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Chapter 12
Leadership Failure

Leadership is the tiredest word in organizational literature. It bears the burden for so much of every organization's hopes. Everyone agrees that "leadership" is vital to teams, like chlorophyll catalyzing the making of sugar. But what is it, exactly, and how does a team without it, get it?

Perhaps the best way to understand team leadership is to notice what happens when leadership isn't there. It ain't pretty:

Things don't happen. With no guidance, team members resort to a machine approach to getting work out the door. "When in doubt, automate." Pile up product!

People are upset, disillusioned, hostile to their own enterprise. When work does get done it has a predictable character: mediocre. There is genuine despair among the team because there is no rallying point, no one to vent at, no one to intercede when things go awry, no one to get everyone back on track.

Eventually team members either explode in anger or implode in despair. Or worst of all, they decay in a lifeless orbit. Commitment and energy drain away. Slowly, individuals begin to drift away from the team. By the time the team figures out it is dead, it is really dead. But it started dying the moment its leadership came into question.

If that sounds like almost everything bad that can happen to a team, you're right. Leadership is that important. This chapter is going to look at what makes a good team leader, how the team can help its leader lead, and suggest some new ways of leading that you may not have thought of. Indeed, if leadership is vigorous and intact, few other problems are insurmountable. But from a practical standpoint, few organizations have figured out:

ƒ      what team leadership is exactly;

ƒ      how to foster it;

ƒ      where it ends and autonomous teamwork begins.

Too often we define or describe leadership when we see it. Leadership in a teaming atmosphere can look like just about anything. It can look like a good old-fashioned, hierarchical, top-down, leader-led team. The leader is the boss, everyone else does what the boss says.

Or, on the opposite end of the spectrum, it can occur on ultra-flattened, inside-out, molecular, so-called leaderless teams. (We prefer the phrase shared leadership.) No individual is set above any other, but everyone pitches in to keep the team focused and on track.

No single model of leadership is absolutely wrong, and none is absolutely right. A democratic approach is great for achieving buy-in to team decisions. It creates fewer hurt feelings, less resentment, and better morale.

But in crises, or for quick-fixes to stop the bleeding or hose down a fire, an autocratic leadership style is just what the tyrant ordered. In time of war, the military model makes terrific sense.

At either end of the spectrum, however, we see good and poor leaders.

 

A TAXONOMY OF LOUSY LEADERS...

The 20 commonest unflattering epithets for leaders, gathered from our years of experience watching rotten leaders wreck their teams:

§         "The Moron" Not so much low IQ as a stunted in-the-box, by-the-book approach to thinking.

§         "The Ignoramus" Next of kin to The Moron; a stubborn refusal to admit new information; closed-mindedness.

§         "The Hypocrite" Leaders who say, "Do as I say, not as I do."

§         "The Daredevil" The beaver that is too eager, attempting everything and achieving nothing; hopes hyperactivity compensates for lack of reflection.

§         "The Peacenik" Leaders who cannot permit conflict, including the healthy storming necessary to crate a strong team.

§         "The Jingo" Leaders who don't value diversity and want to keep the team "pure"

§         "The Spaceman" So smart, no one can fathom what he or she is saying.

§         "The Softie" The team needs to be pushed, but this leader is too humane to do the pushing. Sometimes you have to be strict.

§         "The Misfit" A leader with the wrong style or approach for the team at hand. You can have superior skills and talents, and still be a Misift.

§         "The Self-Server" The worst kind of toxic leader puts him or herself above the team.

§         "The Hermit" Leaders who don't really know the team, who can't overcome their natural reserve.

§         "The Vacillator" Inconsistent and leadership don't mix. Set a course and stick to it, at least until the shift is over.

§         "The Hero" Leaders who cannot take a back seat, who have to be in "follow-me" mode at all times. Heroes wear their teams out.

§         "The Nepotist" Leaders who play favorites, and consign others to the woodshed.

