Discusses Tal Bevan’s philosophy of leadership centered around transparency, empathy, and trust, highlighting strategies to empower teams to achieve peak performance.

Effective leadership is the key to empowering teams for success.

The following overviews five characteristics of high-performing teams, and you will not be surprised to know that it all starts with leadership.

Before we get started, here are the five keys to empowering teams for success and building high-performance teams:

• Lead Then Manage
• Develop Our Team
• Make Accountability Our Trademark
• Listen First
• Win!
  
  

Effective leaders, “Lead Then Manage”.

By leading, we share our vision for success and excellence, and always start with the end in mind. Great leaders are consumed with developing ways to make their teams better. And by better, we mean more effective and consistently overachieving ambitious goals.

Empowering the team requires consistency, which means the best leaders find a way to stay on message. While being open to feedback and constructive input the empowering leader does so in the context of the direction and strategy of the organization.

One of the signs of a great leader is someone who openly competes to put the best possible team in place. It is healthy in an organization for all leaders to strive to have the best team. This is not to say that being overly competitive is ideal, but instead to develop an organization where all leaders are striving for excellence within their teams. Ultimately this serves the organization in a positive manner and detriments the competition.

Critical thinking differentiates strong leaders and helps to build empowered teams. Looking at opportunities from different perspectives and openly accepting diverse inputs makes teams stronger. There is a caveat, critical thinking is not cynicism. One of the easiest ways to break down an empowered team is for the leader to be cynical or the for the leader to accept cynicism on their teams. Having diverse opinions is important. Framing them in a constructive manner, helps lead to empowerment across the team.

We have come to understand the power of selective attention. Simply put, what we focus on is what we see and experience more of. As a result, it is important for leaders to focus on leading the team and then ensuring there are inspection points to ensure quality achievement of the organizational goals. Inspecting and micro-managing are different. Empowered teams should expect inspection of what is important without being concerned that everything thing they are doing is being micro-managed.

The second characteristic of empowered and high-performing team is, “Developing Our Team”.

I have often said, “developing our team is the first obligation of leadership”.

When we think about developing our team, it is worth taking a step back and considering how many teams we are on. Typically, we are part of our functional organization, a leadership team, the overall organization, the team that is working either cross-functionally and/or with our customers, trade associations…and the list goes on.

Developing our team transcends all of these teams, but our focus today is on developing the team where we own the leadership accountability.

This is critically important because team success breads individual success. It is amazing how individual performance can be impacted by being part of a high-performance team. And as individual performance improves, overall team performance is lifted. This cyclical reality starts with the leader being focused on growing and developing the team.

I often ask, “would you prefer to be an average player on a great team or the best player on a losing team?” With a show of hands, being part of a great team is the overwhelming favorite. Knowing this reinforces the first obligation of leadership.

To get to the reality of developing our team, it is important for the leader to be able to coach and develop the teams and dedicate time to this. Formal one-on-one focused on development, as opposed to catching up, are critical. The best leaders find ways to provide coaching in an informal manner. As soon as a meeting is over, taking a few minutes to provide constructive feedback to key participants is a behavior we see with the best leaders focused on empowering their teams.

There is an expression to “weed and feed”. As it relates to developing our team, the phrase needs to be turned on its head. We “feed and weed” our teams. That is, we focus on growth and development of team members and if that does not produce the results, then we consider helping them move to another role inside or outside of the organization. As a result, highly empowered teams are noted for the way in which they treat all team members with respect and as mature adults.

Here’s the secret motivation behind developing our team. It is selfish. Our team’s results are our results. Developing the team increases the likelihood of own success.

Empowered, high-performance teams are all about accountability. “Make accountability our trademark” resonates with teams who are striving for excellence. This is because accountability and performance are intrinsically tied together.

The behavior the leader models is key to what we can expect from our team members. Making a commitment and then honoring is the bedrock of accountability. We may not have control over all of the variables when we make a decision or commitment. But that does not stop great leaders from making commitments. As factors change, commitments sometimes need to be altered. Great leaders can often find ways to still honor commitments during times of change. When that is not possible, communicating why as early as possible and making a new commitment models the accountability we expect in truly empowered teams. When the leader shows accountability it is contagious.

Of note, the only thing more contagious than accountability is a lack of accountability. Give the options, modeling and expecting accountability is the only way to go.

An axiom we use to illustrate accountability is, “when we screw up, we stand up”. Everyone is accountable for their individual performance. When we are doing well it is easy to show accountability. When we are not doing as well it is important to continue to be accountable. This also implies constructive feedback is essential on accountable teams.

Great leaders also understand how the power of accountability works. The expression, “own the blame, share the praise” is trademark of a highly accountable culture. When everything is going well and others in the organization are heaping praise, take the initiative to share the praise and call out your team members who are making a difference. On the other hand, when things are not going as planned, own the blame by not calling out others on your team. An expression like, “we know we are not meeting expectations and I am working with the team to improve our performance” goes along way to reinforce accountability. As a result, highly empowered teams enjoy public praise and private criticism.

This is not to say that we should not be critical, but instead to be deliberate regarding how and when we deal with areas for individual and overall team improvement.

Here’s another selfish reality, the more accountable our teams are the easier our jobs are as leaders. Setting the expectations and then modeling accountability goes a long way to enjoying the rewards of empowered, high-performing teams.

“Listen first” is the easiest concept to say and among the toughest to practice. As leaders we are often called upon to solve or sort out problems. The first instinct to recognize the pattern from our wealth of experience and move to solution sometimes before we fully understand what is happening.

The art of listening is critical to building empowered, high-performance teams because listening leads to validation and trust. Validation is key to empowerment. Empowerment is central for high-performance. As we do a better job of listening, we show empathy for our teams and the challenges they face. Empathetic leaders have shown to lead teams that perform better than other teams.

The selfish truth here is that validated team members are more motivated to do great work. There is little more validating than when someone feels heard and trusted. As a result, taking the time to listen first is key to developing high-performance teams.

Listening does not solve the empowerment communications puzzle by itself. Beyond listening, high-performance teams enjoy open and honest communications, and this starts with us as leaders. Generally, “if the information has not been provided in confidence, share it with your team.” Here is an important caveat; gossip is not information. As we build exceptional teams let’s ensure there is no room for gossip in our communications or the communications we hear within our team.

Everyone understands information is power. What some leaders miss is that by sharing information your team’s appreciation with return itself to you as a greater license for you to lead your team. Give information away and appreciate the benefits as your team listens to your thoughts, perspectives, and directions.

Two final points regarding communications.

As leaders, we always want to communicate the “why”. The why puts directions and communications in perspective. Of note, once someone accepts the why it is much easier for them to accept the resulting actions and/or consequences.

Finally, if in doubt communicate. This fosters openness and leads to accountability. The other reason is that most of us need to hear a message at least seven times to accept it. So, here is my proposition to you. Accept the importance of listening first and communicating in an open and honest fashion or go back to the top of this article and read it six more times 😊.

Win!

As leaders, let’s build winning cultures. Can we win everything everyday, no! But we can focus on winning and learning from our setbacks so that we can improve the likelihood of winning the next time and the next time.

There is a direct co-relation between winning, having fun, being motivated, and rewards. We spend too much time with our teams not to find ways to win and enjoy what we are doing.

Because success breeds success, consciously building a winning culture is the key to empowered, high-performance teams.

In short, the equation looks like this:

Lead + Develop + Be Accountable + Listen First (Communicate) = WIN!