Who's on my team?

It's an important question to ask. Who's on your team? Who's got your back? Who’s your support network that has your best interests at heart?

In order to see you succeed at life, in leadership, to help you along that journey have you got people in your corner?

If yes, what role do they play? How often do you catch up? What help do they offer? Is it two ways?

Having a support network around you is critical for your success in leadership. Throughout the journey at different times, you need to call on a range of people to help guide you, to lead you, to talk through challenges, to support you and different people will take on these roles throughout your career.

Reflect on your current situation think about the people you have around you. Have you got a strong support network now? Have you had that in the past? Have you got people who stand up for you? Who support you? Who challenge you? What roles do people play in your career progression? Are you actively involved in the process or do you just go along for the ride.

It's time to start having a serious look at who you have around you and putting in place some roles to help you progress within your leadership journey and give you the best chance of success moving forward.

There's a TedX talk by Stacey Flowers ‘The 5 people you need to be happy’. In this talk Stacey introduces five key roles that you need in your life:

·??????Cheerleader

·??????Mentor

·??????Coach

·??????Friend

·??????Peer

Building on Stacey’s presentation thinking about each of the roles individually and how they play out in your life let's have a look at the cheerleader. Have you got that person in your life that is always there cheering you along giving you that sense of encouragement, motivating you to apply for roles, giving you that pep talk. Everyone needs a cheerleader whether it's at home or in the workplace you need that person that's motivating you. That's encouraging you and giving you that feeling that you can do something that sense of belief in yourself that you may not have. This is that positive influence that we need to have around us.

The role of the mentor is usually held by somebody who has experience in your field or the area where we need help or guidance in. A mentor is somebody that you go to formally or informally they provide you with information, stories, advice they help you see different paths. A mentor is somebody you may catch up with on a regular basis or somebody that you only meet up with on occasion. Having a range of mentors is hugely beneficial in the leadership space. Specialists in different areas to help at different times, for different challenges. You may already have mentors within your life. They may knowingly hold that title or it may be an unspoken title that they have earnt along the way.

The third role is a coach. Traditionally a coach is someone who is going to challenge you, question you, and help you achieve the best that you can be. This should be no different in the leadership space. Finding a coach that you either work with in your current workplace or someone external that can play this role for you is critical for your success as a leader. You can't surround yourself with yes people. You need someone around you that is going to challenge you, ask difficult questions and push you to be the best version of yourself that you can possibly be and one that you may never have thought was possible for yourself on your own. In my opinion having a coach is the most important support role that you need to have in order to be successful in leadership as they will challenge you in ways that others can’t.

The friend role is important as sometimes you just need somebody to vent to, listen to your stories without judgement and give you a hug. There are days where you just need to be heard. You don't need the advice, you don't want to be challenged, you just want that friendly face to be able to have a chat with and debrief with feeling supported. The friend role is very much a two-way role and for a lot of people this role may sit outside of the workplace.

The final role is the role of a peer. A peer is somebody that works in the same field as you, same areas of expertise. This role is critical at times for support as you need to have a person who understands your tasks, the type of work that you do, so you don't spend half an hour explaining how to do a 1 min technical task. Peers can be great collaborators, and supporters as you work through your leadership journey.??It's just about finding the right combinations of people from a business culture perspective, experience, and personality. When you get this combination to work for you will have amazing bench strength on your team.

Now that you have an understanding of the five roles have a really good think about who you have in your current team. Do you have all 5 roles represented? Maybe you need some roles filled. Think about the people in your career, in your life that maybe informally hold these positions already. You may not need to have a formal conversation with someone to say can you be my coach? Can you be my mentor? They may already play these roles for you. What's really important here is to make sure that you have representation across these five roles. Also think about diversity within these roles. From a gender perspective, an age perspective, experience, cultural backgrounds. The more diversity you can have represented within your team the more diversity of thought and challenge you will have across your interactions. Each one of these roles offers something different if you want a well-rounded leadership journey you will gain so much from having a full diverse team.

This is not something that you can put together in a day or a week it may take you months to put together a full team.

When you do have a full team though you will not only have the support around you to feel success, but you will be successful. Go start recruiting for your team.

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If you have any questions or would like some information on how I could help with the coach role book in here for a chat: https://calendly.com/beehive-mel/coachingmeetandgreet

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