§         "The Blamer" Team leaders more interested in tabbing a fall guy than learning from mistakes.

§         "The Alien" Leaders who are oblivious to team members' personal and career needs.

§         "The Coward" Leaders who are unwilling to fight for the team.

§         "The Cinder" Passive, burnt-out leadership that can no longer generate spark for the team.

§         "The Traitor" Leaders may not ever deceive the team, or sell it out. There is no recovery ever for betrayal.

 

     WHAT EFFECTIVE TEAM LEADERs LOOK LIKE

Ted is a front-line team leader for baggage handlers at a major U.S. airline. His assigned turf is the plane servicing ramps at Denver's international airport. At least, it's supposed to be. Just as often, one finds Ted at the airline's executive offices, or elsewhere in the system, helping to remedy everything from employee motivation and training issues to knotty baggage and service problems.

But he's the real thing -- technically competent and highly effective as a leader. Ted's greatest value, according to his manager, is that he is always looking for ways to improve baggage handling performance -- even flying to other stations from time to time, to work on inter-unit problems.

He is a poster child for TQM, for process improvement, and for team leadership, always thinking, always talking things up, always encouraging team members, seemingly always on.

When you first meet Ted you are almost put off by his energy and interest. But he won’t let you be put off for very long. His energy is infectious. He gets you involved, one way or another, either directly by collaring you and hitting you up for ideas or resources, or indirectly, as a model. Ted's motto is "Lead, follow, or step aside ... there are things to be done."

Ted once appeared at his boss's office door, excused himself for barging in, then proceeded to outline what he felt were significant reasons for poor baggage handling and supervisory performance. Ted indicated he was willing to help get together a system-wide group of baggage area chiefs like himself and noodle the problems and possible grassroots solutions. So, Ted concluded -- did the boss suppose such an effort would enjoy executive support?

The boss nodded dryly. Not even senior management could discourage this guy.

 

Here's another one.

Jim's an engineering manager for a major lawn equipment manufacturer. He's a quiet, unassuming kind of guy. Sports your basic trademark rolled sleeve white shirts and "pocket protector." Has the habit of repeating things you say to him. You wouldn’t ever place him as the motivating power behind an upheaval, a revolution in team thinking at the company. But he is.

Harvey met Jim at a company-sponsored leadership workshop. In unassuming Minnesota, one of the rarest things is for people in a training session to have questions. But there was Jim, with more hands up than a squid. "Did anyone here volunteer for this program?"

The better Harvey came to understand the company's internal customer service processes, the more Jim's name kept coming up. Jim led a pilot on complaint responses. Jim formed a problem-solving team to deal with communications delays. Jim got company executives to join mid-level teams, to get their heads in the game and show them what teamwork was all about.

In one case, Jim took over a research group whose efforts were behind schedule, over cost and riddled with quality problems -- and transformed their last nine projects into winners.

They weren't laboratory successes, either, "easy wins." They were real-world situations working with very normal people. This isn't always a prescription for collaborative effort; yet, many actually reported they were "having fun."

When folks were asked how Jim was able to accomplish these startling results, they said things like: "helped us to focus" ... "a lot of personal energy" ... "helped us get, analyze and share information" ... "supported our creativity" ... and "helped us to discover and stay on the most productive path."

 

What can you say about Ted and Jim? They sound too good to be true. But they are good and true. To us, and to the teams they work with, they are inspirational, examples of team leadership succeeding mainly by caring a whole lot. They are both dogged in their pursuit of a better way. And they are so genuine, so enthusiastic, that other people just want to climb aboard. To hear their feats, you would think they are suffering. But they are having a ball.

How do they compare to the leadership of your team?

Leadership Skill sets

It may help to think of team leadership as comprising four sets of personal attributes and skills: people, character, action and thinking. Within these four sets are two leadership factors, motivating and hygiene.

Motivating factors are the personal aspects of leaders, aspects they appear to have been born with, that, when we see them in action, our response is "Wow -- I wish I could do that!"

