Qualities of High Performing Teams

There are basically five qualities of the most productive work teams that you need to foster throughout the stages of team development. The degree to which you accomplish this before you start working will determine your success as a team leader and the success of the team as a whole.

The first quality is the existence of shared values. You can foster this quality by asking the question, "What are our values?" or, "What do we stand for?" People will contribute the values they consider the most important. As they do, you or someone else can write them on a flipchart. The values will usually be something like: integrity, excellence, quality, caring about people, profitability, and harmony.

The second quality of top teams is shared objectives. It is absolutely essential that everyone takes the time to discuss the actual reason for forming the team and the chief results that are expected of them.

Leaders are those who can see the big picture. They are absolutely clear about what it is they want to accomplish and what it will look like. They have the ability to articulate this vision in the minds and hearts of others and to get everyone, no matter what their background or personality, working together in harmony toward the realization of that vision.

People cannot hit a target they cannot see. Again, even though it may appear time consuming, everyone needs to have ample opportunity to discuss and agree on the ultimate goals desired before work begins. The more thorough the discussion on goals and objectives, the more effective the team will be when it begins working.

The third quality of highly-productive teams is shared activities. Everyone knows what they are supposed to contribute to the achievement of the overall goals and objectives of the team. Everyone also knows what each of the other members is expected to do. All the work that has to be done is clearly divided up among the team members, and everyone knows their role in the process.

The fourth quality of high-performing teams is that the head of the team leads the action. You become the role model for all of the others. You go out in front. You continually look for ways to make it easier for your team members to do their jobs. You accept complete responsibility for the achievement of the overall goal. You start a little earlier, you work a little harder, and you stay a little later. You set careful priorities on your time and you always work on your highest value tasks. You never ask anyone to do something that you wouldn’t do yourself. You always put yourself out in front and go to bat for your people in every circumstance. You are a leader because you continually lead.

The fifth and final quality of high-performing teams is that individually and as a group, they continually evaluate their progress toward their goals and values. The are always asking themselves, "How are we doing, and how can we do better?" When they manufacture or sell products in the marketplace, they ask their customers for ongoing feedback and evaluation. They set incredible standards of excellence and they are constantly striving to be better.

Whenever they have problems, misunderstandings, or difficulties within the team, they reexamine their values, their goals, their activities, their assignments, and their responsibilities. They are more concerned with what’s right than with who’s right. They are more concerned with winning than with not losing. High-Performing teams run by excellent leaders, are determined to perform in an excellent fashion. All members know that their ability to work together in harmony and cooperation is the key to the success of every one of them.

Stages Of Team Development - The Role of a Leader

Your ability to negotiate, communicate, influence, and persuade others to do things is absolutely indispensable to everything you accomplish in life. The most effective men and women in every area are those who can quite competently organize the cooperation and assistance of other people toward the accomplishment of important goals and objectives.

Of course, everyone you meet has different values, opinions, attitudes, beliefs, cultural values, work habits, goals, ambitions, and dreams. Because of this incredible diversity of human resources, it has never been more difficult and yet more necessary for diplomatic leaders to emerge and form these people into high-performing teams.

Fortunately, leaders are made, not born. You learn to become a leader by doing what other excellent leaders have done before you. You become proficient in your job or skill, and then you become proficient at understanding the motivations and behaviors of other people. As a leader, you combine your personal competencies with the competencies of a variety of others into a smoothly functioning team that can out-play and out-perform all its competitors.

When you become a team leader, even if your team only consists of one other person, you must immediately develop a whole new set of leadership skills. In order to determine what these skills are, you need to consider the genesis of high-performing teams.

Teams generally go through four phases as they evolve toward high performance. These stages are called forming, storming, norming, and performing.

The forming stage is very important, perhaps even critical, to the success of the team. Your ability to select the proper team members in order to accomplish a particular task—personal or business—is the mark of the superior leader. If you select the wrong people in the first place, it becomes almost impossible afterward to build a winning team, just as it would be impossible to win athletic championships with unskilled or ill-suited players.

