Do you lead a highly effective team?

The holidays are now behind us and it is time to hit the ground running again toward our new annual goals. As a leader, you have most likely just finished conducting year-end reviews with your employees and have a fresh perspective on the strengths and opportunities for your teams.

There are many attributes that can contribute to being an effective team player, but I will only focus on a few today. As you review these, take a moment to assess any gaps or opportunities within your teams.

Highly effective team members:

• Celebrate each other’s differences & appreciate one another’s gifts & talents. They recognize they are stronger & capable of achieving more together.
• Have a “we”, not “me” focus. I recently heard an example of looking at an athlete’s jersey and how the name on the front of the jersey (the team name) is more important than the name on the back of the jersey (the individual’s name). I love that!
• Positive focus on outcomes and a solution-oriented mindset. We all know that we encounter obstacles when completing our daily work, but responding in a manner of “What needs to be true in order to make this happen?” can unlock even greater performance.
• Talk straight about issues & don’t hold back feedback. As Brene Brown says, clear communication is kind. Help each other learn blind spots, but in a compassionate way.  If you think about this from the perspective of an athlete again, the athlete receives feedback after every single game & is constantly assessing where they can grow further.  Are we giving our team members at work this same opportunity?
• Execute – hold themselves accountable for what they say they will do. We need to be able to depend on our team members to complete their piece of the organizational puzzle every time.
• Actively participate in the conversations – speak up! Sitting back and observing is fine if you need time to process but making this a habit during all meetings deprives the rest of the team of your insights and innovation.

Now that we have reviewed a few attributes of highly effective team members, what opportunities do you see for your team? Please comment below.