TRAINING THAT GETS RESULTS
ARTICLE - THE ROLE OF A LEADER
Excerpt From: Management Success
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.
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.
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.
One of the marks of excellent people is that they never compare themselves
with others. They only compare themselves with themselves and with their past accomplishments
and future potential. You can become an even more excellent person by constantly
setting higher and higher standards for yourself and then by doing everything possible
to live up to those standards. The more proficient you become at getting the results
for which you were hired, the more opportunities you will have to get results through
others. And your ability to put together a team and then to lead that team to high
performance will enable you to accelerate your career and fulfill your goals faster
than ever before.
"Brian Tracy is the most listened to audio author on personal and business success in the world today. His fast-moving talks and seminars on leadership, sales, managerial effectiveness and business strategy are loaded with powerful, proven ideas and strategies that people can immediately apply to get better results in every area.
By Brian Tracy
Brian is a Strategic Partner. Check out all of his terrific books, CD’s and DVD’s in our Book Store. Click Here
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