What are the Characteristics of High Performance Teams? Part 9

9. A leader who is an honest coach and facilitator

The leader’s role is vital – and since the team leader is conventionally the most senior manager that leader needs to be supremely self aware and wary of falling into the hierarchical power trap, as this can kill great teamworking stone dead in a heartbeat.

One seemingly innocuous example of how leaders often fail to discharge their responsibility to the team is what I refer to as the ‘hub and spoke’ model of running a team. This is where the leader positions themselves metaphorically at the centre of their direct reports, making themselves the hub through which all discussion and change must pass, with the direct reports merely the spokes on the wheel.

Typically in this scenario, people attend meetings for the most part for the boss’s benefit. The boss gets updated, re-establishes personal control and gives input on issues and problems they care about. As a subordinate of this type of leader, you have to prepare for the meeting, using your best telepathic powers to predict what the leader will want and what they will be interested in and focus on, and then endure the experience of watching as your colleagues ‘get their turn’ being grilled on what’s going wrong in their area of the business. Unfortunately in this scenario, instead of using my creativity and energy to support my colleagues as they strive to perform their roles and meet their commitments to the team, my focus is on protecting myself from the impending onslaught winging its way round the table as the boss’s focus inexorably creeps my way. It is likely that your overall workload increases whilst you are in the meeting, both from all the things you are unable to physically attend while you are not at your desk, and from the additional tasks and changes that the leader asks of you in the meeting.

Depending upon what business you are in, your company will have its own version of the weekly update meeting. In retail it will be the often gladiatorial Monday trading meeting reviewing last week’s numbers. In B2B it might be the Friday review of the week’s numbers. The weekly update meeting has become the corporate colosseum, where Caesar watches as grown men and women fight to the death, and then delivers their verdict on the stressed individuals in front of them – ‘thumbs up’ for a ‘well done and you’re ok until next week’ verdict, or ‘thumbs down’ for the condemnation of ‘your results have let the team down and you better deliver next week’ verdict. And people wonder why the forecast is often missed week after week.

Part of the reason leaders get so stressed, and therefore can behave in the ludicrous and inhuman way I’ve described above, is that they very often believe that it is absolutely their job to sit at the hub of the wheel. They don’t see this as control freakery, which is what it is, they simply don’t know any other way. So they put themselves under enormous pressure, setting themselves up for an impossible task and superhuman responsibilities.

The leader must be the keeper of the sanctity of the meeting. Why do we meet? When do we meet? What’s the agenda? What’s a manageable and appropriate time for us to devote to it? What must it achieve? How do we ensure that our team meetings are positively anticipated rather than dreaded?

The leader MUST be a coach and facilitator – this is their role in the team. Notice however that I don’t insist that the leader must be a ‘great’ facilitator, just an ‘honest’ one. It’s the honesty that’s critical not the precise level of mastery of the skill. Like coaching, the most critical factor is being prepared to be clumsy with the skill, thereby demonstrating vulnerability and letting others in the team help out.

One of the ‘Buckets’ of a leader must be the development of the senior team. This a crucial aspect of the leader’s role. They may be the leader because they were the founder of the company. They may be a professional general manager recruited from the marketplace into the CEO role, in which case they may have been chosen primarily for their experience, their vision or their strategic prowess. Whilst their competence in coaching and facilitation might have been a factor in their success in being given the role, it will not be the prime reason. But it is crucial, and may well be the most important aspect of personal development work the leader undertakes.

The leader is the one who picks people up at their lowest point; who reminds them how privileged they are to be on the team when they are at their most self absorbed.

Article excerpted from “And The Leader Is… Transforming Cultures with CEQ” - by Gareth Chick for the CEQ Newsletter: Coaching, Leadership, Change

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