In the forming stage, the team members come together and begin to get a feeling for each other. There will be a good deal of discussion, argument, disagreement, personal expression of likes and dislikes, and the forming of friendly alliances between team members.

This stage, especially the discussions and conversations that take place, may seem time consuming, but it is absolutely indispensable to the development of a unified group of people that you can lead. One of the most important qualities of a leader is that of patience. And patience is never more necessary than when you are going through the early stages of assembling your team.

The second stage of team development is called storming. Storming is a shortened form of the word "brainstorming." It is during this stage when the group, whose members are now comfortable with each other, begins the hard work of setting goals and deadlines, dividing up the tasks, and getting on with the job. During the storming phase, people learn about the contributions that each member can make to achieve the purposes of the team.

The third stage of team development is called norming. This is where norms and standards are established among the team members so that everyone feels secure and confident in his or her place. All members know what is expected and how it is to be measured. And all members are aware of the responsibilities and obligations that they have, not only to the job, but to the each other as well. Your ability as a leader to promote the norming process is critical to the success of the team.

The fourth stage of team development is performing. In the final analysis, your ability to get results is all that really matters. Your lifestyle, your rate of promotion and level of rewards, and your respect and esteem among your co-workers and bosses will all be determined by your ability to perform and to get others to perform.

The wonderful thing about becoming a leader in your work and personal life is that you can practice the skills of influencing and persuading others toward a common objective. You can promote the principles of excellent teamwork by establishing your values and goals, determining your activities, and then leading the action. And you can improve yourself by continually evaluating your performance against your standards.

The Training Of “The Will To Do”

The “Will To Do” is the greatest power in the world that is concerned with human accomplishment and no one can in advance determine its limits.

The things that we do now would have been a few ages ago impossibilities. Today the safe maxim is: "All things are possible."

The Will To Do is a force that is strictly practical, yet it is difficult to explain just what it is. It can be compared to electricity because we know it only through its cause and effects. It is a power we can direct and to just the extent we direct it do we determine our future. Every time you accomplish any definite act, consciously or unconsciously, you use the principle of the Will. You can Will to do anything whether it is right or wrong, and therefore the way you use your will makes a big difference in your life.

Every person possesses some "Will To Do." It is the inner energy which controls all conscious acts. What you will to do directs your life forces. All habits, good or bad, are the result of what you will to do. You improve or lower your condition in life by what you will to do. Your will has a connection with all avenues of knowledge, all activities, all accomplishment.

You probably know of cases where people have shown wonderful strength under some excitement, similar to the following: The house of a farmer's wife caught on fire. No one was around to help her move anything. She was a frail woman, and ordinarily was considered weak. On this occasion she removed things from the house that it later took three men to handle. It was the Will To Do that she used to accomplish her task.

Genius Is But A Will To Do Little Things With Infinite Pains. Little Things Well Done Open The Door Of Opportunity For Bigger Things.

The Will accomplishes its greater results through activities that grow out of great concentration in acquiring the power of voluntary attention to such an extent that we can direct it where we will and hold it steadily to its task until our aim is accomplished. When you learn so to use it, your Will Power becomes a mighty force. Almost everything can be accomplished through its proper use. It is greater than physical force because it can be used to control not only physical but mental and moral forces.

There are very few that possess perfectly developed and balanced Will Power, but those who do easily crush out their weak qualities. Study yourself carefully. Find out your greatest weakness and then use your will power to overcome it. In this way eradicate your faults, one by one, until you have built up a strong character and personality.

Rules for Improvement

A desire arises. Now think whether this would be good for you. If it is not, use your Will Power to kill out the desire, but, on the other hand, if it is a righteous desire, summon all your Will Power to your aid, crush all obstacles that confront you and secure possession of the coveted Good.

