Creating the Ties that Bind

Trust falls, ropes courses, team lunches, happy hours, etc. — there’s no shortage of ways leaders can build strong bonds across teams. However, creating those special ties that bind high-achieving teams together are harder to come by. 

High-achieving teams need several characteristics to set the world on fire — strong talent, willingness to learn, safety to propose ideas (even if outside stated role) and a top-to-bottom embracement of servant leadership. I’ll focus on the former in future posts, but for now, let’s talk about the latter — servant leadership.

While the idea of servant leadership dates back to biblical times, the official concept in business management terms has been championed by Robert Greenleaf, “Servant leadership is a philosophy and a set of practices that enriches the lives of lives of individuals, builds better organizations and ultimately creates a more just and caring world.” 

“A servant-leader focuses primarily on the growth and well-being of people and the communities to which they belong. While traditional leadership generally involves the accumulation and exercise of power by one at the ‘top of the pyramid,’ servant leadership is different. The servant-leader shares power, puts the needs of others first and helps people develop and perform as highly as possible,” writes Greenleaf.

This is why I believe it’s important for all leaders to make community service a keystone piece of their team development efforts. During my time at 1st Global, we made a conscious effort to aspire to servant leadership. In addition to proclaiming servant leadership as one of our guiding principles, we joined Communities Foundation of Texas for Business which removed any hurdles we had to better serving our community.

The results were nearly instantaneous. In a short time, we had blended our employee community and the local community in a way where it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began. Departmental leaders began scheduling ‘service days’ for their teams and annual employee North Texas Giving Day donations grew year over year, over year. 

This summer, the team I was lucky enough to lead was at a crossroads. We were undergoing a reduction in roles, merging with another team and shifting toward a new future for our recently acquired company. None of knew what was ahead, but we all knew it would be different. As the target date for these changes approached, there was time for one last team activity. 

What do you think we did? We served. 

First, stocking the shelves of the North Texas Food Bank, then on to Operation Kindness. 

By focusing our attention on doing good for others, we were able to forget about the changes (at least for a little while). We were able to remind ourselves that the ties that bind us together is our commitment to serving something greater than ourselves, our team or our company. 

Find out more about Robert Greenleaf’s work at www.greenleaf.org. To find out more about the Communities Foundation of Texas for Business, visit https://www.cftexas.org/business.