 

	PEOPLE	CHARACTER	ACTION	THINKING
LEADING ATTRIBUTES (motivating factors)	ü      Versatility ü      Pyramid learning ü      Feedback	ü      Charisma ü      Integrity ü      Altruism
MANAGING SKILLS (hygiene factors)			ü      Decision making ü      Intitiating activities	ü      Problem-solving ü      Fostering linkages ü      Assist in evolution and change

 

 

Motivating factors include three people skills and three character attributes:

ü      Versatility. In a fast-changing environment, this is the most important motivating factor. By versatility we mean more than a generalized "adaptiveness." Specifically, we think of it as the ability to provide information in the manner in which others want to receive it; based primarily on an understanding of their personalities. Not "being all things to all people," but being who we need to be to deal with the people we need to deal with. A versatile team leader changes his or her mode of communications to either provide more facts, history and data or more action plans and outcomes or more options and future expectations or more concern for people issues. This is all determined by the way the other person needs to view the information.

ü      Pyramid learning. The idea of "pyramiding" comes from medicine where medicine travels from one cell to the next in a pyramiding fashion, eventually spreading throughout the entire body. Great team leaders will share information that they acquire with others and encourage them to do the same, in order to "pyramid" the learning throughout the team and from team to team. It increases the intellectual capacity of the entire organization, making it a learning company.

·        Feedback. Effective leaders learn how to provide feedback on a regular basis; looking for ways to give input to assist the employee in enhancing their skills. This skill requires an element of publicness -- the willingness to reach out to others. But also great tact and delicacy in knowing the right way to praise and offer correction.

·        Charisma. This is a mysterious aspect which people either have or don't have. We don't mean the kind of creepy charisma that allows some people to lead others into flaming quicksand. Good charisma is a subtle, often unflashy charm that informs the team nonverbally that the leader is in common cause with them.

·        Integrity. The true measure of a person is his or her ability to live in alignment with principled values. We don't mean rigidity; we do mean solidity. Integrity means you don't just talk the talk, you also walk the talk. It starts inside, privately; but it is inevitably obvious to everyone.

·        Altruism. You have to "mean well." There are lots better things than meaning well, and meaning well by itself makes a woeful epitaph. But unless you do mean well, no team success is worth achieving.

Hygiene factors are called that because they are really habits of doing and thinking that nearly anyone can master -- if they put in the time and energy.

·        Decision-making skills. True statement: It's often better for a team leader to make a bad decision than no decision at all. For if you are seen as chronically indecisive, people won't let you lead them. There are obvious problems with just "deciding," machine-gun style. When you make a bad decision, you must take the rap for it. If you either "blamestorm" (look for scapegoats), or ignore the mistake, people won't trust you or follow you. Acknowledge the error, however, take responsibility for it, correct it, and make decisions to go in a different (better) direction, your term will continue.

·        Initiating activities. Leadership starts things. If you are viewed as being more of a stopper, or a reactor, you will not be looked upon as a leader. The concern here is to maintain a balance between initiating too many activities (creating an activity vs. outcome-based organization), and not enough (slow, reactive, and non-responsive).

·        Problem solving skills. Little thing called competence here. No one wants to follow a nitwit. The ability to quickly diagnose problems and implement solutions is key to maintaining the confidence of the team.

·        Fostering Linkages. You may be the duke of your own team fiefdom, but if you don't create permeable walls where information flows freely in and out, you will be viewed as a tinpot, not a leader. Great team leaders electrify the atmosphere -- they create an exciting environment where information, knowledge, understanding and expertise naturally spread. They create a collaborative environment within which people feel free to share information across boundaries and create teams where necessary to get specific outcomes achieved.

·        Assist in evolution and change. Team leaders enjoy a valuable perk -- their position allows them to share their views with others. Great team leaders make hay with this perquisite -- they help people understand the reasons for team activities. They provide a rationale for the direction the team is going. There is real power and responsibility for change here. The leader judiciously addresses the passions that create change: anxiety about the past, and hope for the future.

