1.0 A Leader is as good as his team
It doesn’t alone matter how good a leader is, what matters more is how good is the team. One may have a number of stars in a #team but it is of no use till they work as a team, surrender themselves to the team. We have had some great captains in #Cricket but they could not win the world cups for their teams. On the other hand, teams that were strong, won the world cup in successive years, making captains legendary though the real success lied with the teams. Every Captain of a team knows that very well.
We all know that but how do we define a #Strong #Team and how do we build that? Based on my experience, a strong team is where:
- #Managers / #Leaders hire people who are better than them, smarter than them, not clones.
- There is #Diversity in the team in terms of their thought process, aptitude and attitude.
- People complement each other, not compete. They cover for each other’s strengths and weaknesses.
- Team members celebrate each others’ achievements. There is constructive competition among people.
- Focus is on achieving long term objectives and not short-term #goals. They are willing to lose battles to win wars.
- There is #No_Hero_Worship. Managers would build teams rather than pampering heroes and doing things to please their heroes, be scared of them leaving and so on.
When I look at some successful companies with whom I have worked over the last 30 years, their success can largely be attributed to the # Strong Teams that they have built. The teams they built had people from diverse backgrounds and there was mutual respect among them. It is not that they did not have differences in opinion. They fought with each other, argued about what they believed in but then at the end of the day, they were all aligned with each other working towards their common objectives.
That I believe is the success of the leaders. The primary job of a leader is to develop strong teams and also to develop #NewLeaders. A leader must know what he is good at and what he is not and thus delegate things to his team members who can do those things better than him. Also it is very important for a leader to hire great people and listen to them. There is no point in hiring great people with vast experiences and then telling them what to do. A leader must surrender to the team as well and must believe that he can not be effective without his team.
#LeadershipDevelopment #TeamBuilding #GrowthMindset #Collaboration #Diversity #Empowerment #FutureLeaders #LeadershipLessons #TeamSuccess
