incomplete information.
This article looks at three skills that new team leads often have to build, listening, communication and decision making, and at how reading may support each. As a note on the title: this page reports no study of its own. It draws on general ideas about reading and offers practical suggestions, not research findings. The evidence linking reading to leadership outcomes is mixed, so claims here are deliberately modest.
Listening
Listening seems separate from reading, since one involves ears and the other eyes. Yet they share an underlying skill: paying sustained attention to what someone else is trying to say.
A long piece of writing asks you to follow another person’s thinking without interrupting. You have to hold earlier points in mind, notice when the writer changes direction, and resist the urge to jump to conclusions before the argument is complete. Regular readers often find these habits becoming second nature, and they can carry over to conversations. This is a plausible link, not a proven one, and plenty of excellent listeners read very little.
Reading fiction and memoir may help in a related way. Both ask you to understand why a person acts as they do, even when you disagree. That can support empathy, which helps in conversations with team members who are struggling, frustrated or unclear about what they need. For new leads, assuming good faith and asking open questions often matters more than having the right answer.
Practical suggestions:
- When you read, pause occasionally and put the writer’s main point into your own words. It is the same move as summarizing back to a colleague what you heard.
- Read a piece you disagree with, and try to state the other side fairly before you reply in your head.
- In meetings, note the questions people ask, not only the answers they give.
Communication
New leads quickly discover that how they say things matters as much as what they say. Instructions that seemed obvious to you may confuse others. A casual comment can be taken as criticism. Written messages, in particular, lack tone, so they need extra care.
Reading widely exposes you to many styles of explaining. You may notice that clear writers put the main point first, define unfamiliar terms, use examples and avoid unnecessary jargon. Borrowing those habits can make your emails, briefings and feedback easier to follow. Strengthening your writing skills is a practical goal for a new lead, since much of leadership happens in writing.
Some things to try:
- Before sending an important message, read it as if you were the least informed person on your team. Does it still make sense?
- State the request and the deadline plainly. If something is optional, say so.
- Keep feedback specific. “The summary was clear, and the second section could use a source” gives someone more to work with than “Good job” or “Needs work.”
- When something sensitive needs saying, consider speaking in person first and following up in writing.
Reading cannot replace the practice of actually giving feedback and receiving it, and it will take time to find a style that feels natural.
Decision making
Decisions are the most visible part of leadership, and the one new leads often fear most. Reading may help here in a few modest ways.
First, it supports the ability to take in information efficiently. Leaders often have to read a lot before deciding, including reports, requests and background documents. Skimming and scanning can help you find the relevant parts quickly, while slower reading is better when the stakes are high. Knowing which mode fits the task saves time and reduces errors.
Second, reading gives practice evaluating arguments. Asking what evidence supports a claim, what has been left out, and whether the writer has a stake in the outcome are habits that help when someone presents a proposal to you. They are also at the heart of critical thinking.
Third, reading about how other people have handled difficult choices, in history, journalism or accounts of organizations, can supply examples to think with. It will not tell you what to do in your own situation, because every context differs. It may, however, help you see options you would not otherwise have considered, and remind you that careful people make mistakes too.
A caution: reading about decision making can lead to overconfidence. Few frameworks work reliably in real, messy situations, and the best decisions often depend on knowing your team and context. Treat what you read as prompts for thinking, not as formulas.
A reading plan for a busy new lead
Time is short when you start leading. A sensible plan might be:
- Ten to fifteen minutes daily of reading related to people or leadership, whether an essay, a chapter or a thoughtful article.
- One broader book at a time, such as history or fiction, to give your mind something different from daily work.
- A short note after each session: one idea, and one way it might apply this week.
- Occasional discussion with another new lead or a mentor, where you compare what you are reading and trying.
Audio can help if you commute or have little time to sit with a page, since listening to spoken material still counts as taking in ideas.
Keeping perspective
Reading is only one source of leadership learning, and for a new lead it is probably not the largest. Experience, feedback from your team and guidance from experienced colleagues will teach you things no text can. If you feel overwhelmed, anxious or unsupported in the role, speaking with a manager, mentor or qualified professional is a better step than reading more.
Used with realistic expectations, though, a reading habit can make you a somewhat more attentive listener, a clearer communicator and a more thoughtful decision maker. Those are small gains, but over months and years of leading, small gains in judgment and care tend to add up.