The Secret Weapon Every Leader Needs to Create a High-Performing Team

Let me tell you a story about Dave.

Dave’s a friend of mine who used to work in the sales department of a large food and beverage company in southern Wisconsin.? Dave’s good with people, so he liked his job, and he loved the deep employee discounts they offered on snacks.? His supervisor wasn’t a great people person, but he was at least honest and fair, and that was enough for his team to respect him.??

Then his supervisor retired, and everything changed.??

Corporate brought in an external hire to take on the role of the sales department’s supervisor.? Randy, the new guy, knew nothing about the industry or their customized CRM, but he didn’t let that stop him.

Randy was a ruthless micromanager, and demanded results regardless of how unrealistic they were. An outspoken admirer of Steve Jobs’ manic but effective brand of autocratic leadership, Randy set about getting every one of his direct reports to do what he said, when he said, and how he said it.? Anything less than perfection was unacceptable.

Far from creating positive change in the work environment, an autocratic leadership style leads to a toxic work atmosphere regardless of how well-meaning a supervisor might be.

Dave and his co-workers quickly grew disillusioned with their new boss.? Randy’s abrasive style alienated customers and lost precious sales, and splintered what little team atmosphere the previous supervisor had cultivated.? Dave eventually criticized Randy’s management, which opened up a whole other can of worms, and Randy began incessantly questioning Dave’s abilities, and even openly mocked him in front of the rest of the team.

Dave, a loyal employee at this company for over eight years, left after only 11 months of living under Randy’s rule.

The Dangers of Autocratic Management

Despite your best efforts, no one person can do everything your employer needs, so obviously we do need leaders to coordinate worker energy to accomplish necessary goals.? After all, somebody has to guide the ship so the company doesn’t crash into an iceberg.

This is all true, but there’s a common misconception that leadership is about rendering certain employees your subordinates and controlling their every move.? Our workaholic "hustle" culture promotes this mentality everywhere from news segments to universities and books, and even film and YouTube.?

There's nothing wrong with hard work, but working hard at the expense of everything else overlooks the psychological contract present in any employment situation: the employer has certain expectations of the employee, and as long as the employee feels fairly treated and a valued member of the team, they will happily hold up their end of the bargain (Morrison & Robinson, 1997).

Connect with each of your followers on an emotional level. Hear their concerns and express your understanding.

Far from creating positive change in the work environment, an autocratic leadership style leads to a toxic work atmosphere.? Such a system widens the gap between a supervisor and their direct reports.? The result is to the detriment of the team.??

I would even argue that it’s impossible to have a team at all in such an environment.? Rather, it generates disinterested workers who perform just well enough to avoid termination, but have little to no expectations for the future.? These workers are not so much members of a team as they are distant satellites, incapable of meaningful communication with leadership. They have no option but to comply with their supervisor’s wishes.? Over time, they will become disillusioned and even antagonistic of corporate goals, an attitude which ultimately leads many to leave the organization altogether (Rousseau, 1990).??

Clearly, being more disciplinarian and controlling is not the answer to creating high-performing teams.?

If we are successful in our efforts to create high quality leader-member exchanges, then we will have created a positive, self-perpetuating culture of hard work and engagement.

So, what can we do? Is there a secret weapon every leader needs to create high-performing teams? I believe there is.

"Followers" or "Subordinates"?

I suggest that a rethinking of the dynamic between supervisor and direct report is in order.? This is not a new idea; the Leader-Member Exchange Theory, created in 1976, declares that the success of our leadership is determined by the “quality of the exchanges which take place between the leader and their followers” (Erdogan & Bauer, 2015).??

Take special note of the fact that Erdogan and Bauer used the word “follower” instead of “direct report” or “subordinate”.? This is interesting, because being a “follower” implies that an employee actually has a choice in the leadership dynamic: they can choose to follow the leader, or they can choose not to.

In this leadership model, we are expanding the employee’s perceived locus of control by acknowledging that they are human beings just like us, with their own dreams, thoughts and feelings.? Using this as a starting point, we can begin to take on a mentor role for our workers.?

Let's break down high quality leader-member exchanges with practical step-by-step instructions.

1. Connect with each of your followers on an emotional level. Hear their concerns and express your understanding.? It is hard to overstate the power of letting someone know that you care about them, especially when you are present in their lives on a daily basis.
2. Identify each employee's needs. Everybody's different. Maybe one employee has had previous experience in a similar role, while another has never worked at all. Maybe yet another is looking at attending college for another role entirely.
3. Help develop each worker on their own path to success. Some will have leadership abilities of their own, and these skills must be cultivated.? The organization as a whole will benefit in having more leaders in its ranks. Regardless of what success looks like for that individual, make sure you do everything you can to assist them to achieve their goals.

If we are successful in our efforts to create high quality leader-member exchanges, then we will have a positive, self-perpetuating culture of hard work and engagement.? Such an environment will increase motivation, encourage commitment, improve performance evaluations, reduce turnover, and create high-functioning teams over the long haul (Jing, 2021).

What About Dave?

You might be wondering what happened to Dave.? He’s doing just fine, now employed at a new company.? His new supervisor isn’t perfect, but at least she encourages team building and understands there’s more to leadership than threats and micromanagement.? Thanks to finding himself on a good team with a supervisor that genuinely cares about him, the sky’s the limit.?

That’s about as happy an ending as one can expect in the real world, so let’s leave Dave's story at that, and get to work on creating our own.

References:

Morrison, E. W., & Robinson, S. L. (1997). When employees feel betrayed: A model of how psychological contract violation develops. Academy of Management Review, 22, 226–256.

Rousseau, D. M. (1990). New hire perceptions of their own and their employer’s obligations: A study of psychological contracts. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 11, 389–400.

Erdogan, B. & Bauer, T. N., in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (Second Edition), 2015

Jing, Y. (2021, May 3). The Leader Member Exchange Theory. PennState PSYCH 485 blog. Sites.psu.edu. Accessed on 11/26/22 at https://sites.psu.edu/leadership/2021/05/03/the-leader-member-exchange-theory/)