Three Leadership Techniques to Harness the Power of Your Team
Tackling team issues can feel like wrestling a big hairy monster with a blindfold on. It can feel emotionally messy, tactically murky and multi-faceted beyond that. To say the least, there can be a lot of noise.
Righting this ship, to mix metaphors, will take time. As the leader, you can start today and be patient. Here are three straightforward ways you can begin to harness the power of your team. Do these things repeatedly and I assure you that in six months, you'll be in a different, better place with your team.
#1 Say Out Loud What Your Hope for the Team Is
In coaching, many leaders express their hope for their teams with a forlorn tone, like they're wondering how they'll ever solve the puzzle in question. The strategy here is simple: find the right way to tell your team what you want.
For example:
If you're thinking, “My team is stuck in their ways. Having been together for several years now, there is a complacency to the way things are getting done, and we need to change how we do things. I don't know how to get them to be motivated”
Instead, say, “Even though we've been together for a few years now, my hope is that we can navigate together through some key operational changes that will help the business move forward. I'll share more about why this is needed and then I really do want to hear any hesitation you have. It’s important for us to be on the same page about this.”
Bottom line - find a way to tell the team what your vision is for the team itself. This transparent, proactive, vision-based leadership sets the tone. Even if you feel discouraged as the leader, find a way to frame it that points toward what is wanted instead of what is not wanted.
#2 - Upgrade the Quality of Your Meetings
How often do you convene your team, and when you do get together, are you spending time on the right things? (We've blogged extensively on meetings)
Make sure almost all of your team meetings include these two components:
A way for the team to cohere
Meetings are the chance for team members to re-align and leave feeling more cohesive and unified than when they arrived. It is a human calibration mechanism.
Anchoring in, clarification of, or development of the team's purpose.
Remind the team why it exists within the broader context of the organization and tie that to that meeting’s main focus.
You can use the meeting forum to do #1, above - share how you see the team’s journey and where you want it to go.
For example: At the beginning, you might say "Let's get started. I thought it would be helpful to anchor us in our primary team objective. I was reminded of how important our role was recently when... Of course, we all know this already, but presencing it will help us in the rest of our work today."
At the end of the meeting, you might say "I'd like to start something new. We come together every other week, using our precious time away from our functions to operate as a team. In order to do this to the best of our ability, we need to self-assess. I thought we could close our meeting by going around and hearing from each of us -- how did we do today in our work as a team?" If you have defined team values, you might choose one or two to focus on here.
#3 - Attend to the Team
Teams are living entities. How much time do you spend focused on the team as a whole? It's easy, especially if you're in the CEO seat or leading a business unit, to focus externally on the business and its landscape, or internally on the entire organization, but focusing on your team is another important, high-leverage place for your attention.
Teams, because they're living entities, have their own moods, cultures, and behavior norms. Start to pay attention to the invisible forces that a team creates and exudes. This is an important indicator of how much of the team's collective intelligence you are successfully harnessing. These invisible forces -- if left to fester and not appropriately channeled -- can create waste and undermine the team's ability to achieve.
These three next steps for you to lead your team are just that -- small ways you can start today to lead your team more powerfully. First, start by simply saying out loud what you're striving for with this team and how you want the team to be. Bring your team together in time in ways that build cohesion and anchor everyone in the raison d'etre -- reason for being. Lastly, start to pay attention to the invisible nature of the team itself. Notice it and even practice describing it to a trusted advisor.