Slowness in Making Decisions

This is a weakness of Will Power. You know you should do something, but you delay doing it through lack of decision. It is easier not to do a certain thing than to do it, but conscience says to do it. The vast majority of persons are failures because of the lack of deciding to do a thing when it should be done. Those that are successful have been quick to grasp opportunities by making a quick decision. This power of will can be used to bring culture, wealth and health.

Some Special Pointers

For the next week try to make quicker decisions in your little daily affairs. Set the hour you wish to get up and arise exactly at the fixed time. Anything that you should accomplish, do on or ahead of time. You want, of course, to give due deliberation to weighty matters, but by making quick decisions on little things you will acquire the ability to make quick decisions in bigger things. Never procrastinate. Decide quickly one way or the other even at the risk of deciding wrong. Practice this for a week or two and notice your improvement.

The Lack of Initiative

This, too, keeps many men from succeeding. They have fallen into the way of imitating others in all that they do. Very often we hear the expression, "He seems clever enough, but he lacks initiative." Life for them is one continuous grind. Day after day they go through the same monotonous round of duties, while those that are "getting along" are using their initiative to get greater fullness of life. There is nothing so responsible for poverty as this lack of initiative, this power to think and do for ourselves.

You Are as Good as Anyone

You have will power, and if you use it, you will get your share of the luxuries of life. So use it to claim your own. Don't depend on anyone else to help you. We have to fight our own battles. All the world loves a fighter, while the coward is despised by all.

Every person's problems are different, so I can only say "analyze your opportunities and conditions and study your natural abilities." Form plans for improvement and then put them into operation. Now, as I said before, don't just say, "I am going to do so and so," but carry your plan into execution. Don't make an indefinite plan, but a definite one, and then don't give up until your object has been accomplished. Put these suggestions into practice with true earnestness, and you will soon note astonishing results, and your whole life will be completely changed. An excellent motto for one of pure motives is: Through my will power I dare do what I want to. You will find this affirmation has a very strengthening effect.

The Spirit of Perseverance

The spirit of "sticktoitiveness" is the one that wins. Many go just so far and then give up, whereas, if they had persevered a little longer, they would have won out. Many have much initiative, but instead of concentrating it into one channel, they diffuse it through several, thereby dissipating it to such an extent that its effect is lost.

Develop more determination, which is only the Will To Do, and when you start out to do something stick to it until you get results. Of course, before starting anything you must look ahead and see what the "finish leads to." You must select a road that will lead to "somewhere," rather than "nowhere." The journey must be productive of some kind of substantial results. The trouble with so many young men is that they launch enterprises without any end in sight. It is not so much the start as the finish of a journey that counts. Each little move should bring you nearer the goal which you planned to reach before the enterprise began.

Lack of Perseverance is nothing but the lack of the Will To Do. It takes the same energy to say, "I will continue," as to say, "I give up." Just the moment you say the latter you shut off your dynamo, and your determination is gone. Every time you allow your determination to be broken you weaken it. Don't forget this. Just the instant you notice your determination beginning to weaken, concentrate on it and by sheer Will Power make it continue on the "job."

Never try to make a decision when you are not in a calm state of mind. If in a "quick temper," you are likely to say things you afterwards regret. In anger, you follow impulse rather than reason. No one can expect to achieve success if he makes decisions when not in full control of his mental forces.

Therefore make it a fixed rule to make decisions only when at your best. If you have a "quick temper," you can quickly gain control over it by simple rule of counting backwards. To count backwards requires concentration, and you thus quickly regain a calm state. In this way you can break the "temper habit."

It will do you a lot of good to think over what you said and thought the last time you were angry. Persevere until you see yourself as others see you. It would do no harm to write the scene out in story form and then sit in judgment of the character that played your part.

