Monday, February 27, 2012

Part 2: How Today's Leaders Are Like Successful Athletes

Part 2 of 3

2. They learn to work as a part of a team.
Everyone on the team understands and plays with the knowledge that every player has a clear role on the team, and yet when needed for team success, anyone steps in and does what is needed to win.


Team leaders in business must clarify roles & responsibilities in such a way to engage every team member to perform at their best in their individual role and to inspire collective responsibility for success. Today's high-performing teams benefit from leaders with enhanced communication skills, social and emotional intelligence (EQ), as well as practiced use of intuitive intelligence (IntQ). Valuing and cultivating these skills on teams leads to collaborative, creative effort and team-wide wins. Unfortunately most current office environments value IQ and competition far more-- which accidentally rewards behaviors such as manipulation, politicking, defensiveness, arrogance, and hoarding of information. The first step out of this limited performance zone is to reward action that enhances the entire team's or department's effectiveness in alignment with the business vision. Leaders playing to win long-term encourage and reward team success behaviors and recognize that this may take training, mentoring, and/or coaching to overcome conditioning toward unwanted behavior.
Today's leaders with raving fans from all sides recognize that building rapport, respect, and even compassion among team members is critical for fostering trust, which is required for truly amazing performance.

Leaders looking to make positive changes in team culture and performance enhance their own leadership skills as well as their team members' communication and collaboration skills. They may consider as an easy and effective starting point Communication Style Profiles and 360 Degree Assessments, such as through Extended-DISC(R).

*I was asked recently what I think today's business leaders need to be doing differently than those of 4-5 years ago, in consideration of the economic "dip," as I like to call it. I came up with a three-part model and used the ever-popular sports analogy for my answer. Upon reflection, I decided to share it out to the blogosphere in hopes that it is helpful for leaders at all levels in terms of creating more personal and professional success for themselves and others.  Part 1