Leaders–Take Time to Refine Your Collaboration

If you are a highly Results/Mission-oriented personality, perhaps collaboration is a challenge for you. But in almost every role in business (and sports), to be successful, you need the help and support of others. Chapter eight in my book, Engage with Honor, is entitled “Develop a Mindset for Collaboration” and addresses this topic head-on.

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Collaboration in the Camps

In life and death situations at the Vietnam POW camps where leaders were typically tortured the most, and often in isolated cells, collaboration was a leadership essential. Even the most confident, experienced, mission-focused warriors among us realized that they couldn’t dominate the group or withdraw and operate independently. Instead, they risked added torture and exposure reaching out to others to connect and collaborate. Senior leaders knew that their success depended on a team effort of “courageous collaboration” with their followers—it was essential for survival and success.

Competing at the Expense of Collaboration

Collaboration isn’t easy for everyone. In our early careers, we are often competitively focused on developing our own expertise and competence more than collaborating with our peers. But like the POW camps, today’s environment for success is more dependent on a team effort. With cultural challenges of working with five generations and rapidly changing technology, leaders are often not the experts. And, like the POW leaders, they’re managing things that they have never done. Using collaboration is now a required ingredient in building a winning model of accountability and performance.

Collaboration can also be a challenge because it requires a leadership balance that starts with both confidence and humility.

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"Today’s honorable leader must trust their people and confidently delegate power and coach them as needed to get them back on course quickly while humbly listening and learning from them." [Tweet This]

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This leadership balance is always a challenge because it requires two major spheres of natural talents (innate traits): results/mission talents (strategy, tasks, and accountability) and relationships/people talents (valuing, encouraging, supporting, and coaching others). The clincher is that we’re naturally wired to favor one over the other. Balance between these two mindsets must be learned.

This coaching clip expands on this idea. Please watch, and then continue reading the blog below –

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Developing a Collaborative Mindset

The entire concept of courageous collaboration is anchored in the fact that people want to succeed.? They want to be a part of something larger than themselves, they want to be valued, and they want to count for something. When the collaborative leader assumes goodwill, treats others with dignity and respect, and believes in them, they will be inspired to respond with their best. You can see that adopting this mindset as part of your leadership strategy requires confidence and courage to get past the fears that would cause many of us to control and dictate more than collaborate. That’s why courage provides the steel backbone of the Courageous Accountability Model.

Practical Benefits of Collaboration

Five proven, important benefits of collaboration are that it -

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1. Facilitates alignment. When individual talents are aligned and working in concert, there’s a unity of effort that brings synergy and astonishing levels of execution. Picture the Thunderbirds or Blue Angels aviation demonstration teams or a perfect performance by the Radio City Rockettes.

2. Promotes three-dimensional, 360-degree leadership and performance. When leaders collaborate with their peers, it frees their direct reports to collaborate at their peer level, breaking down silos and working more efficiently and effectively.

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3. Gets better results. If you look at high-performing organizations, you’ll find alignment, good communications, and leaders that trust their people to execute the mission. At the beginning of this chapter on collaboration in the book, we used this great quote by friends Bob and Lyn Turknett of the Turknett Leadership Group here in Atlanta.

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“The key to holding others accountable is to be actively engaged with them.” [Tweet This] [ii]

4. Builds teamwork and develops people. Collaboration builds trust. The better you know each person, the more effectively you can work with them or lead them. More understanding means more trust, which means stronger teams that are growing as they learn from each other.

5. Helps minimize risks. In the POW camps, our covert communications depended on collaboration. While I was the lead communicator in my cell, I was totally dependent on my cellmates and the guys next door to “clear” for me. Their eyes and ears and danger signals made it possible for me to do my job. Likewise, working together as a team reduces risk in every workplace. Think about the operating room in a hospital. If the team of doctors, nurses, and support specialists don’t collaborate, the risk for tragedy and malpractice suits is high.

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The Collaboration Payoff

If this mindset of collaborative leadership is new to you or seems hard or a bit scary, let me challenge you to consider the benefits. The payoff for your hard work is going to be better results, higher morale, better engagement and retention, and a bench of next generation leaders who are ready to step in.

What has been your experience? As a leader? As a follower with and without collaborative leadership? Please share your comments here.

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(EDITOR’S NOTE: This month’s insights on the importance of Collaboration are highlighted in two chapters of Lee’s award-winning book Engage with Honor: Building a Culture of Courageous Accountability. ?The book is built around the Courageous Accountability Model and provides a step-by-step plan for building the culture that you want as a leader. Accountability continues to grow as one of the biggest challenges in our culture. The good news is that when you relate to your people and collaborate with them, you can help them develop…and let them know that they must be responsible and accountable. Please check it out at your favorite retailer or read more reviews at www.engagewithhonor.com.)

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[ii] Robert L. Turknett & Carolyn N. Turknett, Decent People Decent Company: How to Lead with Character ??at Work and in Life,? ? 2005 Davies-Black Publishing (CPP) Page 135

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Online Team Development Training

With over 20 years training and coaching leaders, we know that the most effective development comes in community. And our mission has shifted toward leaders developing their people—the most efficient way—growing and taking others with them. The challenge is that many leaders don’t feel qualified to conduct training, and it’s expensive.

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