Special Instructions to Develop the Will To Do. This is a form of mental energy, but requires the proper mental attitude to make it manifest. We hear of people having wonderful will power, which really is wrong. It should be said that they use their will power while with many it is a latent force. I want you to realize that no one has a monopoly on will power. There is plenty for all. What we speak of as will power is but the gathering together of mental energy, the concentration power at one point. So never think of that person as having a stronger will than yours. Each person will be supplied with just that amount of will power that he demands. You don't have to develop will power if you constantly make use of all you have, and remember the way in which you use it determines your fate, for your life is moulded to great extent by the use you make of your will. Unless you make proper use of it you have neither independence nor firmness. You are unable to control yourself and become a mere machine for others to use. It is more important to learn to use your will than to develop your intellect. The man that has not learned how to use his will rarely decides things for himself, but allows his resolutions to be changed by others. He fluctuates from one opinion to another, and of course does not accomplish anything out of the ordinary, while his brother with the trained will takes his place among the world's leaders.

Qualities of a True Leader

“Leadership is the art of getting someone to do something you want done because he wants to do it.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower

The highly successful people in the world are naturally leaders in their respective fields. If you want to realize any level of success in your own life, then you need to make the commitment towards becoming a leader too. Focus on becoming great at what you love to do in life and then step up to the plate and inspire others to do the same. Leadership is about creating a strong foundation within yourself that is able to support and nurture those that are weaker than you are.

A very important distinction is that a leader is not a title or a position. Kevin Cashman, a leadership coach and the CEO of LeaderSource, says that “Too many people separate the act of leadership from the leader. They see leadership as something that they do, rather than as an expression of who they are.” The difference between someone in the position of power, such as a manager, executive, politician, etc. and a leader is that a positionally-powerful person can get people to do what they want merely because they have the power to levy punishment if their followers don’t comply.

While this can get people to do what they want, it also harbors resentment because it pushes people towards action by the threat of causing pain in their lives. A leader, on the other hand, inspires and motivates their followers to take action on their own volition without creating that negative aura of threat. True leaders possess a passionate and powerful vision of what they want to accomplish and they share that vision with as many people as they can. The title of Manager is simply a position, but that title in itself does not make the person a leader. In reality, the person at the very bottom of the organizational structure can be a leader even in absence of any authority. A leader inspires hope within their followers and it’s that vision of hope that makes a true leader more powerful than any person of authority. This article will describe the important qualities that a person needs to possess in order to be a true passionate leader.

“Before you become a leader, success is all about growing you. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.”

Jack Welch

Be a Visionary

People will only follow a vision that is perfectly clear in their minds, therefore, it’s extremely important that you yourself must possess a crystal clear vision of what you want to accomplish and the direction that you want to go. If your vision is the slightest bit blurry in your mind, then how can you expect to lead people if you don’t know where you are going yourself? You must be able to see the big picture and then develop the plan on how to get there because in order to lead people, you have to keep things simple enough for them to take action on and you must be able to convey your vision to them. Develop a statement of purpose for yourself and for your company if you don’t already have one. Continue to rewrite it each day until it becomes something that you are passionate about and when you speak it out loud, you feel emotionally charged and empowered. Always remember that vague goals will always produce vague results. Share your vision with your team and let them take ownership in that dream by showing them how it can benefit their lives. Remember that people don’t follow other people—they follow the vision that the chosen leader is committed towards. Take any great leader throughout history and study their life and you will undoubtedly see a truly great visionary.

Be Passionate About What You Do

A leader must possess the highest level of passion for their vision in order to inspire those around them with that same level of energy. A leader who does not demonstrate passion for what they’re doing will instead emit a negative energy to their team, which will cause chaos and de-motivation towards their goals. Always be passionate about what you are doing and strive to share that passion with others. Remember the saying, “Energy flows where attention goes.”

