When you start as the new leader of a team, chances are, you will not have picked the people on the team. How do you go about managing that situation?

In my experience, you will have a great variety of personality types in your team, each with its own opportunities and challenges. I will focus on 5 types that I consider key to address successfully in any team if you want to have a great start as the new leader on the team and increase your odds of having a high performing team.

Consider the following real case: Patrick was a seasoned executive in his company, with a career that spanned almost 20 years. Patrick’s boss offered him a new challenge, taking over a new team because the former leader had left the company. Patrick jumped at the opportunity and started working with the team, soon realizing that he needed to engage differently with the various personalities and people he was meeting on his new team.

The high performing manager/leader. Catherine was one of Patrick’s direct report and she was a very experienced leader, who knew most people on the team. People liked her and trusted her for her sound leadership style. At the same time, Catherine felt a bit annoyed at first with Patrick, because she had thought she may be considered for the position that was now Patrick’s.

How to approach that person? Make an ally of her, rely on her to be the engine of spreading your words and vision for the team; leverage her to learn about what works and does not work on the team. Make yourself vulnerable with her by letting her know that you need to learn from her. You come in the team with an open mind, you trust she can help you navigate the culture of the team, pinpoint where she sees things have to change.

Set a performance contract with her, especially if she aspires to grow more and/or be your successor. A performance contract is essentially about setting your expectations, what you need from them and letting them know/ask them what they get from you as the leader of the team. So, do not make excuse with her for the fact that she did not get the job. As the leader, you should listen to her and have empathy for her feelings about the situation. Then you must focus her on the future: “If this is what you wish, let’s discuss how we get you there” for instance.

The leader not managing a team. Michel was a individual contributor with a wealth of experience as a sales representative in the team. He had been there for quite a long time, and served as a natural mentor to the more junior people on the team. In meetings, Patrick noticed that although he did not talk much, Michel was always the one coming up with good, actionable solutions, which he knew how to implement since he understood all processes well. The other people on the team followed his guidance naturally, as if he were the leader on that sales group. The main thing though: Michel made it crystal clear to Patrick when they met the first time that he had no intention of ever becoming a manager at any point in time.

How to approach that person? Feed him with what he needs, in order to continue exercising his natural leadership: Involve him in discussions and decisions that impact the sales team; ask him how he has addressed a challenge in the past; learn from him about who the other people on the team are, and what they need to work efficiently.

Consider putting him in charge of a project, delegate tasks that help him grow and add value to his job. Let him make more of the decisions by removing yourself from the process flows.

Although it was not Michel’s goal to become a manager, if you identify that such a natural leader aspires to become one, support their development within the company and consider entering them on your short list of next squad of managers. This can be done through personalized development programs, registering them to specific trainings to kickstart their management/leadership skill learning, or getting them onboarded to your company’s leadership programs.

The pillar. Nadine was the most recognized expert on the team as far as client knowledge was concerned. Any question people had that involved a client issue, they could talk to Nadine and were certain to get an accurate response and support from her as well. She just knew everyone at each client. Nadine was also very passionate about what she did. She’d been doing the same job for probably the last 20 years, but the fire was still raging in her. She was all about talking to clients! There was no way she could be convinced to change job, to start leading people. She was simply not bored with what she did.

How to approach that person? Patrick did 2 things to keep Nadine committed. First, he involved her a lot every time a good connection to a client was needed. He also told her when he needed help from her to contact a client, reinforcing the fact that Nadine was the expert in that field and he, as the leader, needed Nadine’s expertise. In effect, he showed her the value she was bringing to the team and to him as the leader.

Secondly, because Nadine had such an indispensable knowledge about clients, Patrick recognized that losing Nadine would be a significant loss not only to his team, but to the company as a whole. Therefore, he made sure that Nadine was involved in building some type of knowledge database. For instance, make sure all discussions with clients were properly documented; have process descriptions in place; also convince Nadine to start sharing some of her knowledge with other people on the team, e.g., meet with clients. All these steps ensured that should Nadine leave one day, the team would not hit the wall because they had lost their pillar.

The low performer. During early conversations before joining the team, Patrick was told that Thierry was one of the low performers on the team. It seemed Thierry was uninterested in his work, making mistakes all the time, not improving the quality of his work. Thierry was a fairly new member on the team also and he did seem to get on well with the other people.

How to approach that person? My #1 recommendation is to make your own opinion about the said low performer before making any decision you might regret. Is the person really performing badly or did you get biased feedback from other people? This is critical to understand that a wrong decision here – especially since Thierry was appreciated by the other team members – could bring havoc in your team.

First Patrick should consider whether all possible ways of improving Thierry’s performance have been exhausted: additional training, mentoring by other people on the team, coaching, performance improvement plan. Patrick may also consider a 1-1 discussion with Thierry to understand whether the role aligns with his goals. Guess what? it could be that Thierry is actually more motivated by doing something else in the team or elsewhere, where he may perform very well. This is something Patrick could contemplate doing.

Once all avenues have been tried though, and there is no improvement, act swiftly, and let the person go. Keeping Thierry in the team will send the wrong message to everybody else, not to mention it will keep Patrick busy with fixing an urgent problem.

The toxic person (aka a diva). Sacha was by far the top sales guy on the team. He was always exceeding his targets and bringing new clients, however hard the targets or the market conditions were. He was the rock star on the team. However people hated him. Because his behavior with others was way over the limit of what is considered acceptable in most organizations. Sacha would openly criticize other people in their back, he would communicate very aggressively with people on the team and sometimes with clients, he would write to clients complaining about something one of the team members had done and how bad that guy was.

How to approach that person? This is the red zone here, your maximum level of danger for you as a leader, and for the team cohesion. My #1 rule and piece of advice here is to not compromise on such behavior and with such people. Never, ever!

Patrick should immediately talk to Sacha to fix him and get it straight: Have an eye-to-eye discussion with Sacha and set very clear expectations on the behaviors he expects from anyone on the team and the behaviors he does not tolerate. Set clarity with Sacha on what he must do if he wants to be part of the team.

If Sacha does not commit, or does not make rapid progress, Patrick should then let the person go. No compromise.

As a leader of a team, if you do not act swiftly on toxic people, this will impact your leadership and your ability to build trust and accountability with the rest of the team. The results: No collaboration, no productivity, you will fail as a leader.

What other types of people/personalities have you found upon starting as the leader of a team? How did you approach each type? What was the result for you? I am also interested in hearing on when you did not do something with a particular type of person and you saw an impact on the team or your leadership. Tell me what happened.

For comments or questions, please visit my website or contact me at pascal@p-m-coaching.com