So what are you supposed to do with all this? Incorporate it into your team leadership kit. If it helps, think of leadership as a set of stairs where one must master the hygiene factors before stepping up to the motivating factors. One is built upon the other. Having mastered the hygiene factors, you can be seen as an effective manager. Go on to master the motivating factors, and your team will see you as a leader.

 

     What a leader must do to get people to follow

First, don't head toward any cliffs.

Second, the leader must follow, by knowing what people's needs are, and helping to meet them. A starving army cannot fight. A frustrated workforce cannot compete.

When our crystal ball clouds over and we forget what leadership is, we set aside abstract considerations and focus on folks like Ted Hoinka and Jim Swindal. They are the distilled essence of what team leading is about.

Having said that, Ted and Jim are not all that unique. They are like many of the team leaders we have encountered in our travels within, without, up, down and through organizations. We all read the magazine articles heralding the senior executive heroes who lead their organizations to the promised land. For our money, there are thousands more leaders, at the operating (management) and front-line (supervisory) levels, who have made those top managers successful by continually challenging the status quo, and unfailingly pursuing quality and performance improvement.

Their contributions as team leaders add up to much more than a day's work for a day's pay. They are the points of origin for those small, project-by-project, performance breakthroughs that hone their organization's competitive edge to razor sharpness.

Their efforts reliably produce a bigger bang for the buck, essentially adding value to their organizations through distinctive team leadership activity. From this, we propose a working definition of team leadership:

team leaders add value by leveraging their organizations' assets and outcomes beyond expectations. The result of this value-adding leadership is enhanced performance in four different dimensions:

‚       self and others

‚       awareness and choice

‚       focus and integration

‚       innovation and action taking

What does adding value mean in the context of team leadership? Leaders add value by getting more than required or expected out of what they have to work with -- existing human and physical resources. Working cooperatively with other people, they appear to successfully guide problem solving, fix things, innovate, and capture opportunity more often and at a faster pace than many of their peers.

Are we saying team leaders are inherently supermen or superwomen, freakish examples of inborn leaderly genius? No. Rather, that today's top team leaders do whatever they need to do to:

1)     perform at a very high level of competence and productivity themselves; and

2)     educe solid effort and performance from the people they work with.

Let us underscore that we are talking mostly about everyday operating managers and front-line supervisors down in the trenches. We are not talking about the executive nameplates on mahogany row.

Team leaders leverage self and others. First, they leverage high levels of performance from themselves. Then, as surely as the night follows the day, they leverage a similar level of performance from the people they work with.

An alternative name for a good team leader might be "quiet revolutionary." The best are infectious self-starters like Jim and Ted who cannot help but positively influence others around them.

 

     team leaders LEVERAGE THEMSELVES (AND OTHERS)

Meaning, the primary resource available to leaders is the people in their midst -- including themselves. Leading -- it's a people thang. By utilizing the power of people, team leaders:

ƒ      Project energy ... They provide task excitement, motivation, spirit. Depending on their personalities they can be as quiet and unassuming as woodchucks. Or they can be all over the place, raucous, chattering, in your face. Whatever their personalities, the leaders we have known have all been activists, catalysts for positive action, never happy on the sidelines.

In particular, they seem to take care to avoid the negative, declining to join in at the periodic bitch sessions enumerating the many reasons "you can't get there from here." Instead they take the road less traveled, opting to encourage others and, with everyone participating, piecing together solutions to the problems of the day.

ƒ      They are involved, involving and empowering others ... without being obtrusive, they "walk around" ... nudging, assisting, helping, asking questions. They put out and they bring in -- they share information they have and they build others into new work processes and projects. The result of all this busy-ness is a greater sense of involvement all around. Good leaders recognize that involvement is not an abstract theoretical point -- it's something that you live and breathe on the job, and it requires continual practice.

