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Building Your Team: How's Your Style?

How important is leadership style on the performance of a team?

Incredibly so. Think about the best team you've ever worked on. It was a great team because

a) you achieved your team goals, and
b) you enjoyed yourself doing it and working together

The team leader's style matters. An autocratic, micromanaging leader (I'm sure you know a few) constrains a team and stifles its motivation. In the effort to control every little detail, a leader loses the big picture.

It's in the big picture view that quantum success awaits. It's in the chemistry of the team that champions are made.

Some leaders are not micromanagers, but they aren't much of a manager at all either. So completely hands-off and quiet that the team probably forgets who is in charge. That might feel safe. That might feel friendly. But team members need two fundamental things from their leader, and neither of the above type styles deliver on both. People need:

1. the feel supported by their boss, and
2. to feel challenged by their leader

Support AND challenge. It's not one or the other.

If you build the perfect team would your current leadership style keep that team together?

Once you have all the right people in place (a temporary situation to be sure) will they stay engaged, energized, and involved in the vision and mission of the team? Your leadership style will largely decide that.

Firm, when y ou need to be firm. Tough on the task, tender on the person. Focused on the vision. And relentless in pursuit of your team's goals.

How's your style? What are you doing to develop it?

-- Doug Smith




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