Effective Team Building for Stronger Teams

TEAM LEADERS WORKSHOP

Alice asked Cheshire cat "which road should I take?" (Cheshire cat) "Where do you want to go?" (Alice) "I don't know" (Cheshire cat) well it doesn't matter which road you take.

How do you tell a good leader? "By how many people will follow them into battle"

What is Coaching?

A discussion process between members of an organization aimed at exerting a positive influence in the motivation, performance and awareness of areas for improvement and development of another person to help them be as effective as possible

What is transformational Leaders!

A literature search of over 200 books and articles confirmed that successful organisations had more innovative and productive teams and team members who were more loyal and committed. They also had leaders who exhibited characteristics that "transformed a group of individual into a high performance team." Our first research question was: If successful organisations had more innovative and productive team members, and if loyal and committed team members were more productive and innovative....what role does transformational leadership play in creating and sustaining individual team members loyalty, innovation, commitment, and productivity? Yet there existed no valid instrument for identifying those people who exhibited transformational leadership behaviours. We can identify transformational leaders by the way they exhibited these transformational characteristics;

1. Sharing the vision
2. Building a learning environment
3. Being a positive role model
4. Recognising individual abilities/values
5. Reinforcing self-confidence/independence
6. Supporting their team members
7. Driving out fear
8. Encouraging participation/self-expression
9. Fostering continuous improvement
10.Fostering initiative and responsibility
11.Encouraging persistence
12.Emphasising intrinsic outcomes
13.Advocating shared leadership

Acrostic - Leadership - Team
Lead by
Example
Accelerate,
Duplication,
Encourage
Relationships
Show
Honesty
Interest and
Praise

A great philosopher was once asked what his style or way of leadership was. He said, "There isn't one style or way of doing things. Success in leadership comes from taking a bit of all the things you have learned from every style and way you have learnt it, and then adapting it to what you need for the environment, time and person you are dealing with." In other words there is no one-way to do things.

I have chosen to take the good parts of many different leadership styles, and I have created my own blend of mix, so that I can implement what suits the occasion I am in, whenever and wherever it is needed.

The best way I have heard it stated was by John Maxwell when he said, "No matter how much you learn from the past, it will never tell you all you need to know for the present."

My Ice-burg Leadership Theory
Team - above the water, this is what everyone sees.
Leadership - keeping the team afloat

If what you see above the water is excellence, it's only due to the capacity of the teamwork and leadership below - this is what makes the team stable.

As we get stronger spiritually we add support, commitment, ownership, passion loyalty, and growth to our team. If you want to be served you need to serve. If you want to be a good leader you need to be the best servant of all. Emulate what you wish to see in others.

Value Verses Idea - What is the value of leadership?

Why are you in leadership?

Is it because the idea of becoming a leader sounds great? When times get tough an idea will not keep you going, if you value nothing your commitment will fluctuate.

What is the value of the things you do? We need to be Consistent. Ask yourself if you are the same at work as you are at home and whether you work because you enjoy it, or you work because you need to. If you work because you need to, you are working for an idea; this type of person will clock on and clock off at the minute.

Seven Leadership Mindsets;

1. Sow to grow not to survive - (don't just do what you have to, invest in development and growing yourself)
2. No glass ceilings - (seek to exceed, don't be the best - be better than the best)
3. Don't compromise - (do unto others as you would like done unto you)
4. Take responsibility for your actions and decisions - (Be they positive or negative, take responsibility face to face with your team)
5. Accept no surprises - (hear everything your team has to say, good and bad)
6. Don't accept that it "can't be done" - (can't, is an acceptable challenge) use cup eg;
7. Build your credibility before, you sell your credibility - (don't speak before you have achieved, hope is a confidence - but action is substance)

Connection and communication

We need to learn how to communicate and connect with people, our teams, and other leaders.

Don't ever underestimate the importance of building relational bridges between yourself and the people you lead. There's an old saying: "To lead yourself, use your head; to lead others, use your heart." That's the nature of the Law of Connection. Always touch a person's heart before you ask them for a hand or to join your teams*. In our teams I am sure that we would like to see less people going out the back door and more people coming in the front door.