Be True to Yourself

Always strive to display the highest degree of integrity that you can. Integrity is simply the act of being the same on the inside as you claim to be on the outside. People want to believe that you practice in your own life what you preach to them. The lack of integrity is the reason why politicians have such a tarnished reputation today because some of them lacked the integrity that people desire from their leaders. Most people fail becoming leaders because they display a poor level of integrity. They put on a false illusion of leadership in front of their team, but after the show is over, when they are away from the spotlight, their personal lives are anything but inspirational. A true leader possesses a strong foundation from within and it’s that foundation which supports the great teams that they build. True leaders must possess the highest level of integrity. Integrity is congruency of actions and intentions—doing what you say and acting the same on the outside as you do on the inside. Leaders are thought focusers. They make the confusing—clear. Therefore, the leader themselves must be polarized towards one focal point or else they will run the risk of confusing their followers and dissolving that focused energy that was once a vision. So follow the age old rule of do what you say and say what you do.

Be Courageous

Rudolph Giuliani once said that a hero is not one who is fearless. A true hero is one who feels the fear and yet moves forward regardless. A leader is a hero who must be strong enough to face their fears of failing, kick it aside, and move forward anyways. Leaders realize not to cover or hide their fear, but rather, they acknowledge it like everyone else, but they also manage their fears rather than allow their fears to manage them. Remember that even the best leaders make mistakes, but what separates the great leaders from the mediocre ones is that the great leaders are willing to admit they made a mistake and they use it as a tool to create a better future for themselves and their team. Mediocre leaders, on the other hand, live in self-deceit and allow their ego to get in the way of doing what’s right for themselves and everyone who follows them. They stand firm in their decision that they’ve made, even when they know that it’s the wrong one and they would rather sink with the ship and take their team with them, rather than admit a mistake. The fear of failure is something that holds 90% of people from achieving their maximum potential in life. A true leader is one who makes a decision and moves forwards and sees failures not as failures, but as lessons for their future success.

Be Action-Oriented

The universe doesn’t reward people for what they know, it rewards people for what they do and leaders are doers. Leaders are geared towards taking action and they realize that for a team to come together, it requires moving from potential to action. The decision is yours to make. While making a decision might lead towards failure, the act of failing to make a decision will absolutely guarantee failure. It’s important to remember that leaders rarely have 100% of the information needed to make an informed decision. Those leaders who wait until they have all the information before they act, usually act too late. A true leader is intuitive and listens to their “gut instincts” because it usually gives them the right answer when uncertainty exists.

Be a Builder of Outstanding Teams

In any team sport, it’s not always the case where the team with the best players win. Exceptionally talented players are important, but it’s not as important as how those players work as a collective whole, as a single and powerful unified force. Therefore, it stands to reason that most of your time as a leader needs to be committed towards selecting, evaluating, coaching and strategically placing your players. As a leader, you must be a great team-builder because if people don’t work together on a common goal, then that mission will ultimately fail. Realize that the people that you have on your team won’t simply come together on their own. They need someone who can organize them into an efficient team. A great leader knows the importance of having a team comprised of the right mix of individuals with different and varying strengths and weaknesses and the strategic placement of these individuals on the playing field that will fully utilize their strengths, while minimizing any weaknesses.

Be a Role-Model

Over 80% of what people learn is from what they observe from other people. As a leader, people will be focusing on your life, both professionally and personally, as an example of how to act themselves. If you want to see your team with exceptional personal qualities that you admire, then make sure that you yourself are demonstrating those same qualities. Your followers will mirror back the qualtities that you display towards them. A true leader is committed towards serving their team and does what’s necessary to push the team closer to that ultimate vision. Along the same note, a leader must never complain in front of their team because that shows a lack of direction. A chain-of-command management philosophy I learned in the police force was that criticism should always go up the chain of command, while praise should always go downwards. An officer never gripes to his troops, he gripes to his superiors, while patting his troops on the back for doing a job well done.

