Team Building at Work

Everyone is part of a team, whether at work, at home, or in community. Teams can help tackle difficult problems so that they seem easy with each member’s input. Or, teams can take a simple task and turn it into an overthought nightmare of redundancies and bureaucracy. This is why team building and team member positioning is such a critical portion of successful leadership. Great leaders must take care when putting together a team. Before the first team member is assembled, a leader must consider the team inputs such as team size, team members, team goals, available resources, and team leadership. One particularly important input consideration is the team members. Team members should be those who have the skills to achieve the goals set before them and should include both leaders and followers who can work together in a team setting. Further, a leader should design team tasks that are complex and interdependent so that each team member’s input is needed to complete the task.

Create a Successful Business in 2014 - Structure

Any successful organization requires a clearly articulated vision, strategy, and structure. An organization without these is like a house with no walls - purposeless. A leader has the unique position to determine the vision and implement the strategies and structures so that organizations are primed for optimal performance. A vision is “a description of a desired end state.” Leaders should have a vision that is tangible and desirable such that it has concrete attributes that appeal to employees and other stakeholders. A vision should also be feasible, flexible, focused, and simple. That is, the vision is attainable and easy to grasp. If the vision follows these requirements, it will be able to motivate an organization toward the desired result. To implement the vision, leaders then put in place the strategy. To do so successfully, a leader must understand the organization and its needs. Further, leaders must enlist a team of people that can help implement the strategy. Effective leaders of organizations will pay attention to staffing as employees are the mechanism through which any vision will be achieved. Leaders also implement an organization’s structures, the formal systems of task and authority relations that control what people do and how they do it within an organization. Structures provide the framework for execution and must be aligned with the organization’s vision and strategy. Leaders fail when they are unable to fully execute their vision. Leadership does not end at creating the vision and strategy for an organization. Leaders will be judged on their execution through the structures they put in place.

Create a Successful Business in 2014 - Strategy

Any successful organization requires a clearly articulated vision, strategy, and structure. An organization without these is like a house with no walls - purposeless. A leader has the unique position to determine the vision and implement the strategies and structures so that organizations are primed for optimal performance. A vision is “a description of a desired end state.” Leaders should have a vision that is tangible and desirable such that it has concrete attributes that appeal to employees and other stakeholders. A vision should also be feasible, flexible, focused, and simple. That is, the vision is attainable and easy to grasp. If the vision follows these requirements, it will be able to motivate an organization toward the desired result. To implement the vision, leaders then put in place the strategy. To do so successfully, a leader must understand the organization and its needs. Further, leaders must enlist a team of people that can help implement the strategy. Effective leaders of organizations will pay attention to staffing as employees are the mechanism through which any vision will be achieved.

Create a Successful Business in 2014 - Vision

Any successful organization requires a clearly articulated vision, strategy, and structure. An organization without these is like a house with no walls - purposeless. A leader has the unique position to determine the vision and implement the strategies and structures so that organizations are primed for optimal performance. A vision is “a description of a desired end state.” Leaders should have a vision that is tangible and desirable such that it has concrete attributes that appeal to employees and other stakeholders. A vision should also be feasible, flexible, focused, and simple. That is, the vision is attainable and easy to grasp. If the vision follows these requirements, it will be able to motivate an organization toward the desired result.

Becoming a Great Leader - The Foundation (continued)

A final piece of a great leader’s foundation is their experience. Great leaders will take the hard tasks on with vigor. When a leader masters the hard tasks, he alone is uniquely qualified to take on those harder challenges that inevitably occur in every organization. Follow through on hard tasks allows a leader to gain practical experience in an organization, to learn from their mistakes and to know how to build successes in the future. By taking on these difficult tasks, the leader is respected for his courage and easily followed once he has found success. I encourage you all to look for the hard projects in 2014. Cutting your teeth on those projects will be a great step stone toward being a great leader.

Becoming a Great Leader - The Foundation (continued)

One must have the mentorship and encouragement to become a great leader. Mentors help steer young leaders in their formative years. Good mentors help guide leaders when they have missed the mark. They can give leaders the feedback needed when the road to leadership is tenuous. Finally, mentorship provides encouragement needed for success. Negative feedback can often stymie someone in their path toward becoming a great leader. Positive encouragement can help young leaders find the purpose and will to continue on their leadership path. I encourage you all to be mentors to others and find mentors for yourself. Look for people you admire - not because of how much money they have, but because of how they are respected in the workplace. Respect by all is a sure sign you have latched on to a good mentor.

Becoming a Great Leader - The Foundation

The foundation of a strong leader begins with a leader’s core values. A great leader must at all times and all costs do what is right. The leader must have a strong sense of right. That strong sense will trickle down through people and actions of organizations, and, as such, must be at the core of a strong leader. A great leader must not be motivated by personal gain at the expense of organizational good. Modesty in a leader will allow the leader to be solely concerned with the organization’s success rather than personal fortune or accolades. This means a leader will be humble and “channel ambition into the company, not the self.” You have seen it play out time and again - companies have fallen because those at the top did not do what is right - think Madoff, Enron, etc. You have also seen them fail due to the hubris of those at the top that thought they were always right and had no one around them to put them in check. It is supremely important that the compass of those at the helm of any organization points to true north ethically. It cannot be the leader's perception of right - it must be the real right. Everyone knows what this is - you know when some project or idea smacks of questionable ethics. Never let yourself or leaders go down that slippery path of needing to justify what you do. You will never have to justify doing what is right. It will speak for itself.