Are You Doing What It Takes to Build a High Performance Team? Here Are 7 Vital Tips
1. Cultural Fit
The element of cultural fit is that it binds an organization. When making a decision to hire a new member of the team, the leader should be able to identify and explain the company’s core values, culture, and long-term objectives and practices. If you’re bringing on people from outside of the company, it becomes more crucial, as per the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), that a poor culture fit can cost more than half of an individual’s annual salary. But, defining the culture of an organization isn’t an easy task. What happens if the organization leader, business, or even the company itself requires an essential shift in its culture? What if the traditional way of doing things isn’t what the business needs to succeed in the near future. What if the hiring group is tasked with managing change? No matter what the case, it is crucial that the culture be clearly communicated to the prospective employee so that you can determine the essential characteristics that can mesh well with the culture and also help in integrating your new employee.
2. Diversity
In order to achieve maximum performance and achieve maximum results, Leaders must work to foster diversification within their teams. A diverse, highly-performing team is one that is marked by open communication, constructive conflict trust, mutual respect in collaboration, flexibility, and the willingness to let go of individual control to get better overall results. Diversity can come in various forms, such as gender and age, as well as ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, different work styles, knowledge, capabilities, or skills, etc. It is essential to search for these differences when you build your team and consider them an asset instead of a liability. The reason for teams is to resolve problems, improve a company or develop into a new model for business. Whatever the reason, the leader needs to promote and encourage different perspectives and ideas in order to get faster outcomes.
3. Clarity of Goals
How “exactly” are you wish to achieve, and at what point? A goal that isn’t well-defined will never achieve its goals. It’s a simple statement; however, the amount of energy that is wasted by businesses and teams is staggering in the event that the word “exactly” is left out. Making an effort early enough to establish your goals isn’t just crucial in the business world, but it is also a must in your personal life. The more precise you are about your goals to accomplish, the more likely you will be able to accomplish the activities that go into the achievement of these goals. Clarity of objectives is crucial to ensure that all members of your team succeed. Thus, you must define your team’s goals in full detail, establish a timeline to achieve the goals, and ensure that they are visible to everyone participants at all times. Lastly, ensure that there is a shared responsibility among the team members.
4. Alignment
Recent research has highlighted how crucial the connection between vision and direction strategy, goals, strategy, and the purpose of the long-term performance of an organization. One study showed that, for instance, when employees are aware, enthusiastic, and engaged about the direction taken by the business, their earnings margin is twice more likely to be higher than the median. However, I would like to move one step further by introducing the notion of alignment. It is about the alignment of these goals with people’s motivations. This is a lot more difficult to achieve and requires the complete commitment of the leader to attain an amount of trust with their team members to ensure that these personal motives can be discussed in complete transparency. Affiliating business goals to each individual’s role and responsibilities in the group is the most important way to ensure that everyone is engaged and has lasting successful outcomes.
5. Regularly provided feedback
Continuously providing and receiving high-quality feedback is a fantastic way to establish trust. For many managers, this could be among the most stressful aspects of their work. However, providing feedback on performance is essential to building an effective team. There are numerous instances of employees doing great work and leaving their employers for new jobs due to the fact that they were unaware of how they were performing! If they had known that they were appreciated for their work and appreciated, they might not be looking for a new job. In the same way as aligning with the individual’s goals, leaders must be prepared to modify the way of giving feedback to individual members of the team. It is essential to be aware of employing different methods which better align with the individual’s preferences for receiving feedback and giving it. This ability is not easy for many leaders. It must be mastered by perseverance and patience and perhaps some coaching.
6. Keep promises
Whatever the size the promise may be, you must always honor it. There is no one to trust if they do not keep their commitments. We’ve discussed what it means to trust; therefore, be faithful to your promises and stay true to your word. Trust is the foundation for loyalty, and loyalty can lead to employees making every effort to achieve excellent results for your business. Some leaders, despite great intentions, try to motivate others by promising false promotions, personal successes, and a brighter future; however, they fail to fulfill the promises made. If you’re doing that, it is time to reconsider your style of leadership and the tactics you employ. If you really are looking to achieve success both in business and in life, make sure you keep your word!
7. Do what is right.
“Doing what is right” is the core of integrity and ethics. It determines you as a person as well as an administrator. It’s about what is right and wrong in human behavior. Ethics is about decisions that are based on dilemmas, choices, or “grey spaces.” It focuses on what we ought to be doing rather than just discussing what we could actually do. However, if you justify questionable choices by saying that “everyone takes it on,” it is time to rethink your position. Leaders often face this problem due to the fact that in a chaotic world, there are lots of bad choices, but only a few clear, sensible and appropriate ones. However, leaders have to make a decision. It is your responsibility. Actually, you are evaluated every day by how you choose to act by your bosses, by your colleagues, your subordinates, and by your loved family and friends. True leaders don’t be the ones to do things that are the “wrong thing” to please others. If you are you are in doubt, take the advice of Eleanor Roosevelt “Do the things you believe inside you to be right, because you’ll get criticized regardless.”
These seven essential tips are only an example of what you need to be working towards each day to be a top-performing team leader. It’s all about common sense and giving others the same respect as you like to be treated. It’s that easy. But is it easy? It is not easy. American researcher Warren Bennis once declared: “Becoming a leader is the same as being yourself. It’s that easy, but it’s also challenging.”
