The Relationship Between Effective Teamwork and Level 5 Leadership

I don't use the term "discipline" lightly. It's obvious that there are specific processes that encourage teamwork on certain teams, as there are processes that discourage teamwork on others.

People want to be "part of" and belong to something that works. When someone's personal success coincides with the team's success it's logical that they would work well together.

Effective Leaders Give Away Responsibility

Building teamwork breaks down the psychological barriers between people.

It's nearly impossible to maintain a sense of teamwork in the corporate cubicle universe. Not only do employees waste their time and talents on things that don't matter to the organization, your team wastes time, money, and energy on them.

Encourage Teamwork Without Becoming Cliche

Typical corporate life is the enemy of "ownership mentality", both on your team and in your business. You only have to experience it for a short while to see why "teams" don't work.

To go against the status quo is suicide right? Many folks would say no. With faith and unrelenting discipline to change the status quo you can encourage teamwork and create the changes you want to see in your business.

But you must have faith. Half-stepping won't cut it here.

Empathy as Strategy: Are You a Level 5 Leader

To encourage teamwork and grant people a sense of belonging and autonomy, you must understand their basic needs and align the purpose of your business to meet them.

Give your team what it needs. Many leaders believe you must carry a huge ego around and a will of stone to succeed leading a team. Evidence shows this is not true.

Jim Collins writes convincingly about "Level 5" leadership in his book "Good To Great". For your team these ideas are readily applicable to foster and maintain effective teamwork starting today.

Teamwork <==> Alignment

Breakthroughs happen when you align People with Values, Purpose, and Action

As a leader, understanding peoples' basic underlying needs is an exploration of what your personal values and purpose really are, and then structuring your business around them:

1) The Core Reason For Existing
2) Core Intrinsic Values
3) Aspirations For the Future

Influential leaders assess and get to the core of their business and align their team's values and purpose with the overarching goals of the organization.

You can encourage effective teamwork by identifying where your team is aligned and where obstacles exist. What are the trouble spots where people get stuck? What objections do you constantly hear, from customers and from employees?

Most of the time these "sticky spots" are misalignments within your team's values or purpose.

I'm not trying to suggest this is an easy process, it takes critical, clear-headed, disciplined thought and personal humility to take a good hard look at where you're screwing up. On a brighter note, developing solutions and effective processes to fix the holes becomes so much easier when you know exactly what you're trying to fix.

Personal humility is the core of effective teamwork and Level 5 leadership. Are you committed?