THE 5 C's OF LEADERSHIP- CREATION OF LEADERS & TEAMS

The Creation of Leaders & Teams is the 4th of the 5 C's of Leadership.

Let's start with the creation of leaders and then move to the creation of teams. In my opinion, one of the key roles of a leader is the development of their people. A great leader creates other leaders. So now let's identify some of the ways in which you can develop leaders:

• Recognize the responsibility and make sure you allocate time and resources to development
• Provide practice opportunities for people in internal meetings and on task forces, etc
• Share your thought process so your team knows how you make decisions and get to the answer. Talking out loud as you think was helpful to me in this area
• Delegate, don't abdicate- you not only have the responsibility for getting the work done, but you have a responsibility to check-in and see if they need help
• Give feedback often and honestly - someone can not change or fix something if they are not aware of it. I know we are all busy but this can be in the elevator as you are leaving a meeting- assuming no one else is there.(I did a few posts specifically on feedback)
• Set the bar high, tell people what the bar is, and be fair in evaluating people against the bar
• Spend time with your stars and good soldiers. Often, we spend so much time dealing with poor performers that we short change the stars (most often) and the good soldiers of time that could be spent on their development. Check your calendar from time to time to make sure you are spending time with the stars and the good soldiers. Don't be someone that only tells a star, "you are doing a great job, keep it up"
• As a matter of fact, fire now or pay later, one of the stories in our book is about dealing with the problem performers sooner rather than later, which frees up your time for the better performers

Now, let's talk about developing teams. In most companies, the term leadership team is an oxymoron. It really is just a group of people that happen to report to the same person. There is no effort to create an environment or invest in really creating a team. A team should be given a clear team goal and time frame to achieve the goal. Then tell them the position or role that each member of the team is playing and what are the individual team member goals. They also need to be given opportunities to work as a team so they build trust and confidence in one another. A high performing team can accomplish great things, while a really bad team undermines and attacks one another. In most cases, they are polite and cordial in a group meeting but do not feel any responsibility or loyalty for or to one another and never work as a team but as individuals.

When people know you really care about their development and are willing to invest your own time as well as company resources to them, they will perform better and have increased loyalty to you and the organization. Seeing someone succeed beyond what even they thought possible is not only good business but is very personally rewarding.

Think of the Return on Investment if you are a great leader and you create other great leaders. Very high!!

Until Next Time,

Gail