How can you lead high performance teams democratically?

One thing that's helpful is ensuring individuals values align with organization values. When team members relate to the values you can trust them to make correct decisions.

This is a good time to solicit buy-in from the team. Some may not be fully aligned (yet) but obtaining the initial agreement on how the team will proceed can help eliminate resistance, which can be damaging to the team's success.

An effective way to define a team's values is for team members to first individually identify a time in their lives when they feel they have been at their best, and then reflect on the behaviour that enabled that. All these reflections and lived experiences should then be shared as stories within the team to identify a set of behaviours and values that the entire team is willing to commit to. This way we would create a sense of ownership for the identified values of the team, as everyone would have contributed to creating them, and a genuine commitment to bring them to life every day.

Every team should understand why they need to do what they do. They also need to understand their own roles within the team and how each role could impact the outcome. This provides each and every person in the group taking accountability of their own roles as the understand that the outcome could depend on their commitment and active engagement and delivery of the respective work area in order to succeed. The leader will have to be the driving force, the inspiration and the influencer within the group, and help individuals clearly articulate their roles and responsibilities

Save yourself some trouble, understanding your individual contributors' or leaders' skill sets is a critical first step. Then, training them to round out skill sets and giving each person the space to grow. Allow them time for small failures during OJT in areas where they are new. Leaders must be strong enough to accept the decisions of their team members in the moment and review these issues with them, later. Decisions made while following your principles should be easily supportable. Your employees will have to grow into this concept. Expecting too much, too soon will make them afraid (counter to your intent). I will add, each employee grows at different rates. With growth and time, everyone becomes empowered and aware.

After delegation, you have to remember that if something doesn't exactly go as planned, you as a leader need to focus on the solution, rather than the blame. Lessons learned after completion of said project can focus on areas of improvement, identify deficiencies, etc...

Before you delegate ensure team members know why you think they are best suitable for the task and also how it'll help them.

Delegation can be a key development opportunity for people on your team seeking to build skills and experience. The next time you ask yourself how you can develop your team, consider this as an opportunity for both of you.

To avoid potential difficulties, start by assessing the skill sets of your team members and leaders. Next, offer training to enhance their skills and give them room to develop. Allow them to face minor setbacks during on-the-job training in unfamiliar areas. Leaders must be resilient enough to trust their team members' decisions in the moment and address any issues later. Decisions made in line with your principles should be easily defensible. Understand that employees need time to adapt to this approach. Pushing them too hard too soon can lead to fear, which is contrary to your goals. Keep in mind that everyone grows at their own pace. Over time, this leads to an empowered and self-aware team.

In my experience, soliciting and providing feedback is like tuning a musical instrument. You wouldn't expect a perfect performance from an untuned guitar, right? Regular feedback (adjustments) is key to achieving harmony (high performance). As a bonus tip: Don't just keep strumming the same chords! Make feedback a regular practice. Keep it specific, timely, and positive. By providing actionable feedback, you'll help your team members reach their full potential and create a truly remarkable high-performing team!

It is utmost important that trust is built between the teams and it's leader. The team should be comfortable to share their fear, their challenges or their concerns pertaining to the tasks or roles assigned. Thee team leader should be a good listener, who has an emphatical heart to care for his team members and provide open feedback in a very caring manner. Sometimes the leader might have to be firm if the team member does not perform, but should be willing to also provide confidence to the team member, through mentoring and coaching.

One way we fostered this culture was by setting up regular team connect where every team member could bring up topic for discussion. A lot of ideas were formed and converted into PoCs as part of this connect.

Collaboration could bring a very hybrid out of the box outcome. It helps team members overcome individualistic challenges or weaknesses and enable the team members learn from each other. Co-creation is once again helps the team members to compliments each other strengths and weaknesses and ensure that the output is complete in accordance to the requirement or expectation

Rewarding for a collaborative work is also very important. When we reward team as group, it really helps foster team work. There needs to be balance between individual recognition and group recognition.

It is said that in case the project fails the team leader should be willing to own the responsibility to himself and stand beside his team. He should never point fingers and state excuses for a failure. But in case the team succeeds, the leader should give the credit to his team members for their commitment and contribution. Rewarding and recognizing teams will motivate them and enable them to continue to produce excellent results.

This is one area where humans are not keeping pace with technology. Rather than looking for ways to implement existing technologies we should be leap frogging it and then figuring out how technology can help us solve problems and implement ideas that haven't yet been identified. Innovation begins with an ability to let go of how things are done today - adapting and evolving is the first step to innovation and growth.

Democratic leadership doesn't mean that every decision is made by consensus. it means involving the team in decisions when appropriate and allowing them to have a say in matters that affect their work. Adapt our leadership style to the specific needs and dynamics of our team while maintaining a focus on achieving high performance and results. Leading high-performance teams democratically requires a balance between empowering team members and ensuring effective decision-making.