Blog

5 Leadership Factors in Building and Maintaining a High Performance Team

Have you felt stuck? Sometimes exasperated when trying to move your team to the next level? Your team is good. You want it to be great. You’ve felt synchronicity in the past. You want it back. Yet, when trying to implement change, the history and culture of your team has a built-in resistance. Change is challenging. Yet, is doesn’t have to be that way.

Below are 5 Leadership Factors crucial when creating and maintaining a high-performance team:

1. Set the Tone: Establish your expectations for your team. Be clear and brief. Then, make expectation reinforcement an ongoing process. Hold yourself and your team members accountable for this expectation. Talking about strategy and expectations one time is not enough!

2. Patience and Persistence: Remain patient, remain persistent. Changing old behaviors and implementing new behaviors takes time. Modeling patience and resolving to be persistent is paramount in sustaining high performance.

3. Beliefs = Behaviors: Analyze your beliefs and your team’s beliefs around teamwork and expectations. Getting group beliefs in sync will create consistent actions as a team.

4. Resistance: Implementing new strategy and expectations creates a natural resistance. Recognize resistance quickly. It’s a good opportunity to analyze solid team players vs. employees just along for the ride.

5. Be a Super Model: As a leader, you’re often under a microscope. Relish it. If you ask your team to make changes, model what you expect. Be focused. Show your team over time that you mean business.

If you’d like a jumpstart in building your team, contact us about our Phoenix Rising – Transformational Leaders, Transformational Teams program.

Beyond the Fog: Leadership and Energy Management

When strategizing with a client about upcoming team-building training, I asked him to describe his group.

I see our team as being in a fog. I hate to put it this way but for a company that’s doing pretty well, we look like a bunch of zombies walking around the office. It’s changed from how we were in the past and I’m not sure how to put my finger on it.

This response triggered a few more questions and a discussion about my client’s leadership and his team’s ability to break through the fog.

The goal: Transforming his team from mediocre to spectacular – a team even better than they were in the past.

As the discussion progressed, I realized a common coaching yet critical conversation needed to occur with my client. Accountability and self-focus.

Leadership = Energy Management:

Before we executed a team-building process, I asked my client to look at how he manages his energy and how others perceive him.

Was he in a fog?
Have others commented on a change in his leadership style, personality and motivation?
Has he felt his own leadership capabilities diminish over time?

As the discussion progressed, my client stated and all too common response in coaching conversations, “I’m just exhausted. I’ve done this for a long time… I’m tired of trying to motivate them”.

I asked him: “Are there steps you can take to regain your passion and model greater energy and enthusiasm for the team? After all, how can a team leave the fog when their leader chooses to stay”?

Before executing the team building, we agreed to focus on his leadership style for a few coaching sessions.

During our conversations, I brought up a poem by David Whyte – Sweet Darkness – that I felt was timely for my client:

“If your eyes are tired, the world is tired also. When your vision has gone, no part of the world can find you…“

Coaching my client on his leadership and energy management, created significant shift in his energy and how he approached his team. We looked at de-energizing beliefs that impacted his behaviors and actions towards himself and others.

Within that time period, more conversations and energetic discussions began to occur with his team.

As we entered the teambuilding process, his self-focus and awareness became a model for personal responsibility within a team.

As we concluded a successful training with his team, I asked him what had changed. His response: “My eyes are no longer tired…”

FYI: Check out these coaching sites and great blogs

http://www.livinglargelifecoaching.com/9triggersaction/#sthash.cM2RmPrG.dpbs

http://www.coachthedream.net/#!corporate-groups-/cr2d

The Power of Brevity and Clarity when Dealing with Difficult People

“The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.” ~Thomas Jefferson

Most of us have experienced conflict with co-workers or clients at work. Managing conflict is different for everyone. Some run away from conflict. Some address it fearlessly. Most are in-between.

But, what if it’s not just resolving conflict that’s difficult. What if the person we are dealing with is incredibly challenging. All of us have experienced an interaction with someone that escalates or avoids and the problem does not get resolved. Are you thinking about someone right now?

Brevity and clarity are our best options for resolving the problem. When we are brief and clear – we make good sense. We set a natural boundary around the problem. When we ramble, we make the situation worse. Furthermore when dealing with a difficult person, it is paramount we are brief and clear to mitigate argumentativeness.

When in high stakes, high intensity situations, some over-explain and repeat. Others go silent. Now, add a difficult person into the mix, and, well, you see where I’m going.

When you’re going to have a challenging conversation with a difficult person, remember to be brief and be clear then remember these 5 points before going into the meeting:

Focus on Problem not the person: To remain brief and clear, we must commit to focus on one problem, one topic. Focus on the behavior.
Know Thyself and Plan your responses: Be aware of your triggers and plan how you’ll respond when you’re triggered. Remember it’s not personal. Avoid overreacting.
Use Visualization: Before you go into the meeting, visualize a positive resolution. See yourself talking and responding in a clear concise manner.
Focus on facts only. Brevity and Clarity go out the window when we move beyond the topic being addressed. Focusing on the facts = Brevity and Clarity.
Seek Feedback from a neutral 3rd party if necessary. Feedback is the breakfast of champions! Having someone walk you through different scenarios allows practice, planning and a different perspective.

Let us know some of your challenges in communicating with difficult people.