Great Leaders Accept Responsibility for the Success of their Teams

Every great leader, who aims to bring the best out in their team and to succeed at realising the results they, set out to achieve, knows that they must accept 100 % responsibility for the performance of their team or organisation. The leader’s commitment, drive and passion to succeed, must be higher than anyone else’s, in their team or organisation. They must be the catalyst that inspires each individual to greatness. Their dedication must be unquestionable and their passion to inspire their team members to succeed must be high.

If you are leading a team and you are not inspired by your vision and driven to succeed, then your team is not going to be inspired either. If you do not feel really driven and passionate about leading your team to success, then it is time to conduct a self-audit and to discover the reason why. If you are unable to feel total commitment, towards influencing and inspiring your team to greatness, where you inspire them daily to achieve the common vision, then there is something missing.

You are either:

•Leading a team towards a vision that has no real meaning to you or your team.
•Leading the wrong team that is disinterested in your vision.
•Leading a team that is filled with the wrong people.
•Your team members do not have the right skill set to deliver on the vision.
•Working in the wrong organisation that is not aligned with your vision or style of leadership.
•You are the wrong person to lead the team.

If after answering these questions you realise that some or all these issues are limiting your performance. Then it is crucial that you immediately begin making plans to change things. You can never succeed as a leader if even one of the above factors is not in place.

•If your team is aligned behind you as their leader, but they do not buy into the vision for the team, you can either look at communicating the vision differently so that they see it from your perspective or you need to revise the vision.
•If you are leading the wrong team or a team filled with the wrong people, you must take action immediately to remedy this. Invest time to discover all the skills necessary for your team to achieve the vision you have for the team. Record these and then compare them to the actual list of skills available within your team. If there are functions or tasks, which are necessary to achieve your vision, but no one in your team is able to fulfil those functions or tasks. You need to urgently add people to your team, who do possess those skills or train the existing team members, so that they can carry out those functions.
•No team can ever succeed if there is not unity of vision amongst all team members. As long as team members are not working towards a common vision, their efforts will be diluted and the team will never succeed. It is crucial that a leader receives constant feedback from their team, regarding their buy in and support for the vision.
•To be a great Leader, you must consistently conduct informal research and discover what is important to each of your team members. Try to understand what inspires and drives them. When you know what their personal vision is for the future and you can weave a picture, which allows them to align their personal vision with that of the team. You have the makings of an incredible, driven and passionate team.
•Keep communicating your vision clearly and concisely to your team and get feedback from them as often as possible regarding their understanding of the overall vision. Do not just assume that everyone knows and understands the team vision. The more clarity each team member has about the vision and their individual role on delivering on that vision, the better the results the team will enjoy. Keep communicating the same vision, consistently, clearly and creatively until everyone is on the same page.

It does not matter how much talent or ability resides in your team. The outcome they will enjoy is directly proportional to the quality of the vision and the way that vision is communicated and understood by each individual in the team. No team can or will ever be successful if they are all driven and inspired by different agendas.

Once you are certain that your team is inspired by, understands and is passionate about the common vision, it is time to assess the diversity of skills available within the team. No business or team can succeed with only sales people or accountants. Every team or organisation requires diversity of skills, abilities and personalities to succeed. I got this concept really wrong in my early years of leadership. I thought I would be successful, if I could surround myself and fill all my teams with people just like me. That oversight on my part cost me dearly and it took a number of years to see that my progress was being hampered by this naïve approach to business.

As soon as I realised that a team is about diversity and that every person has a unique role to play within the team, I began to realise amazing results with my teams. No human body would work very well with only kidneys, hearts or lungs. To function as a whole person, we need all the organs in our bodies, each with a very specific function. All great leaders realise that each person on their team contributes in their own special and unique way.

See the need for diversity within your teams and show appreciation to each team member for their unique and crucial contribution to the team effort. Don’t fall into the trap like I did as a young leader. Don’t overlook the importance of filling your teams with a diverse group of people with differing skills and abilities. You do need great team members with appropriate skills to succeed. That is a non-negotiable. You can never succeed with the wrong people.

You can however still fail to achieve your goals and vision as a team, even if your teams are filled with the perfect people. Lou Holtz epitomised this concept when he said “You have to have great athletes to win. I don’t care who the coach is. You can’t win without great athletes, but you can lose with them. This is where coaching makes the difference”

This shows the importance of great leadership, which is necessary to lead people to success. It is the role of a great leader to inspire, influence and bring the right people together and to get them behind a common vision. When all these factors are in place, nothing can stop the team from succeeding. Talent, diversity and unity of vision don’t come together on their own. It takes a leader to provide inspiration, empowerment and direction to a team so that they can succeed.

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za