Leadership: Building better Teams

                                                                                                                                                           I have just returned from a Leadership Summit in San Diego, where it was announced that I made the top 10 list of US Training Magazine’s Top Young Trainers for 2009. This was a great honour, given the fact that there were only four non-US based trainers in the top 40. These awards recognise the talents, accomplishments, and leadership exhibited by 40 learning professionals aged 40 and under. My congratulations also goes to the only other Australian on the list, Lee Woodward from the Real Estate Academy in NSW. This aside, the summit was well-balanced and it was a great opportunity to connect with others in the learning and development field. It was nice to get out of the ‘fishbowl’ and swim in a different pond for a change. It also allowed me to re-energise and look for priority business and training developments for the next 12 months. This is an annual event put on by the publishers of Training Magazine and is well worth a look. Next year’s event will be held in May at the Sheraton Wild Horse Pass in Phoenix, Arizona.

During the event, I was lucky to catch the keynote from Barry Conchie, the UK-based, Co-author of Strengths Based Leadership. He suggests that “great leaders are not well rounded, but great teams are”. I think we often feel that our leaders have to be great at everything, but in reality, some of the best are the ones who surround themselves with great people. Conchie’s research reveals that 73% of employees are engaged in organisations that focus on strengths. So clearly we need to spend more time growing strengths, rather than fixing weaknesses.

 

Over the years, Conchie has studied thousands of executive teams and he began to see that while each member had their own unique strengths, the most cohesive and successful teams possessed broader groupings of strengths. In fact, four distinct domains of leadership strength emerged: Executing, Influencing, Relationship Building, and Strategic Thinking. He found that it serves a team well to have a representation of strengths in each of these four domains. Instead of one dominant leader who tries to do everything or individuals who all have similar strengths, contributions from all four domains lead to a strong and cohesive team.

 

Finally, it can be revealed that successful leaders also meet four key needs of their followers: Trust, Compassion, Stability and Hope.

 

So the Advice… Relentlessly look at the strengths of leaders, build balanced teams with complementary strengths and focus on the followers’ four key needs. With this in your arsenal, your organisation will be better placed to build stronger and more successful teams.