Turning a Team into the A Team
Not just any team, but an A Team…
An Alpha Team.
An Apex Skilled Team.
A Team that achieves productive outcomes, repeatedly, no matter what.
What is a team, in the general sense of the word?
- A group of people who come together through a shared interest to achieve a common objective (outcome).
A team is a social construct—invented by humans for the purpose of managing human events, conditions and circumstances.
Teams tend to have form and shape through internal structures and a sense of order with assigned roles and responsibilities; they are often formally hierarchical.
Teams exist in every human sphere, even though we might think of them as being associated mostly with sports, workspaces, the military, and so forth.
There need only be two people with a shared interest trying to achieve a common goal for a team to exist.
We do not necessarily call each functional entity ‘a team’, for example a family, but on the basis of the general definition, such entities are ‘a team’.
Examples abound—the staff complement at the school, the board and the executive group of a business, the public relations department, the netball team, the country president with his ministers, and the airline pilot with his crew.
So, beyond the individual, teams are woven into our lives.
At any one time each of us functions in many teams with a multitude of different interests and goals.
Influential Leadership and A Team
As we know, Influential Leadership is also a social construct—invented by people for the furtherance and improvement of people’s lives across all our human domains—wherever we are.
Furthermore, as is the case with teams, Leadership only exists in a multi-people context.
Yes, to lead we must exercise self-leadership, but the context is the collective—the group, the team. A person can only lead in a social (collective) context, not while pedalling their bike solo out in the wilderness.
In this Note we focus on one core questions regarding Leadership and A Team, which is:
- How does Leadership arise in a team?
In other words, how does leadership come into being in a team context?
Yes, as we know there are structures, roles and responsibilities, hierarchies and so forth in teams, even if at times these are vague (such as in a family, and even at times in other teams).
We also know that for Influential Leadership (as opposed to legacy forms of leadership) positions, roles, titles and structures do not create or imply Leadership as a practice.
So, in answer to our question:
- Leadership arises through the choice and action to lead by one or more members of a team.
Leadership does not exist in the formal structure of a team—it is not a function of being the president, chairman, CEO, captain, principal, headboy, father, organiser, biggest talker or the ‘boss’.
There is a deeply imbedded fallacy that misconstrues Leadership with management, and management with Leadership. (Refer here to a previous LWN that discusses the general conflation between these two social constructs: Leadership is not Management.)
We know that Leadership (the practice of leading) cannot be elected, appointed, nominated, inducted, imposed or the like—in the same way that any other human behavioural pattern cannot be created by a set of words on an organisational chart, or a business card or self-labelling.
The PRACTICE of Leadership goes beyond organisational charts!
That is a KEY that makes Leadership an Apex Skill, and turns a team into an A Team.
An obvious follow-on question should be:
- How does a team become Leadership infused?
As an Influential Leadership Activist, I have an answer for you, but today I am going to offer you an advisory on what not to do; what undermines a Leadership culture, and people’s propensity to choose to lead.
Definition: By ‘culture’ I mean ‘the habitual way things are done in and around the team.
One of the most debilitating and unproductive team cultures is that ‘the head person is the leader’.
Such a culture is highly unlikely to elicit, develop, promote or attract:
- innovation,
- learning by experimentation,
- alternative ideas and practices,
- high-intellect contributions,
- a sense of empowerment and belonging,
- personal responsibility,
- fair rewarding—and
- proper Leadership.
A Team that cares to be an A Team encourages and promotes Apex Skills, and is a team that is open to Leadership—from bottom to top, and left to right.
What is the culture of your teams, whatever your roles or positions?
As Leadership Activists it is our business to shift team culture to that of a Leadership attracting and practicing environment.
If you need support to get your teams to A Team-level, I would be pleased to help.
Let’s work together.
Regards,
Colin @ Karoo
We Activate Apex Skills!
Leadership Weekly Note: 2524.170624
e: colind@karoo.world
Follow The Karoo Influential Leadership on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/KarooInfluentialLeadership
