The Ultimate Guide to Developing Strong Teams
I love great teams. Awesome teams have been one of my biggest joys in leadership and I want everyone to experience one. I’m going to teach you the four key steps to building and leading awesome strengths-based teams. You’ll never go back.
Step 1 — KNOW YOUR WHY
The first step in developing a great team through strengths is knowing your WHY. Why do you want to build a great team? How would it make a difference in your life and work and that of the people that you are charged with leading?
Is it because you hope to accomplish something that is bigger than any individual contributor?
Is it because you want to foster an environment that supports healthy risks and learning?
Is it because you know that better teams do better work?
Is it because you are far too aware of how costly it is to replace people?
Is it because you believe in developing people and creating a team environment that fosters that?
Is it because you care about your own quality of life and want a strong team that you can rely on so that you can work smarter and not merely harder?
Figuring out your why and putting words to what matters most to you when it comes to developing a strong team will help you focus your efforts as well as sharpen your vision.
Step 2 — KNOW YOURSELF
Once you’re clear on your why, now you’re free to focus on your unique leadership DNA. The reason why this process begins with your self-awareness is because of something a mentor told me half-jokingly - WHEREVER YOU GO THERE YOU ARE. You can’t get away from yourself. Or put another way, if you’re the one that’s got the role and calling to lead your team that’s going to influence how the team works together.
Understand your style so you know what you do well and what your limits are. Be able to explain your working style to those around you so they are clear too. The more you understand the strengths, the more effective leader you’ll be.
I don’t believe that it takes a specific strength to be a great leader. But I do believe that it is the responsibility of every leader to understand what makes their leadership tick.
To help you assess how well you understand your leadership DNA, here’s a brief quiz.
Would you AGREE or DISAGREE with the following YES/NO statements?
I think more about my strengths than my weaknesses.
I am able to speak intelligently about my unique strengths as a leader and how they come to life.
I do not compare myself to other leaders because I feel confident in what I bring.
I know that I can accomplish what I need to with the strengths that I possess.
I am aware of the potential downsides my strengths and I take proactive steps to mitigate them.
I find satisfaction in being able to utilize specific strengths of mine for the leadership challenges that I’m facing.
I have clarity about what to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to based on what I do best and what should be delegated to others.
If you mostly answered YES, that is awesome! That means you have a good understanding of your strengths as a leader. You aren’t getting bogged down by comparison or feeling anxious about not having the “right” strengths for the job. Instead you’re able to think with freedom and creativity about the strengths that you have to offer.
If you mostly answered NO, that is awesome too! Why awesome? Well, because you’re here and you’re taking the time to learn and realize that you might have some room to grow in understanding yourself.
As weird as it might sound, it can be pretty hard to know what you’re great at.
A lot of us spend way more time thinking about our weaknesses and where we are lacking than what we do best.
Sometimes we miss what we do well because it seems so natural. “Doesn’t everyone do this,” we think. It’s like missing your nose because it’s on your own face.
Or even if we do recognize some things that we seem to do with ease and excellence, we don’t see the value in it. We compare to other leaders that we admire and we think that they have the truly valuable talents and strengths whereas ours are only ‘meh.’
All of that is GREAT to recognize because then you can start to take steps to change it. Hear me now – IF YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND YOUR OWN LEADERSHIP GENIUS, that’s a PROBLEM! Not just for your self-esteem but really for you to reach your goals and be an effective team leader. It may sound counterintuitive, but I believe that one of the best gifts you can give your people is to understand what makes YOU your best.
If you’ve never done the StrengthsFinder (aka Clifton Strengths) assessment, that’s a great place to start. It gives language to help you begins. It’s not too expensive. You can get a book with a unique access code for roughly the cost of eating out at Chik-Fil-A.
If you have done StrengthsFinder but you printed off your assessment results and put them in a drawer and can’t really remember what your strengths are, then it could be time to get better acquainted. Being able to remember or even name your strengths is only one small step of IDENTIFICATION. The true leadership magic happens when you are able to understand how your strengths uniquely come to life and you can figure out how to call on them when you needed.
There’s a big difference between the raw potential of a talent and the exciting presence of a SUPERPOWER.
And if you think I’m being hyperbolic about the use of that word ‘superpower’ then I’d say you don’t yet understand your strengths well enough. Because when developed and used in service of others, your strengths truly are SUPERPOWERS. Wonder Woman and Black Panther got nothing on you.
Step 3 — KNOW YOUR PEOPLE
Okay, understanding your strengths as a leader is a great start. But please don’t stop there!
