As a leader of volunteers, creating and leading a high-performing team is perhaps the most important thing you do. And just as every leader is different, every volunteer is different. Creating strong volunteer team dynamics takes curiosity, patience, and courage to determine what your team needs to be its best – and then to create that kind of environment.
Here are some effective steps for thoughtfully engaging your team.
Use formal interviews and informal conversations to assess strengths and weaknesses.
These can shed light on what makes each volunteer unique and can give you a holistic view of individual strengths and areas for improvement. This can help you guide the volunteer into the role that suits them best while still serving the organisation’s mission.
For example, who emerges as your go-to person for managing your thrift store, and to whom will you assign as mentor to a new and unsure volunteer? Put some thought into how you can provide more opportunities for volunteers to use their greatest strengths, and develop ways to help shore up the areas where they are less effective.
By combining these different elements within the overall team makeup, you can strategically address gaps and strengthen your volunteer team dynamics.
Solicit feedback and encourage open communication.
Poor volunteer team dynamics are often the result of poor or one-way communication. Effective volunteer engagement means directly engaging with (duh!), and listening to, your volunteers – even if you don’t like what they have to say.
Open communication is key. Ask your volunteers about what they enjoy doing, and the tasks they find challenging. And why they find them challenging! Are there barriers you can remove or mitigate?
This direct approach not only provides valuable insights but also encourages transparency within the whole team. When you model open communication, the volunteers start to accept that it is the expected culture of the organisation, and will follow suit. Once that starts happening, you will gain new information and perspectives, both of which strengthen team dynamics and help advance your mission.
Be proactive – don’t assume conflict will resolve itself!
It won’t. Or only very rarely. Instead, face challenges head-on. Before problems even happen, actively seek input from volunteers on how they perceive and approach conflict and problem-solving.
Understand, it’s not uncommon for teams to operate with some level of dysfunction. And addressing that effectively requires a proactive mindset – and courage!
Tackling issues early on when they’re small and manageable is key to preventing larger problems from developing. After all, it’s much easier to solve small problems than major, disruptive ones, so encourage volunteers to come to you sooner rather than later, even if it seems minor.
You, acting as a facilitator as well as (when necessary) a mediator, can help volunteers develop essential conflict management and problem-solving skills. This approach ultimately makes for a more resilient and cohesive volunteer team. And saves you time.
Pro tip: telling everyone to kiss and make up won’t work! Ask me how I know.
A lack of trust is another key reason for poor volunteer team dynamics.
A lack of trust in the organisation’s management (and that may include you!), a lack of trust in the willingness of their fellow volunteers to truly include them, a lack of trust in the direction the organisation is moving. All these can cause a volunteer to feel psychologically unsafe, frustrated and/or otherwise unwilling to give their best. Or they’ll just leave.
Good communication will surface a lot of this, but you still need to watch for the early signs of conflict or other breakdowns in good team dynamics. You also need to know how to effectively and respectfully intervene when you see these breakdowns.
So how do you know when it’s working?
When volunteers have strong team dynamics, the environment around volunteer engagement develops certain characteristics. These include, but aren’t limited to:
- all volunteers feel safe and supported, so they’ll be relaxed and focused on mission delivery,
- everyone understands their roles and responsibilities, and are effective in completing them,
- every team member is willing and able to provide feedback on the program,
- there is a high level of camaraderie,
- new volunteers are welcomed by everyone on the team and are able to work in their “zone of genius”, and
- few conflicts happen, and those that do are resolved quickly with minimal disruption.
Building strong volunteer team dynamics takes work, but it’s not complicated.
Start with learning the strengths and areas for improvement of the team members. Model open communication and be willing to listen to feedback. Build trust. (If you want a really good way to do that, check out Frances Frei’s TED talk “Building and rebuilding trust”.) Working on these three things will help you build a strong volunteer team that can make a real impact on your mission.
