Don’t get frustrated with your team if they are late for meetings, if they haven’t prepared for their 1-to-1 review, if they’ve sworn after hanging up the phone from a customer or if the telephone rings unanswered.
Don’t get angry with the team if they’re not showing interest in personal development, if they they’re coming to you every 5 minutes with a problem, if they ask for time back after they’ve done an out of hours event.
Don’t be exasperated when something totally avoidable actually happens because the situation wasn’t handled earlier. Don’t be surprised when the team harmony you thought you had is leading to lack of commitment to team agreements.
I’ve spoken to too many business owners and leaders who have expressed these feelings and whom initially are taken aback when I ask “what have you done or not done that’s led to this happening?”
The reality is that, if we take what we call an “above the line” approach, one where we accept 100% Ownership, hold ourselves completely Accountable and take full Responsibility for our actions (or lack of), there’s always something we can do to change the situation in the future. Blaming others, making Excuses or burying your head in the sand in Denial of an issue are not attributes of a strong manager or leader.
Take a leaf out of Clive Woodward’s book. Implement Teamship Rules into your business. Set explicit standards that the team understand and agree with so that there’s no ambiguity whatsoever such that when these standards are upheld, your team excel in their work. England won the Rugby World Cup in 2003 and a key ingedient to that success was indeed the clarity and accountability their Teamship rules gave everyone in the team. So if it worked for them, what might it do for you?
How are you setting the standards for the team to rise to?
