10 Leadership Secrets That Will Help Your Team To Shine

This week I had a customer anniversary – one year of delivering a broad spectrum of leadership & management skills to scores of first line managers for my client. I reflected back on all of the different characters and personalities that I had enjoyed working with.My reflections brought me to a question: ‘what more I could have done to assist the small number of managers in the ‘drowning-not-waving’ category’. Those managers who couldn’t see the wood for the trees, or had a team that they could see no way of uniting, or maybe lacked the self confidence to lead.As leaders we all have our ups and downs, so I’ve distilled my Top10 practical steps that might be useful to help you and your team regain your shine.

1. Empower the team to shape, launch and live their own vision, purpose & values (aligned to those of the organisation) – this connects them to the cause
2. Be really clear about what good looks like for the individual, the team and the organisation, and avoid the temptation of accepting work that is below the spec - whilst this avoids hassle and saves time in the short term, your customers will feel the impact eventually
3. Share social time with individuals – showing interest and empathy for team members is only 50% of the solution – leaders need to reciprocate by revealing their own personal information by opening up – this demonstrates self confidence and relationship authenticity
4. Commit to removing obstacles that are hindering efficient work – make it as easy as possible for your people to do their best work – ‘do what you say you will do’ to build trust
5. Devote time and energy to growing each team member professionally and personally – showing you’ve got their best interests at heart will be re-paid with loyalty, and often requires more listening & understanding than talking
6. Publicise your peoples’ successes; and when things go wrong focus on solutions and learning, rather than attributing blame
7. Make a difference to those less fortunate – develop a shared sense of purpose by combining teambuilding with a community project – this develops team pride
8. Give regular specific feedback to every team member equally – the positives and the improvements. And show courage by asking for it back.
9. Discuss ways to improve productivity – use customer feedback, generate ideas & changes which will make achieving the work faster, easier, less costly – empower the team to implement their improvements
10. Implement a meaningful (non cash) reward & recognition system that celebrates individuals who have shown exceptional work effort in the service of achieving the team’s objectives – reward the effort and personal progress, not the talent, so that it’s not always the star players receiving the kudos

Clearly the art of leading and managing others willingly and well is more fluid and complex than simply applying this 10 point plan. However, beginning by building a team bond will spark the sense of loyalty within your people that could act as the catalyst of success:

The greater the loyalty of a group toward the group, the greater is the motivation among the members to achieve the goals of the group, and the greater the probability that the group will achieve its goals.

Rensis Likert (American Administrator & Organisational Psychologist)

At Optimus Team Learning we specialise in helping you and your team to build stronger working relationships through interactive and enjoyable activity-based learning. Using a fantastic team awareness model called Lumina Spark, we bridge the gap between teambuilding and training – combining experiential activities WITH workplace skills development to maximise performance. If you would like to know more about how we can ignite your team effectiveness with a Spark please contact us.