|
THE LEADERSHIP JOURNEY
Part II
"Dream more, learn more, do more, and become more,
you are a leader."
John Adams
In our last issue we invited you to assess your own strengths and weakness and commit aggressively to working on yourself. In this issue, we'll focus on extending this reality check to assess your team, recognizing that your job is to ensure you have the right team in place to execute the organization's vision.
 Stop Two:Assess Your Team
Our experience consistently illustrates that leaders, particularly senior leaders are reluctant to make critical "people" changes.
Often underperforming directs are given less responsibility, fewer challenging situations to address and are given multiple opportunities to succeed. Fear of the unknown can cripple senior leaders from moving, with a sense of urgency, to upgrade their talent. Recognizing this, the place to begin is an assessment of your leaders' values. Are the values that you consider most important in your team, behaviorally evident? Do your leaders and managers exemplify what's most important to you? Do they lead in a manner congruent with your values? Are they sending the right message to the business on your behalf? Are you consciously creating a winning culture which is values based?
"When selecting your team, always put the 'character' of an individual ahead of competence. The right character will have far more impact on the success of the organization. Don't misunderstand me; you shouldn't lower your standards on competence. Just think character first." ~Gary Chartrand Author of "Unreasonable Leadership."
As authors Jon Katzenbach and Douglas Smith point out in their classic book "The Wisdom of Teams," exceptional teams are rare. However, if you start with a foundation of strong commitment to your team purpose and goals, you are consciously creating a team that will win consistently.
The authors sum up the qualities that distinguish a high performance team from other ordinary teams:
- A deeper sense of purpose - Teams develop direction, momentum and commitment by working to shape a meaningful purpose. Most successful teams shape their purpose in response to an external demand or opportunity broadly shaped by the company's performance expectations.
- Ambitious Goals- Ambitious goals force growth, positive change, and transformation. By setting and achieving ambitious goals, teams leverage capacities and realize their potential.
- Better work approaches - By creating decision-making norms within the team, leaders increase creativity in problem solving, and develop work standards that exceed expectations.
- Mutual accountability and Focus on Results -Leaders who collectively own responsibility of the team generate results and achieve success.
- Competence - Selecting leaders with the right set of competencies, skill sets and the ability to deliver are critical to leverage the collective power of your team. Skill requirements fall into three fairly self-evident categories: Technical or functional expertise, problem-solving, decision-making skills and interpersonal skills. No team succeeds without these skills. Choose leaders not only for their existing skills but their potential to improve existing skills and learn new ones.
Don't be afraid to make the tough people decisions! Your team excels when individuals share intrinsic values, a collective vision and common goals, and are operating within an environment of teamwork and collaboration.
|
