To lead a winning team, a leader must have these 4 attributes

“A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go, but ought to be” - Rosalynn Carter

Often time, people will not necessarily gravitate toward becoming the best or achieving the best they can be, whether in personal setting or work setting.

It takes effort and perseverance to be the best. And obviously a winning mentality.

An inspired leader can make a difference in building the winning mentality in a team.

This is the second part of a 2-part article which talk about building a winning mentality in a team.

You can find the first part here.

To recap, the examples quoted below come from my company organized CSR event, “Walk for Meal” where employees compete against each other based on the number of steps they walk in 7 days. There is a “matching grant” by the organization to donate meals to the underprivileged based on the steps recorded.

The outcome is my team, MMP IT Team 1 emerge as the champion in the team category for recording the most number of steps after 7 days.

In the first article, the focus is on the on the qualities of a winning team, namely Consistency, Courage, Collaboration and Confidence. The 4C.

For this second article, I will focus on how a leader can effectively lead a team to become a winning team.

Below are the 4P leadership attributes that I employed in leading the team to victory:

1. Paranoid on Outcome

“Only the paranoid survives”.

That is the famous saying by former Intel CEO, Andy Grove.

Paranoia means we are constantly not taking things for granted, not until the fat lady sings.

We know the other team will raise their game every day, so even though we are in the top 3 for the first few days, the stakes get higher every day. The same number of steps recorded in the previous day will not guarantee a top 3 finish the next day.

To keep my team in a constant state of paranoia, I start challenging my team to go for incremental improvement every day as we strive to improve on our total steps every day during the first 5 days to make sure we can continue to end the day in top 3.

For example, in the 3rd day, we set a target of 20K steps and the next day, I raised the target to 22K steps. At that point of time, only a few team members were doing close to the target set. Then magic happened. This magic is known as Pygmalion effect. It is a psychological phenomenon wherein high expectations lead to improved performance in a given area.

One of my team members, suddenly doubled up on the steps taken in a day to catch up with the rest of the team members.

2. Passion to Role Model

Team members constantly look up to their leader to get a sense of how hard they need to push towards the goal.

I am a passionate believer that leader not only direct the team but show the way as well.

“We cannot lead anyone farther than we have been ourselves”  – John Maxwell

If leaders expect their team members to follow them to the deepest valleys or trenches, they should display the same degree of passion in executing what they expect from others.

Overall, I finished second in my team of 5 members. 

When I raised the bar on the number of steps for day 3, day 4, day 5, I role modelled what I mean it by ensuring that I meet the target first.

"A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way." - John C. Maxwell

When there are obstacles, a leader gives no excuses and find solutions. During weekend, the sky opened up. The downpour threatened to derail the plan to walk outdoor, but I have plan B which is find an indoor location as an alternative and still manage to hit the 30K steps target. Again, when leader role model, that strengthen the resolve of other team members.

No matter what the obstacle is, each team member is going to hit the 30K steps target.

3. Praise to Motivate

Often time, we tend to keep recognition at the end, when the goal is achieved.

But recognition doesn't have to be an elusive thing that is dished out at the end.

If employed purposefully and generously throughout the course of the journey, it will keep team members motivated, especially when they are trying to accomplish something significant in which there will be bumps along the way.

When the goings get tough and the thought of giving up threatened to take root on the mind of your team members, leaders can play the role of cheer leader to cheer, to give encouragement and to give praise for achieving small wins.

Motivation level doesn’t stay constant throughout the journey.

Therefore, is important for leader to light the fire of motivation to keep it burning.

Each day when I see the steps uploaded are not trending close to our target, I continue to cheer the team members to let them know they have what it takes to do it.

Praises and cheers were also lavished even when the team member lagging behind make some progress. Everyone needs to feel motivated and to feel good if we were to win as a team.

4. Plan Strategically

Although is just a game but having a strategy or game plan is key to ensure everyone marches to the same beat.

My game plan is simple.

Firstly, make sure we do not slip out from the top 3 during the weekdays and galvanize the team which will be growing their confidence by then to go for the maximum effort during the finale on weekend.

Secondly, study our competitors to gain insight on how to outperform them.

As Sun Tzu in his Art of War famously said.

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

?Any strategy will only work if you know your competitors well enough to outfox them.

For the first few days, instead of walking in the morning, my team and I walked mostly in the evening.

By then, most of our competitors would have uploaded their steps as some are morning walkers.

So, we knew how many steps we need to walk in order to stay in touch with the leading teams

By studying the daily trend, as a leader I knew who the top individuals in the competing teams are, which are the top teams competing with us and what are their potential output per day in total steps.

This information was shared to my team members.

In Conclusion

In the end, we won by a healthy margin of 50K steps from the nearest competing team despite trailing them for the first 5 days.

Credits go to my team members for being such a good sport and for doing their best to ensure the victory.

Although is just a game, but same principles apply in leading your team at work to be the winning team, the best in class team or the team with the gold standard in execution.

In pursuit of excellence, teams must strive to be the best and to do that, it must have a winning mentality.

A leader who knows how to lead the team to win can be a real differentiator.

What is your leadership lesson in building a winning team?