Leaders who feel great about their own strengths and can (and do) talk all about them are one thing. But leaders who stop at Step 2 don’t build great teams. At best, they might build fans – people who think that THEY are great. But that’s not really developmental leadership. At worst, they are annoying and arrogant.
These leaders might even be able to accomplish a lot. But one thing’s for sure -- they don’t build great teams. Their lack of curiosity about what others do best and even what others can do better than themselves ensures that the team is boxed in by the limits of their own strengths. The team is stunted by them. Don’t fall into this trap.
Why settle for individual impact when you could help build the AVENGERS?
Leaders who understand the strengths of the people on their teams know how to:
Appreciate what different people bring to the table. They don’t limit what is valuable to only what they do or a narrow set of strengths.
Develop others’ strengths. They have the ability to take potential in someone else and help it become reality.
Match opportunities with natural strengths for maximum fit and payoff. They find a way to not simply add more work to people’s plates but actually creatively match the best opportunities for someone’s development.
Create plans for growth that bring out others’ potential. They think about and have a plan for the development of people arguably the most valuable resource in any business, organization, or venture.
Tap into a high sense of motivation. Because they know what makes their team tick in some way they know how to keep morale and motivation for work high even in the face of challenges and obstacles.
Offer meaningful feedback. Leaders that know people’s strengths know how to offer both positive and constructive critique in a way that leads to better performance.
Avoid blind spots. Knowing the strengths of your people helps you know what to look out for and what is valuable to THEM not just you. For example, if you have someone on your team you better make sure you are giving them regular points of feedback on their work or you risk demotivating them. It may not be significant to you but it matters to them and their performance will suffer without it.
Equip people for the work at hand, future possibilities, and personal development. In the best strengths-based development, people feel like they are being helped to grow as whole people. That carries over into their personal lives beyond the role that brings them to your team. That’s a really healthy sign of development. Do you offer development like that as a leader?
Retain talent. I believe in paying people what their work is worth but people don’t just work for money. Trust me. I’ve worked for 20 years in the nonprofit world where I regularly see people that go above and beyond and it’s not because of the size of the paycheck they get. When people use their strengths at work, studies show that they are much less likely to quit or leave.
Understanding your own strengths as a leader is a great place to start. But strong leaders don’t stop there. Strong leaders make their people stronger too.
Step 4 — DESIGN GREAT CULTURE
The last step takes the strengths magic and keeps it from becoming a team that is dependent on the leader to one that is interdependent with one another.
How to know if you have a strengths-based team culture:
My team knows each other’s strengths and has common language for talking about it.
My team embraces differences in perspective as positive rather than a source of conflict.
My team knows what each member does best and can apply that to real-time situations.
My team knows what each member needs in order to do their best work.
My team knows how to partner well together and we have a sense of team synergy.
I would say that we have a positive, strengths-based team culture and my team would also agree with that.
A great team culture is so much more than a fun day of team-building exercises. Great teams are fun. But it’s not about just fun.
A nice meal once a year isn’t enough to compensate for a poor team culture.
I once saw a team where the leader treated the whole team to lunch every week. So generous and so great, right? Well, not so fast. The team leader was so toxic that everyone hated being at these lunches even though outwardly it was a nice and potentially fun thing to do. It’s no surprise that these lunches (though a nice idea) had little to no effect on the motivation, morale, or the engagement of the team. It’s also no surprise that this team had a ridiculously high turnover rate losing super talented team members with alarming regularity.
Healthy team cultures go beyond fun events. They are developmental. They invest resources into getting help to become stronger and to be places where people are thriving as individuals and as a whole. They see better results by investing in their people.
They also have the benefit of being interdependent rather than dependent on the leader. A strengths-based team culture helps each member be a powerful source of encouragement, partnership, and motivator of success for one another rather than being solely dependent on the leader alone. Want to do great work in a more sane way? Think TEAM. Specifically, strengths-based teams.
Recap
So to recap, the FOUR STEP ROADMAP to developing great teams through strengths.
1. Know your why.
2. Know yourself.
3. Know your people.
4. Design great culture.
The awesome thing is that it’s never too early or too late to start investing in even small steps really pay off in terms of bringing greater energy, focus, and aliveness to your leadership and work. Unfortunately, with leadership and team development usually by the time you see the problem it’s a lot more work to reroute the problem. So plan ahead and start taking steps today.
What next?
If you know that you don’t want to waste another ounce of potential (or impact) because you’re not maximizing the strengths of your team, learn all about TEAM WORKSHOPS that I offer.