Commonsense Leadership

Chapter 6Teamwork

Once your goals and expectations are determined, leaders choose team members who can help achieve goals. Leaders guide team members and respect their input, and real leaders lead through performance. As an example, over the past several years I've had more requests to give speeches dealing with teamwork than probably any other topic. I've never liked to talk about team building because once a company gets to the point where they invite me, the team is already built. Everybody has a contract and a uniform, so at that point we need to talk about teamwork.

The idea of teamwork is huge. Everywhere you look, everybody—corporations, schools, nonprofits—refers to teams in one way or another. Winners and leaders recognize the importance of the team concept. Leaders know they need to not only be team members but also support the team and be supported by the team members. Leaders need to be sure team members know where they fit and understand their roles on the team. The biggest barrier to realizing the value of a team is a lack of clearly defined roles. As we've discussed before, the reason most people give when they leave a company is that they don't know what's expected; that is, they don't know or understand their role on the team. A lot of people whom you would like to have on your team may be willing, but in order for them to be effective, you need to have a conversation about expectations, roles, and the things that are important to you and your vision.

As you ...