Are You Preparing Your Teams For Failure?

Our Director David Neal speaks with Ian Matthews, for a Forbes article outlining how lessons from the Military can be used to improve Corporate Leadership Performance.

Promoting innovative solutions in a competitive environment can be challenging, along with effectively managing business as usual within a successful balance.

This is only one of many reasons that leadership training is highly important to develop high performing teams.

The current rate of change and uncertainty is making it difficult for teams to feel connected with a sense of purpose and direction. This is also contributing to some workplaces slipping into behaviours that resemble a less than psychologically safe environment, only further fuelling reduced productivity, employee absences and potentially even employee conflict.

Make no mistake, this is not an easy time to be managing and leading a team. Those who are both new to leadership positions and experienced in their roles have never been faced by such extreme conditions within a corporate environment in which to lead a team. It is only those who seek additional guidance, training and support who will be able to lead successfully, creating the opportunity for their organisations to flourish.

The risk level for failure is high, which is why we need to create structure, develop our skill sets and set the standards and conditions that give us the best chance at succeeding. Ensuring both new and innovative ideas are explored as well as managing our current operating procedures as effectively as possible. Within operating procedures, it is also important to be accurately recording the right data points, key performance indicators and measures of success, in order to be able to reflect on lessons learned and make iterative improvements that continue inching you towards your desired state. We must also clearly define for our teams the differences between responsibility and accountability. We discuss these components further in our Leadership Accelerator Course.

The rapid changes in how we live and work have placed additional pressure on our mental health and ability to demonstrate resilience.

Our aim is to develop employees to a point that allows a business to not only survive in this ever-changing world but to also thrive.

In order to successfully manage through the velocity of change and terms of uncertainty in the current conditions, it is paramount that you invest in building resilience with your employees. Training that focuses on these outcomes will help to build the kind of employee resilience that is present in a robust organisation. We must develop within our employees their ability to:

 - Understand and work on their internal locus of control;

- Develop their emotional regulation and awareness;

- Develop their self-efficacy;

- Learn to tolerate ambiguity;

- Develop realistic optimism; and more.

In doing this you empower your team to make effective decisions using strategic and intuitive thinking. Laying the pathway to your organisation's success.

Download your FREE copy of our Growing Good Leaders Ebook here.