"None of us is as smart as all of us."- The One Minute Manager Builds High Performing Teams, page 15
Most leaders have a bias towards a traditional leadership style which is to listen to their team and of course provide direction. More important than these traditional skills is the ability to observe the team in action.
Here’s what a skillful leader needs to observe:
‘All new teams need to have a sense of purpose as well as some clarity about team values and goals, individual roles, team norms and decision making procedures,’ state the authors.
All groups regardless of their purpose go through certain stages. Groups are dynamic, complex, ever-changing, living systems that have behaviour patterns and lives of their own.
Stage 1 – Orientation
In this stage, productivity is low and morale is high.
The team develops a team constitution or charter that sets the tone for all future work that it undertakes and ensures that all objectives will be met.
‘The team charter is a set of agreements that clearly states what the team wants to accomplish, why it is important and how the team will work together to achieve results.’
In this stage, the team is excited and has little knowledge of the task. The appropriate leadership style is directing.
Stage 2 – Dissatisfaction
In this stage, the cold hard reality of the task at hand begins to register.
The initial excitement starts to fade and the task is seen as being more challenging.
‘Although this stage is characterized by power struggles and conflict, it also is the seedbed of creativity and valuing differences.’
In this stage, the appropriate leadership style is coaching.
Stage 3 – Integration
Team members begin to understand each other and feel comfortable working together to resolve differences. In turn, team members develop confidence in each other and s sense of cohesion develops.
In this stage, disagreement is encouraged and the team works together to solve differences and begin to manage itself. Encouraging disagreement can help prevent groupthink where the members are afraid of disagreement, leading to stagnation and a loss of innovation.
The appropriate leadership style is supporting.
Stage 4 – Production
The team is knowledgeable of its values, goals, responsibilities, and deliverables.
The appropriate leadership style is delegating.
"Effective leaders adjust their style to provide what the group can’t provide for itself."- The One Minute Manager Builds High Performing Teams, page 68
There is no single best style of leadership. The exceptional leader needs to change his/her style according to the current needs of the team. This is also referred to as situational leadership.
Depending upon the needs of the team, the situational leader adjusts the level of supervision or intervention to meet the individual’s circumstances.
It is up to the leader to change his/her style and not for the follower to adapt to the leader’s style.
‘Your job as a manager is to help people and teams develop so they have competence and commitment and the ability to share in making decisions,’ write the authors. ‘A high performing team is more creative and better at problem solving than any individual functioning alone.’
"Your job as a leader is to educate your people, to help them develop to the point where they can take responsibility for their work and to give them opportunities to perform."- The One Minute Manager Builds High Performing Teams, page 96
Your primary job is to develop your people.
What does this look like in practice?
It means that as a leader you start to view yourself as an educator as well as a leader. Your job then becomes to empower your team members and give them opportunities to develop their skills and knowledge. This creates an environment where they can proactively take responsibility, be creative and feel free to take risks and make mistakes.
As the authors remind us, ‘Empowerment is all about letting go so that others can get going.’
In conclusion, let’s remember that the people we manage are our most important resources.
As a leader, you must be multi-skilled. You must be an enabler of people and a facilitator of teams.
Don Carew has earned a reputation as a top authority on group dynamics and team building. He is a professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, where he directed and taught in the graduate program on organization development from 1965 to 1994. He is a founding consulting partner of The Ken Blanchard Companies and a cocreator of the company’s High Performing Teams product line.
