4 Leadership Principles for Building Great Teams

Great leaders understand their primary responsibility is to create an environment where employees and teams feel empowered, connected, motivated, and capable of making meaningful contribution towards a common purpose. Successful leaders have many different styles and approaches in how they lead teams but there are a few universal truths about building great teams. Below are 4 Leadership Principles for Building Great Teams.

1.     People First

A leader’s most important task is to build a team of people around them that are engaged and capable of advancing the organization’s mission. While it is the leader’s role to provide clarity on role, responsibilities, goals and expectations (see #2), it is the people who will either step up and excel or will struggle to meet expectations. A leader’s best strategy is to have a group of people who can adapt to and perform brilliantly no matter what changes or challenges are presented. Great leadership is irrelevant without great people.

Leaders need to work to surround themselves with employees who are Capable, Engaged, and Connected. Individuals who demonstrate these three attributes have the most influence on the important team outcomes of productivity, low turnover, profitability, and customer satisfaction.

Capable

• Use their strengths every day
• Consistent levels of high performance
• Natural innovation and drive for efficiency

Engaged

• High energy and enthusiasm
• Broaden what they do and build on it
• Clear about desired outcomes of their role

Connected

• Intentional building of supportive relationships
• Emotionally committed to what they do
• Show commitment to organization, work group, and role

2.     Foundation for Effectiveness

It is the leader’s responsibility to create a foundation for individual and team success which starts with creating an environment where employees have clear and aligned goals and roles. The importance of effective goals and role clarity on an employee’s performance, engagement and motivation is thoroughly researched and well-documented.

Goals - Setting effective goals provides the benefits of team clarity, focus, increased performance, and accountability. Goals give direction to a team, allowing them to understand where they are now, to define where they want to go and to unite each individual effort in getting there. Common goals are what make a team a team.

Roles - Clarity and agreement of team member’s authority, responsibilities, and tasks that are needed for the team to effectively accomplish its goals. To enable the team to function, each team member should have a clear picture of who is doing what, who is responsible for what, and the extent of their authority. It is crucial that team members cooperate with each other and accomplish goals as effectively as possible.

Taking the time to establish and regularly revisit clarity of goals and role alignment is a foundational component in building strong relationships and delivering high-performance.

3.     High-Trust Environment

One of the most important aspects of being an effective leader is establishing a culture of trust. In the his HBR article, The Neuroscience of Trust, Paul Zak shared the following research on the importance of trust within organizations.

Compared with people at low-trust companies, people at high-trust companies report 74% less stress, 106% more energy at work, 50% higher productivity, 76% more engagement, 29% more satisfaction with their lives and 40% less burnout.

The most effective leaders invest in creating a trusting work environment. Taking the necessary actions to create a culture where teammates feel safe to take risks because they are confident that no one on the team will embarrass or punish anyone else for admitting a mistake, asking a question, or offering a new idea. Establishing an inclusive team environment that invites equal voice and values all member’s perspectives isn’t created by happenstance or accident.

A 2017 Gallup poll found that only 3 in 10 employees strongly agree with the statement that their opinions count at work.

Creating a culture of trust starts at the top. Below are behaviors that leaders need to model to create a trusting environment with their employees.

• Live the values every day
• Quickly address negative employee behaviors
• Delegate authority
• Share the credit
• Frequently ask others for feedback

4.     Continuous Team Learning

Teams with the most agility are skilled at learning from feedback and experience. In today’s constantly changing and complex environment it is critical for teams to learn how to learn. Leaders need to ensure their teams have a clear process and dedicated time for team learning.   

Teams call this learning practice by many different names, including After-Action Review, Post Mortem, Retrospective, Blameless Autopsy, or Team Debrief. Regardless of the name, the purpose of this exercise is to gather the team together to review and learn from work recently completed about what went well and what went wrong and then committing to any improvements identified. An ongoing process of practice and reflection helps teams quickly assess past experience, make meaning of the experience, and decide what the experience means for future action.

Below are best practices for leaders to put in place to ensure their team members have the opportunity for equal voice in sharing ideas, experiences and perspectives when learning from a common experience.

• An inclusive, simple and replicable process for the team to learn from their experiences
• A clearly defined space and time that focuses on team learning
• Clear communication that every team member’s input is valuable
• Provide think time for team members to document their perspectives prior to sharing

Now more than ever, organizations need leaders that can build and maintain high-performing teams in the midst of complexity and change. These 4 Leadership Principles for Building Great Teams help leaders enable their teams to deliver on the promise of their potential.  

Your comments, reactions, and shares are always appreciated. If you found value in this article, please send me a connection request so you can have access to future articles and posts.

--------------------

Tony Gambill is the founder and principal for ClearView Leadership, an innovative leadership and talent development consulting firm based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Tony brings more than 20 years of executive experience in leadership development, coaching, and team effectiveness within global for-profit, non-profit, technical, research, healthcare, government and higher educational industries.