How can you promote mutual support among team members?

Listening & feedback are key factors to show your teammates that you acknowledge & appreciate their voice. People just want to feel like you have heard what they are saying & you can see their efforts.

Gratitude is the key to fulfillment. When people feel they are valued and appreciated it is a Natural response to give more. Encouraging and appreciating others costs nothing but creates a positive working environment. Good leadership qualities include acknowledgement of peoples efforts and contributions to projects.

Clear communication is vital in all relationships. We should never assume what's on someone's mind or guess things. Strong leaders will always communicate clearly and encourage a questioning attitude. To accept constructive criticism as a positive way of learning rather than a negative helps us to keep progressing through any challenges.

Sharing knowledge and skills with peers offers substantial benefits for individuals across all seniority levels. By teaching others, they not only reinforce their own knowledge but also foster deeper bonds among employees, extending beyond routine job assistance. I consistently urge top performers at every level to disseminate their successful strategies. This practice also serves as an early opportunity to gauge soft skills and leadership potential.

If you want the team members to mutually support each other, they need to see each other as allies and partners. When managing teams across cultures, time zones, languages, countries: 1) Assign activities or projects in pairs that require BOTH - don't make the mistake of making them both equal that causes conflict, assign 1 as the lead and the other as the support role, usually it's the person whose region/area or function is the primary for the activity. Next time, flip the roles. 2) Instead of outsourcing skills (i.e. translations), if you have a team member with that skill, partner them with the activity lead as support. You get the picture. Just be sure there is a single clear person who is accountable for the overall deliverable.

Most of the AI-generated examples seem to come from the leader down to the team members. That's a good way to start - modeling behaviors - but the goal here is MUTUAL SUPPORT among the team members. I ran a team across North and Central America which meant most of the time, we were virtual 50 weeks of the year with the 2 separate teams running in parallel but often operating in vacuums. The best activity to gain mutual support across the team, as a whole? Team workshops! We got together, in person, 2x/year for 3-4 days each. Add in an exercise each day designed specifically for the members to rely on each other, not you the leader, to solve or achieve. This builds trust, reliance, accountability, friendships, vulnerability.