BUILDING THE RIGHT TEAM- Alfred kojo Appiah

High-performing teams don’t materialize out of the ether. They require careful cultivation from a team leader with a strong sense of team values, goals, and code of ethics. Without this leadership from the top, your employees are simply co-workers. It’s up to you to them an actual team. Here are some steps toward making that happen.

?Respect your team members as individuals. At work, you want your employees to be part of a team, but you must also have perspective: these are individuals with stories of their own. They got this far in life without your company, and they presumably have rich and varied lives when they leave work each day. It is important to not regard new team members as bodies who will perform tasks. A robust team environment blossoms when individuals are honored and respected for their unique gifts and their ability to contribute toward your common goal.

Practice emotional intelligence. Great leaders value the importance of emotional intelligence. In a nutshell, this means that their leadership style includes treating individuals as human beings, not living drones. Great leaders understand that not every person is motivated by the same thing. Some team players thrive on pursuing shared goals. Others seek healthy competition, either with an outside competitor or against another?sales team ?in the same office. By embracing the realities of different work styles and different forms of motivation, an effective leader will treat people’s individual differences as an asset, not an obstacle.

Motivate with positivity. Great leaders also subscribe to the theory that “you get more flies with honey than vinegar.” In real world terms, this means that it’s more effective to shape behavior with positive reinforcement rather than negative reinforcement. Resist the urge the criticize team members’ mistakes. Instead, create a positive team environment by citing events and behaviors that you particularly liked and encourage your team to bring more where that came from. Positive reinforcement is a far more productive manner of motivating team performance than shaming those who screwed up.

Communicate, communicate, communicate. As humans, we all love to know where we stand. Are my colleagues happy with the work I’m doing? Do I need to improve on something? Assume that people want to know. If they sense you’re unhappy but aren’t saying anything, that can lead up to built up stress and even resentment, which will result in poor performance. Or if they think they’re doing a great job but you as a boss aren’t satisfied, this can lead to unwelcome shock when you break the news that they’ve been underperforming. So brush up on those communication skills;?effective communication ?can keep working relationships strong for decades, while silence can break things apart very quickly.

Find a team you trust. Find a self-starter: someone who can make decisions on your behalf and who’s going to be a good ambassador for you and your business. Groom them to be collaborators by empowering them to make leadership decisions on their own. You’re investing time and resources into this person, so consider their potential for longevity at your company or within your industry.

Feedback is the key to assuring any team is staying on track, but more importantly it is improving each day.??Feedback should be proactive and constant.??Many leaders are prone to wait until a problem occurs before they give feedback.

Feedback is simply the art of great communication.?It should be something that is part of one’s natural dialogue.?Feedback can be both formal and informal.???In fact, if it becomes too structured and stiff, it becomes difficult for the feedback to be authentic and impactful.

Remember that every team is different, with its own unique nuances and dynamics.?Treat them as such.?No cookie-cutter approach is allowed.??Allow proactive feedback to serve as your team’s greatest enabler for continuous improvement.