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One of my favorite articles summarizes 5 important elements that build high performing teams, here is my personal take on these 5 key characteristics:
- Trust – As I think about my experience working for a financial institution and in the retail space, one of the biggest reasons why I was so engaged and wanted to contribute so much was because I trusted my teammates. More importantly, I trusted my leaders. Great leaders have always led by example when it came to being honest with expectations, being vulnerable and admitting mistakes when things went wrong and always making an effort to value everyone’s opinion. My best leaders went out of the way to ensure we had lots of team building during and outside of work so we could get to know each other on a personal level and build trust. Great leaders in my experience always stepped in and helped resolve miscommunication to avoid “finger pointing” and help find solutions to work together better, and use it as a learning opportunity.
- Clear Communication – Great leaders in my career always had consistent standing weekly team calls and communicated with the team our priorities, expectations and important information that would help the team stay informed to avoid surprises or miscommunications.
- Defined roles and responsibilities – I can definitely remember working under leadership who struggled with defining roles and responsibilities and it would drive me crazy. My teammates and I would sometimes overlap and unintentionally shift responsibilities or blame to avoid getting in trouble. On the other side, I’ve worked in teams where great leaders set very clear expectations making it easy by breaking down our responsibilities into what he would call “Critical, Necessary, and Nice to have” activities. This helped the team prioritize what were the most important tasks or activities that needed to be carried out on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. PRO TIP: If you’re leading a team and want to create clear expectations, make a list of all your daily, weekly and monthly activities and decide as a team which bucket they belong in (Critical, Necessary, Nice to have)
- Engaged Leadership – Engaged leaders communicate well, communicate often and they are present. They should be someone you can call for direction, guidance and support when you need it the most. Engaged leaders have your back and they will be invested in your success!
- Collective Goals – One of the best feelings is to work with a team that is generous to lend a hand even if it’s outside their job responsibilities. Great teams work well together to achieve a greater goal. When a great leader builds trust and allows the team to collaborate often, the team will happily find ways to not leave any member behind.
What did you think of this article? do you agree? how has working for high performing teams impacted you?
