“Survival of the fittest.” “Kill or be killed.” “It's my way or the highway.”
These harsh prescriptions have long served as models for running an effective business. These days, though, the prevailing wisdom is changing. Some of the new watchwords and key phrases are "collaboration," "shared ownership" and "common values." Why the shift? Increasingly, businesses are finding that the old ways of doing business are not sustaining them in today's fast-changing marketplace. As the watchwords change, so do the methods of effective leadership. Here are five basic keys to leading successfully in this new world of teamwork.
Lead Yourself Before You Try to Lead Others.
"If I don't have a good handle on me, I won't have a good handle on you," explains Jim Jose, an organizational effectiveness strategist and leadership coach based in Tucson. In other words, model for your staff members the sorts of behavior you expect from them. If you expect them to treat each other with respect, make sure you don't fly off the handle at every little problem. If you expect honesty from them, make an effort to own up to your own mistakes. The bottom line, says Jose, is "if you take care of yourself, you know the kind of value to place on another person." Because it isn't always easy to know how to make changes, or even what changes need to be made, leaders might consider hiring the services of an executive coach.
Give Team Members a Sense of Ownership in the Process.
"If I'm a leader, I have to find out what makes you tick," says Jose. "If I don't know what motivates you, why would you follow me?" For one team member, this might mean an excellent salary. For another, it might mean a flexible work schedule. For yet another, it might mean the excitement of challenging work. Once you've determined your staff's individual needs and have done your best to meet those requirements, the next step is to create a sense of shared purpose. An effective team leader defines the mission but then allows team members to have a broad voice in how the goal is reached. "That way, in the end, we can say this is a 'we' product, not an 'I' product," Jose says.
Build an Atmosphere of Trust.
This means fostering collaboration rather than competition. It also means approaching your employees with empathy instead of anger. One of the worst among several bad elements of the traditional management model is that, in a strictly hierarchical setting, leaders become isolated from the problems that threaten the organization. But if you foster an environment in which employees feel free to offer constructive criticism without fear of retribution, the organization will grow stronger.
Help Your Staff Build Capacity.
The paradoxical goal of a good leader is to become replaceable. John Maxwell, author of The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, explains the paradox this way: "The only way to make yourself indispensable is to make yourself dispensable. In other words, if you are able to continually empower others and help them develop so that they become capable of taking over your job, you will become so valuable to the organization that you become indispensable."
Foster Inclusion.
The more inclusive the team, the greater the number of talents and viewpoints will be on hand to tackle problems. This extends beyond ethnicity and gender, to include a diversity of attitudes, values and ways of thinking. Here is, perhaps, one of the most compelling arguments for teamwork. "In a team-based organization, you tend to draw out the gifts that everyone can bring to bear on business strategies," explains Jose. "In a high command-and-control organization, those gifts remain lost."
Five Steps to Lead A Team Effectively - To learn more about this author, visit Bob Corcoran's Website.
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