Be a Learner

Leaders are learners. Our wisdom for making the right decisions is shaped and molded by our experiences in life. Leaders not only immerse themselves into experiencing as much as they can throughout life, but they also learn from the wisdom of other people as a way to leverage the time that they have. We can learn from our own mistakes and accomplishments, but we can also learn from the mistakes of others as well and it’s for this reason that leaders must be learners. Strive to maximize your own personal development by taking courses, reading books, listening to audio programs and immersing yourself into something new that will cause personal growth to happen. Leaders by their very nature have almost an obsession with personal growth because it’s from wisdom and experience that produces a higher quality decision.

Be a Great Communicator

Great leaders know how to communicate to their team effectively. They know how to deliver their message in a way that will create a lasting impact on the people who are listening to them. A great leader will also listen to the people that follow them. Through communication, leaders can convey specific goals and instructions to their followers. Leaders are listeners. I’ve known many bosses out there in the world that really haven’t grasped the ability to listen effectively. They are too busy thinking about what to say next, that they fail to grasp the valuable feedback and ideas that are given to them. Remember that consequences, both positive and negative, require actions and actions require decisions and decisions require an effective exchange of communication. Poor communication almost always results in a poor decision and the end result is a very poor consequence because of it.

Be Competent

A major component of trust is competence. To be a great leader, you have maintain a level of proficiency at what you do. To often, skilled people rise up the promotional ranks into a management position and they inevitably fail because they are no longer handling the technical aspects of the department that they were so good at before and instead, their have assumed a position that demands a whole new type of intelligence—interpersonal intelligence—the ability to interact well with others. A great leader is not only competent at the technical portion of things, but they are also competent at interacting with others. Strive to develop both to become a great leader.

Be Compassionate

People in the position of power often forget simple manners when it comes to delegating responsibilities to their subordinates. A great leader is respectful at all times and follows the platinum rule of giving all people unconditional love and acceptance regardless of whether they deserve it or whether they want it. It’s sometimes too easy to allow positional power to go to one’s head and when that happens, that person is no longer a leader, but instead a dictator. A genuine leader is one who is compassionate towards others. They have the power of empathizing with all people and understanding how they might feel. A false leader, on the other hand, does not empathize with their people, but instead makes decisions based on what they want or what is popular or what is good for them. The greatest leaders display the quality of unconditional love. Unconditional love is the love of all people without reservation and without having them demonstrate behaviors that you want them to. Unconditional love helps the leader put aside their wants and allows them to see what is good for other people. A compassionate leader also knows that they are not above anyone else and does not treat others as if they were. They understand that they simply have a role to fulfill just as other people do and they always treat others with respect and dignity at all times.

Be Intuitive

In my experience, all the outstanding leaders I’ve known have a very keen sense of intuition. They listen to their “gut” feeling and are sensitive to when their body is telling them that something feels bad or doesn’t sit well with them and they don’t ignore it. Leaders combine their gut feeling with their experience to avoid the pitfalls that sometimes open up underneath an organization at any time. It’s the intuitive nature of a leader that enables them to balance the information given to him by the “experts” with what feels right inside. While experts can give a lot of useful information, they are usually more resources of data than pragmatics and usually wither and die out on the battlefield of reality.

Be a Mentor

A great leader does not only see people as they are, they see people as how they could be. A dictator holds his people down and prevents growth, while a leader knows the value of developing his people and enhancing their potential. A true leader encourages his team to take on new responsibilities and to grow and learn because that investment in the personal growth of their team will pay off substantially in the future.

Be Willing to Celebrate

Many managers get caught up with trying to be professional by not celebrating enough. Celebration delivers positive energy and recognition to their teams for an effort well-done. Make a big deal about achievements as if your team had just won the Super Bowl or the World Cup. Celebrations are an important tool for motivation.

Conclusion

The path towards living a life of significance demands that you become an exceptional leader. Start working on building your leadership qualities as I have outlined here and never stop building on those skills for the rest of your living days. The better a leader you become, the more people will hear and follow your message and the greater positive change you can influence on the world as part of your legacy. As Major General Perry M. Smith (Ret. USAF) once said, “All leaders must work hard to build the future, for that is where they and their people will spend the rest of their lives.”