Leaders not only involve others; we have often observed them sharing whatever power, influence and other resources they have with other team members. Here comes the dread word ... they empower others to get the job done willingly, rapidly and well. Leaders appear unconcerned about losing control or sharing power; trading these slight risks for the improved motivation and performance flowing from their empowering efforts.

ƒ      They assist evolution and change ... guiding, smoothing, and helping others map out and explore the pathways of opportunity. In today's churning organizational environment, this ability to evolve and change is absolutely key to survival. But it's rough -- change invokes our fear of the unknown and threatens our habits and previous momentum. Our natural response to the need to change is resistance.

Leaders understand that foot-dragging is part of the change process, a necessary first stage. Instead of bulldozing ahead, riding up and over the bodies and minds of those resisting, good team leaders plan ahead, involving others early on and communicating what's happening and why to all concerned. Perhaps most important, they help others realistically appreciate what's in it for them. When fear of the unknown is the ailment, knowledge and communication are the medicine. The great leader banishes fear and replaces it with hope of success.

ƒ      They persuade and persevere ... Good leaders identify obstacles, then take them out, blocking and tackling to create running room for the team. Instead of knocking people on their backsides, however, they clear the path by winning over those who stand in the way.

We can scarcely contain our amazement sometimes as we have watch (or experience) the different approaches good leaders take to advance team goals. Some come straight at you, insisting on your support and any resources you can provide. Others employ more subtle strategies: bargaining, trading, exchanging, showing the obvious benefits, using third party advocates, etc. As with Ted Hoinka, many have little positional power; they instead find support from those who do. This task requires skill. It also requires the tenacity of a terrier. They identify a valued outcome, grab it like the leg of your trousers, and simply keep shaking. They persevere. And their persistence is of such a quality that people are turned not off but on.

 

     team leaders LEVERAGE AWARENESS AND CHOICE

Organizations succeed when people within those organizations are aware of the problems and opportunities staring them in the face.

That sounds elementary, but in reality, there are zillions of outfits where the philosophy is "ready, shoot, aim" -- where workers go through the motions of performing their tasks without framing in their own minds what issues are at stake, or what alternative actions might be taken. Without understanding, people just do what have always done -- often to everyone's later regret. Good team leaders are people of action -- but only after they have pushed for reasoned insight, heightened awareness and thoughtful choice.

By leveraging awareness and choice, team leaders:

ƒ      Look beyond the obvious ... Human organizations are not anthills, where instinct is the best bulwark against destruction; we need to think things through. Team leaders value the search for information and the best feasible choice among alternatives. Successful "hipshooters" are rare among team leaders. Team leaders spend time up front, finding out what questions to ask, analyzing situations, and most especially seeking to involve the people who will play a part of any implementation. Often, their inquiry is informal, relying on those with the most relevant experience. Many leaders, however, have no reluctance to take the time, expense and effort of using more sophisticated techniques. They seem to take inordinate pride in doing quality work the first time and avoiding the distressing necessity of "engineering in the field" later.

ƒ      They maintain perspective ... Lose the "big picture" on any team, its overarching vision and goals, and you lose everything. Leaders keep our eyes on the prize, and they foster a "systems view" to guide analysis and action. Team leaders gather a of lot initial and ongoing information. This not only helps team members to understand the processes they are engaged in, it helps avoid myopic tunnel vision and dedication to a single course of action.

ƒ      They encourage pyramid learning. They stress the need to understand a situation and the options available, and assist others to explore and appreciate the possibilities. They not only investigate and take action, they seem to hook those around them on the need to absorb what is happening and why. This openness to learning explains the best thing about the best leaders: they are not irreplaceable, because they have taught others so well.

Leaders appear sensitive to the impact of recommendations and changes they propose (or undertake) on other parts of the organization. They tend to ask a lot of what-if questions up front, seeking to avoid unintended consequences. Their willingness to consider the organization as a "connected system" not only limits the firing of loose cannons, it pays off in fostering cooperation from other leaders who worry less about the chaos generated when the cannon balls hit.

