You’ve heard the expression “One bad egg can spoil the batch”, meaning that if you crack a rotten egg into a cake mix, it will spoil it, even though all the other ingredients are top quality. The same goes for a team. If you allow a team member who isn’t loyal and who isn’t capable of being committed 100% to your team, despite your best efforts, to remain in your team, they have the capacity to really damage, or at the very least distract your team with their negative and disloyal thinking. They’ll be like a rotten egg. They need to be removed from your team. Disloyalty, just like a rotten egg, should never be tolerated.
Are you accepting disloyalty in your team right now?
All great teams are comprised of team members who are 100% loyal and 100% committed to the team. Each team member knows that no matter what, their team mates have their back.
In the kids movie, Arthur and the Invisibles, there’s a scene where the Minimoys, a tribe of tiny people, are looking down the passage way into their underground village to check for the enemy, Maltazard’s henchmen – they thought they heard something, but everything looked normal, they couldn’t see any approaching danger. However, in a flash, the enemy burst through a backdrop painted to look like the empty tunnel, and the village was invaded. If you have true loyalty from your team, you will always know and always see the true picture of your team and know how they will respond in different pressure situations.
Without true and unswerving loyalty from all your teammates, you will not discern the danger of disloyalty. You will have only been seeing the façade of disloyal members who wanted you to believe they are truly sold out and loyal to you. When difficult and testing times come, disloyal members will be found out, but often by then the damage by them is already done.
To develo a winning team culture it begins with the heart and spirit of individuals in the team trusting each other, which leads to mental toughness – positive thoughts under pressure – resulting in positive energy no matter what the amount of pressure is.
In the easy times, you and your team can coast along with no-ones real motivations or commitments tested, but it’s when times get tough you soon find out where everyone’s true loyalties lie.
So, how do you create the strong bonds of loyalty within your team?
Last week I wrote about how great leaders have integrity and loyalty and how those characteristics are vital in developing them in your team. You can’t expect your team to display them if you as their leader doesn’t live them.
One of the great things about loyalty is that it creates unity. If everyone knows and trusts their fellow teammates completely to look after each other, then team unity is the result. The team will become an infallible unit sharing a common goal and a common purpose and have the potential to achieve great things. If unity is lost, if unity is tarnished, your team can lose their way and their potential is hampered, maybe even lost for good.
Have you got 100% unity on your team?
Where do you need to strengthen unity?
British General John Monash (1865-1931) once said:
“I don’t care a damn for your loyal service when you think I am right; when I really want it most is when you think I am wrong”
One of the many benefits of loyalty is that it allows your teammates the freedom to call you out when they think that you, as the leader, have made an error. They are confident in your loyalty to them that they are comfortable in explaining to you where they think you may have gone off course. And you, knowing their loyalty to you, will understand that their comments are only made in yours and the team’s best interests. These types of team dynamics only serve to make the team stronger and impervious to attack.
Often, disloyalty occurs when a person forgets about the long-term picture and makes a short term based decision.
Do you share your vision regularly with your team, to remind them of the big picture?
Do you remind them of the important part they have in the big picture?
As the leader, you need to be spending One On One time with your team on a regular basis. If you’ve read some of my earlier articles, you know the great importance I place on the value of this. Currently I’ve done 500+ One On Ones so far in 2015. This process allows the CEO’s, business owners and elite sporting coaches who I lead to know exactly what the emotional scale is within their organisation. It provides them with a leadership tool to lead their people more effectively strengthening the heart and spirit of individuals within their team to grow unity.
One On One’s allow you to know exactly what is going on with team members at a deeper level. You will come to know how they are feeling about their role, personal issues they are dealing with, problems they have with your leadership or team members they work with, home issues etc – all which can have a huge impact on their performance.
The One On One process provides you vital information so that you can deal with potential issues before they grow into resentment, loss of trust and negative thinking which leads to negative energy and ultimately loss of loyalty to you and the team you lead.
One On Ones allow you to also speak into the lives of the people you lead and empower and encourage individuals regarding their value to your vision and how they fit into it. Inspire them to stay the course!
By showing you genuinely care about your team you will develop some seriously strong bonds of loyalty.
Do you know where individuals emotional scales are currently at?
Are you aware of current issues that exist in your team?
Do you regularly share your vision with your team and acknowledge individuals vital roles?
Does your team truly believe in their hearts that you have a genuine interest and genuine care for them?
“Respect your fellow human being, treat them fairly, disagree with them honestly, enjoy their friendship, explore your thoughts about one another candidly, work together for a common goal and help one another achieve it.” Bill Bradley.
Does your team have 100% loyalty to you and each other?
Is it just a façade?
Do you as the leader display total loyalty to your team?
How are you developing the strong bonds of loyalty in the team you lead?
Who is the rotten egg?
Thankyou for taking the time to read my article. I trust I will add value to your leadership journey.
If you’d like to receive my articles via email, you can subscribe to “Coxey’s Leading4Growth Nugget” at my website, Leadership Dynamics.
Launching 1 July 2016, my new on line leadership program: The Leading4Growth Online Leadership Development Program.
Peter Cox.
Some other articles on Leadership written by Peter:
Why Fortune 500 Companies Fail
Who Are You When No One Is Looking?
Momentum Is The Difference – How to Get It and Keep It. Part 1.
Trust, Honesty, Respect. You Build It One On One.
Liar! Liar! Pants on Fire!
