Everyone knows that a thousand-mile journey starts with the first step; if you’re a leader, you can’t make that journey alone. You have to have a team working with you to help you achieve your vision for the organisation.
However, building a strong team isn’t as easy as hiring a bunch of people to do things. You’ve got to be thoughtful about your approach so they can help you achieve your goals. The following are four key ideas that I’ve implemented over the past several years to build high-performing teams.
- Take responsibility for the success of your team. If they’re not (or one of them isn’t) able to deliver results, see if you’ve given them all the resources they need to succeed. If that’s in order, there’s a strong possibility that you might have ignored to reflect on their individual needs.
- Lead by example. As a leader, your actions speak louder than your words. And if your business isn’t above all things, it’s a sign that you aren’t aligned to your goals or vision or both. People look up to their leaders, and you will have to model the behaviour and commitment to the company that you want to see in them.
- Have the right people on board. This is critically important as you can’t achieve anything if you don’t have the right people in your team. List down the list of skills that you will need to take your business to the next level. Evaluate your existing team’s skillsets and map them to the must-have skills. Make a training plan to up-skill your staff, shuffle people around, and make room for new hires to bridge the gaps.
- Focus on diversity. If you’re a soccer team, you can’t have a team of just goal-keepers or forwards or defenders. Likewise, don’t have clones in your team. Have different skill sets that complement each other while enabling you to face any challenge that may come your way. The big secret of building winning teams is to have diverse talent that shares a vision.
Can you sense a theme here — building teams is a whole lot about focusing on others (your people) and the broader vision. Because if everyone is busy with their things, leaders will end up wasting a lot of time and talent.