 

team leaders LEVERAGE FOCUS AND INTEGRATION

Focus being a team's ability to fix its attention on a goal or task, and integration being individual team members' ability to "get with the program."

Consider what happens when neither are leveraged. Too often in our work with organizations we have noticed a pair of sad but distinct phenomena: one we call the "spaghetti toss" and the other going by the nickname "turf honcho." In the first case, the organization abounds with unfocused activity and project work -- much of it never contributing to overall success. It is as if the organization, not knowing any better, was tossing spaghetti on the wall to see what sticks. In the second case, how many times is the wheel reinvented or something drops through organizational cracks because of someone's need to put boundaries up and manage their "turf?"

In sharp contrast, team leaders maximize their team's focus and integration. Thus they:

ƒ      Target energy on success opportunities ... We have all experienced the problem of too much opportunity and not enough direction. Success opportunities don't arrive with little maps telling you where the treasure is buried. You have to figure that out yourself. Each new path forks off in a dozen different ways. Effective leaders assist team members and others in choosing the right paths and setting the right priorities. Together they focus their efforts toward high-promise activities and outcomes.

We have observed team leaders working with others in some very collaborative ways, across all kinds of organization boundaries, to test alternatives and get a bearing on the most promising courses of action. Once this focus is achieved, it is as if a red light has switched on, for the duration of the project. Teams are able to extend the cooperative spirit generated during these cross-unit, cross-function, cross-level analyses into any later implementation process.

ƒ      Foster task linkage with others ... Most of us live in functional cages labeled Marketing, Personnel, Finance, Operations, etc. Within these cages or silos we toil in even smaller groups on all the tasks necessary to organizational success. From this narrow perspective, we rarely see and comprehend the size and shape of the elephant entrusted to our care.

Effective team leaders break down the cages and expand people's way of seeing, beyond their narrow task. They create a common bond with other teams, and a sense of shared fate and opportunity. Team leaders spend lots and lots of time working across boundaries. They help folks feel "we are in this together." With the help of other team members and other teams we can get this elephant on its feet and moving in the proper direction.

ƒ      Influence cooperative action ... The last task, creating linkage, isn't enough. Leaders have to go beyond that, and engender a true climate for cooperation. Effective leaders turn fences into bridges. This is not an easy task -- cooperative action-taking requires lots of set-up, and tons of follow-through. Neither of us could begin to count the number of times we have experienced or observed failure in organizations because individuals or units simply could not cooperate.

There are many reasons for this kind of "dis-cooperation." Some people see no great need for cooperation, and they never bother to develop the requisite skills to carry it off. Others fear sharing "credit" with the next unit. Many shut out others until the last moment, when it's too late to elicit genuine cooperation. So it goes. Whatever the reason, we have often found team leaders purposely building relationships across organizational boundaries pre-need (that phrase comes courtesy of the mortuary profession).

Note: team leaders actively identify and influence those who have access to resources necessary to the tasks they undertake. Thus cooperation is planned and designed into every task. Note also: sensible team leaders rarely burn their bridges to others, no matter what the provocation. Future cooperation is too important to throw away in a moment of emotional indulgence.

 

team leaders LEVERAGE INNOVATION AND PERFORMANCE

You read about business heroes out there, creating incredible advancements, engineering impossible accomplishments. Nice work, if you can do it. Those we would tag as team leaders are more often ordinary folks who generate improvement bit by bit, consuming our poor, much discussed elephant one bite at a time.

To leverage innovation and performance, they:

ƒ      Support creativity ... They challenge team members and others to invest their time, talent and resources in the quest. Here, we aren't talking about innovative product creation, support for much ballyhooed skunkworks, etc. Rather, what team leaders seem to value highly are creative approaches to perceived problems or some new "twist" that captures an opportunity. Team leaders are more than just tinkerers -- always adjusting, trying out, testing, etc. Ted, for example, is absolutely unrelentingly in the quest for small technical or procedural innovations to produce a better baggage handling process in service to what he sees as "his passengers."

