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

Comments

Get Going!

What goal are you working on? Maybe you don't spend every minute of every day working on your goals. I certainly don't. But when I do work on my goals they propel me forward. They get me going. Find your favorite goal. Work on it. Even if you start with the smallest task. Put one task after the other like little steps leading to a lofty elevation. Goals get us going. Because standing still goes nowhere. -- Doug Smith

Personally

Improving performance does require us to take our work seriously. But it does not require us to take ourselves too seriously. Taking things personally is a waste of self-esteem. -- doug smith

Start With Decisions

Do you share leadership? The most powerful teams share leadership responsibilities AND attitude. When you develop a team where people feel empowered to take charge, take responsibility, and take ownership you then no longer need to do all the difficult work. Delegation becomes easier. Collaboration feels more natural. Start with decisions. It's fast and easy as a leader to make all of the big decisions, but when you include your team in the conversations it takes to gain mutually shared understandings and collaborative decisions, you no longer have to "sell" your decisions --- people simply know what you as a team have decided and act accordingly. No passive aggressive resistance, no passengers on your team "bus" -- just fully engaged team members. Start with collaborative decisions. The rest will be much easier. -- Doug Smith

Expanding Capacity

High performance leaders expand capacity by constantly developing their people. How does your team grow? How can you get more done with less? There are many answers to the question of increasing capacity and responsible leaders explore them all, including improving processes and design. It's also important to constantly develop your people People who feel valued and who are constantly growing develop new ideas. They fix problems. They engage in processes and structures and find better ways to get things done. People who are developing stop tolerating defects and instead work toward optimizing their environment. They raise their capacity and increase the value of the team. What are you doing to develop your people? How much more capacity could your team have with people who were fully engaged, truly energized, and growing? -- Douglas Brent Smith Learn more in the workshop: Building Your Team

A Step In The Process

Does change sometimes surprise you? It is always all of a sudden, or does change sometimes sneak its way in a little at a time? Sometimes a problem is just a step in the process to the next big change. Should you resist it, or should you embrace your newest change? Is it a problem to be solved, or a possibility to be explored? Discovering the difference changes everything. Sometimes our perspective can shift from "the end of an era" to "just another step in the process" of becoming who we need to be. How do you prepare for that? -- Douglas Brent Smith http://frontrangeleadership.com

Solving Problems and Perspective

Have you noticed how much our ability to solve problems relies on our perspective? Sometimes we get too tight to think. Sometimes our thinking is so narrow that even the walls seem to close in on us as we struggle with a persistent problem. It costs almost nothing to take a fifteen and think it over. Talk with a trusted friend. Maybe the conversation will be about the problem at hand or maybe it will be about something else. Take a break. Many problems look smaller after a cup of coffee and a friendly conversation. Isn't it worth a try? -- Douglas Brent Smith Workshops and Teleclasses for Front Line Supervisors

More Than Convenience

This is probably get some disagreement. We've come to rely so much on one particular trait of business, probably even more than price. Convenience. We make so many decisions based on how EASY a transaction is. It's so much EASIER than ever before and we've all been spoiled by click-and-ship that anything with any friction whatsoever gets passed over. That's an understandable decision, but not always the best one. Convenience is great, but no substitute for quality. Hamburgers are convenient but wouldn't you rather eat a steak? (please excuse me my vegetarian and vegan friends.) Social media is convenient but how about the depth and richness of a long face to face conversation with a dear friend? I advocate that we consider other measures in our important decisions. Measures other than convenience: Quality Durability Care Beauty Drama What would you add to the list? Convenience is a poor measure of quality. Let's consider everything else that makes business -- a...

Side Hustle Blues?

As a leader, do you ever sing the side-hustle blues? That's when your team seems distracted because they're tired from working multiple jobs. When I worked in food service it was all around me: team members who were already wrestling with variable schedules and also juggling multiple jobs. Maybe because they enjoyed their other gigs -- like the musicians, actors, artists, and writers on the team. Or maybe because otherwise they couldn't make ends meet so there were the side-hustles in driving, delivering, retailing, and add-on food service shifts. People are wonderful and their potential is unlimited but their physical selves are not unlimited. Which can bring on the side hustle blues when people are tough to schedule, hard to motivate, and just plain tired. You'll never eliminate the gigs that team members enjoy, nor should you. Those are not the ones really sapping the energy as much as those that they are in only for the money. Employees won't need an only-for-t...

Dessert of Darkness

Lead long enough, and some type of crisis will develop. Stay the course and eventually you will find obstacles to overcome. Resistance is a natural part of progress. Difficulty is bound to follow innovation. How do you handle it? Does every leader eventually travel thru a dessert of darkness when you're not sure of the answer and not even sure of the direction? What will pull YOU thru? Having an answer before you get to that dessert is critical to success. -- Douglas Brent Smith http://frontrangeleadership.com

Life Never Stops Teaching

Which learning curve are you climbing? The lessons keep coming. When we keep growing, our energy sparks with new creativity, new courage, new compassion, and new clarity. When we keep growing, life's adventure brings more smiles than troubles. High performance leaders make it a point to keep learning. That means taking on the tough assignments. That means listening to the needs of your team and building on their ideas. That means constantly debriefing, decoding, and deciding. There's a lesson in all of this somewhere. Centered leaders find the lesson and grow. Life never stops teaching. What have you learned today? -- Doug Smith

High Performance Leadership

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