Lead Your Team to the Next Level

Lead Your Team to the Next Level

I was new to the concept of putting together a virtual team to help me run my online business when I began in 2006. As I added team members one by one I decided I wanted to have a common goal for improvement as we moved forward and to learn how to grow together to be stronger than ever over time. Understanding how to effectively lead your team to the next level will make the difference between mediocrity and struggle and being more successful than you had ever hoped for and imagined.

Team building has always been a proven method to boost the effectiveness of any worker. By making the team communicate more and spend time together relaxing, a company is making tremendously positive changes in the work environment. These changes will likely yield positive results.

However, many companies wonder how to make the most out of their team. Is there a secret way to gather them into effective team building?

Well, today, we are sharing 5 most effective tips in taking your team to the highest point of satisfaction.

1. Creating Common Vision And Goals

The path to organizational success should always start with sharing a common vision and goals and focusing the team on how to reach them. By simply stating them and making your team aware of them, a company will be able to build a stable team that understands the main points of the organization and will do their best to achieve them.

2. Clarifying Roles And Responsibilities

The lack of clarity in organizational policies and work ethics should always be noticed and fixed early on.

Ask yourself: “How clear are the roles in our team?” or “Do my employees fully know their roles?” By answering these, you are one more step ahead in determining whether there are overlapping roles or potential conflicts.

3. Learning What Your Team Members Need – And Take It Personally!

By taking it personally, we mean being friendly and positive to the employees. After all, we are all human beings and all of us have certain needs in work, right?

With learning what the employees need – whether it is for a task, project or personally, you will build a perfect atmosphere of enhancing the overall work, spirit, and efforts within the company. With this in place, there will be no hidden problems that can slow down success.

4. Ensuring Effective Communication

There should be a free flow of communication between the team members, which should be well channeled and projected towards fulfilling a common team objective.

5. Walking The Talk

Dale Carnegie’s 28th leadership principle, “Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to,” underscores that it is critical that leaders model correct behavior. If employees don’t believe that their leader acts with integrity and is enthusiastic about the task at hand, why should they be?

In an article by Randy Conley entitled “4 Pillars of High-Trust Teams: How To Take Your Team to The Next Level” he shares that safety is the first of the key pillars. He writes:

Safety—Sometimes the best way to describe something is to look at its opposite. The opposite of safety is fear. In a culture of fear, team members don’t take risks, innovate, or use their creativity out of fear of recrimination. Self-interest trumps the good of the team and secrecy, gossip, and poor morale are the norm. To develop a culture of safety, the team needs to encourage responsible risk-taking and eliminate the fear of repercussions. Mistakes are treated as learning moments and personal accountability is celebrated. A team leader taking ownership and admitting her mistakes is perhaps the most powerful act in creating team safety. Safety is also developed when leaders encourage healthy and respectful debate and transparently share information. To a person, members who feel safe in a team believe the team leader has their best interests in mind and personally cares for them. Simon Sinek’s popular TED talk video, “Why Good Leaders Make You Feel Safe,” expounds on this truth of high-trust teams.

The TED talk from Simon Sinek he is referring to is titled “Why Good Leaders make You Feel Safe” and in it Sinek makes some excellent points. Even though he mentions employees I believe it is also relevant to the freelancers and independent contractors who make up our virtual teams. What are you doing to lead your team to the next level for the benefit of everyone involved?

I’m author, publisher, and entrepreneur Connie Ragen Green and would love to connect with you. If you are new to the world of online entrepreneurship please check out my comprehensive training on how to set up Funnels That Click and learn how to gain an unfair advantage when it comes to building a lucrative online business.