10 Qualities of A Great Team Leader: Part Two

For those of you that know me, you know that nothing excites me more than coaching and leading teams. I love it. I find fulfillment in leading and developing highly efficient, excellent, healthy teams more than most other things I do in business.

In the spring this year, I took our team leads from Catalyst away for a two-day retreat. The goals were simple: learn more about each other. Learn about our unique wiring. Learn the DNA of our current team, and create energy around becoming great leaders.

I asked these leaders what they believe makes great team leaders, and It did not take long for us to come up with a list of 21 qualities that would surface from the greatest team leaders we know.

I have narrowed it down to the top 10, which is still too many, but I can’t edit anymore. So over the next few days, I want to talk about each of these characteristics and the value that they bring to leading teams.

3. Have A Solid Grip on Reality

This is such an important characteristic for team leaders. We can all think back to a former or current team leader who has Reality Depravation (see Steve Jobs biography for a more in depth understanding of this term).  In other words, what they think is reality, is so far from the truth that they are blind to it. They live in a world that is removed from the day-to-day operation of their team and their team suffers for it.

I recently re-read the Executive Book Summary (summary.com) of Primal Leadership.  Last summer our entire company went through the Emotional Intelligence principle that is from this book and the article by Daniel Goleman (read it here). To sum up EQ (emotional intelligence), the best leaders in the world are in tune with the emotional state of their teams and themselves. It is crucial to the success of leading.

Here’s the quote:

“Dissonant leadership produces groups that feel emotionally discordant, in which people have a sense of being continually off-key…they create wretched workplaces-although they have no idea how destructive they are, or simply don’t care.  Meanwhile, the collective distress they trigger becomes the group’s preoccupation, deflecting attention away from their mission.”

If team leaders do not have a firm grip on reality and stay in tune with their team, dissonant leadership will take over and they will begin the erosion of their influence. No leader wants that. The more “out of tune” you are with the realities of your team and your tasks, the quicker your team loses confidence in your leadership.  Simple as that.

Figure out ways to keep a pulse on your teams realities.  

4. BE Relational

This trait goes perfectly along with the last trait. The best team leaders in the world understand that you must value relationships. I know that sounds so simple and like a no brainer, however, the number of leaders that will ALWAYS choose results over relationships is staggering.

I will be the first to say that there are times you MUST choose the right result and create withdrawals with your team’s equity. One of the drastic differences for teams is when the leader makes constant relational deposits allowing for the occasional withdrawal to be only a bump in the road.  When a leader mostly chooses results first, every time they have to make a relational withdrawal, it turns into a huge ordeal.

I often say that a litmus test for my team leadership is whether or not the spouses of my team still like me. I know that sounds cheesy and a little subjective but it is a great gauge on how I’m leading their husband or wife. Nothing makes me prouder as a team leader than when a spouse, friend or family member of my team tell me how much they appreciate my leadership. Fighting for those relationships is so important.

Patrick Lencioni has basically built an entire business model and array of books that are based on being great relational leaders. I would argue that fighting for staff and team members and valuing the relationships will always make you business or organization better.

If you are a naturally results oriented leader, choose relationships. It will make the results pushes easier. If you are naturally relationship oriented, keep depositing and push for results when appropriate.

What can you do to make some relational deposits today?