A couple of weekends back I was going through some boxes when I found some old course notes. They were about how to be a good manager, but it seemed like something was missing. It took me a while before I figured it out. The word “team” was nowhere to be seen.
Most people in business today work in teams at least some of the time. Most of the great research and business achievements are team achievements. Today’s leaders and tomorrow’s will spend most of their time in teams, as team leaders and team members.
So, why don’t we spend more leadership development time helping leaders do a better job of leading teams?
Leadership development and the barbell effect
Spend a little time looking at the subjects of leadership development programs and you notice a barbell effect. There’s a lot about “soft skills” and managing individuals. And there’s a lot about managing a large organization. What’s missing is the middle: creating and sustaining productive teams.
We know most of what’s required. Researchers have been digging into the chemistry of teams for decades. Now we need to pull it together and make it part of our leadership development programs.
Basic team leading skills
Here are some basic skills that should be part of every leadership development program. I list them in no particular order.
- Fostering social support among team members.
- Developing effective patterns of intra-team communication.
- Developing strong team processes.
- Developing powerful team cultures that make the team smarter than the sum of its members.
This is just the beginning. The more we look for what separates top performing teams from the rest, the more we’ll find. And once we find those things we can study them and incorporate them into our leadership development programs.
