Imagine leading a team where people are willing to go an extra mile to achieve their goals, where they are open to feedback and challenge, where they use their creative imagination and willpower to solve the problems, where they feel personal responsibility for the whole team performance, where they have fun and sincerely enjoy working together. A Dream Team, isn’t team?
How rewarding and inspiring it must be for you as a Leader to work with a team like that?!
Is YOUR team a dream team? If not quite so, there is one thing I invite you to think about: Who you are as a leader—the values you embrace, and the beliefs you hold— is automatically transmitted to the group you are responsible for through your words, behaviours and actions.
What are your values? How are your behaviour, your words and your actions congruent with your values?
I have talked to leaders who have tried to reassure me that creativity and innovation are the core values that they have and want to nurture in their team culture. After 15 minutes of conversation on the ‘nurturing’ part of the process, it became apparent that while expecting the team to be innovative, mistakes are punished by the existing performance system, and pitfalls are publicly disapproved of. What does it mean? The words say, “I want you to be creative”. The actions say, “Be creative, but never make a mistake!” Great!
I have met some other leaders who declare the importance of growth and development of their people. They send them to training programmes and workshops but fail to provide feedback which shows them what they are good at, what they have achieved and how they grow. In my former days of corporate life I was ‘lucky’ to have a boss who after my first three month at work in response to my request for feedback said: “If I don’t tell you anything, that means you are doing good. I will tell you if you make a mistake”. Great! It was perceived almost as a threat and was followed by my decision to play it safe.
Is your behaviour congruent with your real values?
‘Leadership Values Assessment’, which we conduct will give you a clear picture of how effectively you, as a leader, communicate your values, how authentic you are and how empowering your leadership style is. You can find more information about ‘Leadership Values Assessment’ HERE. Have questions or need more info? GET IN TOUCH.