ƒ      Take initiative ... Team leaders know that there is no advantage like prompt action. Great leaders are great doers, catalysts who can take what-if thinking and galvanize it into action. They take reasonable risks and encourage others to do likewise, and to invest their resources to improve the way their organizations work.

Our experience suggests that team leaders quickly size up an improvement opportunity, involve others, come up with a plan and then simply "get on with it." In the course of our discussions, another interesting facet of their initiative-taking behavior cropped up: "I'd rather ask for forgiveness than permission," was the express comment made by several team leaders when asked to sum up their approach to getting things done. As the Nike commercial says, Just Do It.

ƒ      Eschew the negative ... I.e., they accentuate the positive. Team leaders continually challenge themselves and their team members to maintain a work environment where people are glad to participate. This often means creating a "service environment" to the workplace -- whether the organization delivers a conventional service or not -- and setting high standards of quality and service to customers both inside and out.

We were struck by the recent comment of a retail supervisor whom we immediately tagged as a team leader. Discussing motivation she exclaimed: "You know, you can whip the 'slaves' and make them work; but you can't make them serve one another, or the paying customer, that way." The comment put words to our overall sense that team leaders generally seek to create a positive work environment. This fits with our professional view, that a punitive work setting results in "CYA" (Cover-Your-Anterior) team leadership -- the exact opposite of what effective team leaders model.

Our experience suggests that folks who feel punitively treated spend their energies grousing about their troubles, "getting even," pursuing outside interests, etc. -- and not looking for ways to improve quality or provide service to their colleagues or customers.

Team leaders, in sharp contrast, appear to do three things. First, they model and coach positive interaction with others. Second, they either help to get rid of punitive rules and practices or buffer their people from their effects where possible. And third, if you mutter about "how bad it is" within earshot of them, you'll be gently given the opportunity to help make it better.

ƒ      Are never satisfied ... The spirit of team leadership is one of continuous improvement. A good leader can never be convinced that existing structures, processes and outcomes are as good as they could or should be. Again, this shouldn't come as a big surprise.

What's important to note, however, is how they go about the process. Incremental change -- transforming a team one day at a time, one bit at a time -- is still a team leader's best strategy for effecting systematic improvement. In part, this approach is forced on them by their positions, often well down in the bowels of the organizational pyramid, with limited positional power or material resources. In part, it seems a strategy of choice.

One team leader confided: "Even the biggest improvements I've been a part of happened one small project at a time. Plus, I always feel a sense of accomplishment when I get to see some results early." We see a clear and obvious second element to their improvement strategy.

     The wrong Leadership

Leadership is susceptible to the same variations of personality we talked about in Chapter 10.  

An unsolvable problem of team leadership is satisfying different people's needs for different kinds of leadership. Your team members may prefer, by turns, a tyrant, a shepherd, a father (or mother), and a pal.

Leaders will make themselves crazy trying to be all these things. Yet to completely ignore individual needs is bad, too.

Fortunately, many teams allow leadership to rotate from person to person. A clever team may be able to pit different members against one another, providing each member with the required degree of motivation, instruction, discipline or approval.

When your team can do that – meet everyone's leadership needs halfway, without skipping a beat – you have accomplished something.

How does a group become that versatile? By understanding and appreciating how different kinds of personalities interact.

Consider how the four main personality types lead, and how each kind of leader signals what type it is. Your challenge is to identify your leading style, and to check to see how it is likely to succeed or fail with different team members.

 

When Drivers Lead

Contribution Drivers are the task experts. They are results-oriented types whose motto is “lead, follow, or get out of the way.”

Verbally They get directly to the task at hand, with little or no small talk. They tend to do more talking than listening. They direct and control the pace of conversation. They are forever hauling people back to task when they wander. They interrupt, finishing team mates' sentences. They speak in a forthright, direct manner (“I want...” or “you need to...”) They are not afraid to challenge team mates' thoughts and ideas. They ask what questions, the kind that lead directly to results.

