Effective Leaders Have a Major Focus on Creating the Right Team.
1. Loyalty and unity = Trust.
Loyalty and unity are the result of increased trust back to the leader. If there is no trust, there will be no Team. Do you have trust? Where don’t you have trust?
A team divided cannot stand. As the leader you need to understand yourself first so that you can understand others in the team you lead, to unify the team you lead.
2. Knowing Your Greatest Strength and Your Greatest Weakness.
What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? Your greatest strength is your greatest weakness. What is your greatest strength? My greatest strength is my relentless focus, which at times in my life is a weakness because I don’t switch off. At times this can lead to imbalance. My wife Debbie is my navigator when I get to that point.
3. Flexibility.
Everyone in your team is different and must be handled differently. If you are inflexible as the leader, you will divide the team.
4. The Pareto Principle and Not Losing The Right People.
Harmony and unity of a team firstly requires the leader to drive the Pareto Principle – spending 80% of their time with 20% of the people on the team you cannot afford to lose.
Who can you not afford to lose?
5. Never Stop Recruiting
Effective leaders are able to:
i. Bring the right people into the team
ii. Personally grow individuals within the team
iii. Not lose key people on the team
You never stop recruiting. Who do you need to recruit?
6. Effective Communication.
Your ability to communicate effectively as a leader will determine your level of leadership effectiveness of creating the right team around you.When you communicate, does your message really get through? This is a key leadership skill required to build your team culture and bring about a change in behaviours and thinking of the people you lead which results in success. What do you need to communicate right now to your team?
My first year working closely beside Michael Maguire, the Head Coach of the South Sydney Rabbitohs, I challenged him on a daily basis about his messaging and were the players hearing it or was it really going through to them? A big, big difference. People on teams hear but does the message really go through and do they take ownership of it and are convicted by the message that is communicated to them from the leader?
To create the right team around you, your ability to communicate effectively is vital.
7. Observation.
What are you observing? You never stop using your eyes and observing the people you lead.
8. Discernment.
Discernment is a leadership skill that is required to create the right team.
Your ability as the leader to improve the ability of the people you have in your team by stimulating them to grow in leadership means you are adding value to their life.
Your observation and discernment skills will make you think deeply within your heart and your spirit about how the people on the team you’re creating are really feeling and really thinking.
My 8 years in the NRL – 7 years with Manly Sea Eagles and my first year this year with South Sydney Rabbitohs, one of my key leadership responsibilities was to observe and discern the players pre-game and post-game.
9. Assume Nothing!
Everything isn’t always what you think it is with the people you have on your team – “assume nothing”!
What are you assuming?
Effective leaders have a major focus on creating the right team. What is a major focus that you need right now to create the right team around you?