Nonverbally                                                   They often have forceful, commanding voices. They are confident, and they show it. They also show when they are impatient. (Check that watch!) They let you know when you’re done talking. They can be opaque and hard to read – their facial expression doesn’t reveal much. Their offices are functional with clock; you will likely see plaques and awards on display.

 

 

When Expressives Lead

Contribution Expressives are the *communication experts. They are the enthusiastic, influencers whose motto is, “It’s not just whether you win or lose, it’s how you look when you play the game.”

Verbally They talk about their thoughts and feelings They like to tells stories and share anecdotes. They use lots of adjectives and vivid descriptive phrases. They prefer metaphor to money. They digress from point at hand – can’t help it. They ask the why questions -- the rationale, motivational questions They persuade and sell.

Nonverbally Fast talkers. They are animated, and use dramatic gestures and facial expressions. They exude lots of vocal variety -- inflection, volume They smile and nod their heads a lot. They can be stylish and fashionably current in appearance They move a lot, and emit lots of energy. Their offices may be stylish and maybe a bit flamboyant; or they may be somewhat cluttered and jumbled. And hey, check out the toys and cartoons.

 

 

 

When Analyticals Lead

Contribution Analyticals are the information experts. They deal in facts, data and details. Their motto is “the facts speak for themselves.”

Verbally They do little small talk or socializing. There is little disclosure of feelings or thoughts. They strictly focus the discussion on the matter at hand. They don't make many errors with facts or details. They often have large vocabularies. They ask all kinds of questions – especially the technical question how. They share data and information – often more than others wants. They don't rush to judgment. They decide things rationally and systematically. They may be annoyed by others who are “less thorough.”

Nonverbally They speak slowly and deliberately. They shares logic methodically. They show little animation or facial expression. They don't gesture much, either. "Statuesque" may describe them. They prefer a formal, conservative appearance. Their offices are functional, with lots of storage space for information.

 

 

 

When Amiables Lead

Contribution Amiables are the team formation experts. They are good at recruiting people for causes and maintaining their “franchise” with others over time. Their motto is “make new friends and keep the old.”

Verbally They asks lots of questions, to get others engaged. They particularly ask the who questions -- putting the team together and building constituency. They listen, paraphrase and reflect their feelings. They may not be especially quick to disclose what they themselves want. They love to engage in small talk.

Nonverbally Listen for a steady and even speech tempo. Look for relaxed body language. They listen actively, nodding and indicating their attention. They are pretty quiet. They dress casually and affect a conforming but comfortable appearance. Their offices are likely to have family pictures, personal mementos and plants.

 

 

 

Can you "fix" poor leadership?

It is much easier to fix your own leadership deficiencies than it is to fix someone else's. To fix your own, you must simply acknowledge what you will never be good at, and get someone else to take over those leadership dimensions -- to share leadership with you. Or you can work to build up and strengthen the weak areas, while drawing upon the team for understanding and assistance.

To get someone else to change is a taller order. People providing poor leadership generally know -- sometimes vaguely -- they are part of the problem. But in their minds they are convinced they are doing their best, or just behaving the way their personalities allow them to behave. Sure, they could read some book about ultra leadership. But to change, really change? That requires:

ƒ      courage on the intervener's part;

ƒ      honesty on the flawed leader's part;

ƒ      good intentions on the part of everyone.

Throughout this chapter we have highlighted team leaders involving others, early and often. In so doing, they leverage their own efforts while focusing the skills and cooperative action necessary to tackle "cross-boundary" problems and opportunities.

If your team is having difficulties, the odds of leadership being at the root of the difficulties is very high. You, too must find a path between the old and the new, to find what works for your group. Because "what works" is the very heart and soul of good team leadership. Keep trying things, like Edison and his incandescent bulb, until something lights up.

 

 

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