* From John Maxwell's book 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership

Approach

When we approach people it needs to be purposeful, we need to approach people firstly, because we feel that their giftings or calling will be an asset to the team and then secondly, so that we will have a better quality team and team members. The mistake that organisations sometimes fall into is to approach the area of the teams with nowhere near as much passion as they would leadership, too many organisations get people just to fulfil or perform a duty instead of finding out their passions.

The type of methods and approach that we develop and implement will give us the results we wish to achieve. In creating the quality that is necessary for great teams, never allow yourself to settle for second best in your teams or leaders, especially when you are seeking to do your very best. The effectiveness of your organisation is a reflection of the importance you place on the performance of your teams, on the game day. The quality of our team is based both on the input we have with our leaders in running these areas, and the input our leaders have with their team members.

What approach works?

I will share with you my path to solving this problem. in my completed book that you can order. The greater number of people you Approach affects the number of Recruitment's you obtain.

Recruitment

Once we pass the approach stage, we then look at recruitment. The first stage of recruitment is for the candidate to accept the approach conditions, namely; " I would like the opportunity to develop the potential I see in you, and to be better equipped to fulfil you job." "Will you allow me and the team leaders to speak into and develop your calling and giftings?" On acceptance of these conditions, I then place them into a team that best suits their gifts and abilities.

Not all team members want to go into leadership, not all of them are equipped for leadership, but this doesn't mean that we stop developing and training them. All team members need input, especially those new to the team.

The greater number of people you Approach and the way you Recruit, affects your Retention rate.

COMMUNICATION

I have learnt over time that the hardest lesson to learn and the one we need to be continually developing in our lives is the art of communication. I have had to learn the hard way, as I bet a lot of you have had to. There are different ways to communicate to different groups of people, we cannot communicate to every one the same way; we don't communicate the same way to the same people all the time. I have found out that the next hardest thing to do is to learn how and when to communicate in the right way. I believe that this is a life long learning process; just as you think you have figured it all out a new challenge arises to tell you that you have not communicated well.

If you don't learn to develop different ways to communicate, you will never be able to lead others effectively or efficiently. I found that the great leaders around the world are very good communicators in varied ways, communicating on different levels to different people. Communication is like our walk with Christ it is a never-ending growth lifestyle. The best way I have heard it stated was by John Maxwell when he said:

"No matter how much you learn from the past, it will never tell you all you need to know for the present."

The true measure of transformational leadership is influence - nothing more, nothing less.

"It's not the position that makes a leader; it's the leader that makes the position." -Stanley Huffty -

Leadership is - Influence!

Positional leadership doesn't work in volunteer organizations; if a leader doesn't have leverage - or influence - he is ineffective. In worldly organizations, the person who has a position has incredible leverage. In the military, leaders can use rank and, if all else fails, throw people in the brig. In business, bosses have tremendous leverage in the form of salary, benefits, and perks. Most followers are pretty cooperative when their livelihood is at stake.

But in voluntary organisations, such as churches, the only thing that works is leadership 'in its purest form'. Leaders only have their influence to aid them.

A transformational leader develops the characteristics of a leader of influence.

What are the ten characteristics of an influencer?

The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John C. Maxwell

Acrostic
A person of influence has Integrity with people
A person of influence Nurtures other people
A person of influence has Faith in people
A person of influence Listens to people
A person of influence Understands people
A person of influence Enlarges people
A person of influence Navigates for other people
A person of influence Connects with people
A person of influence Empowers people
A person of influence Reproduces other influencers

How to positively impact the lives of others becoming a person of influence. (John C. Maxwell & Jim Dornan)

1. Think big - plan well
2. Achieve quality - celebrate success
3. Work hard
4. Support honest, passionate people and give opportunity for advancement
5. What gets measured and focused on gets done
6. Use a carrot rather than a stick

Bill Hybels has written a very good book on "Courageous Leadership" and in that book he relates to ten different styles of leadership, he states that "certain leadership styles fit better than others with specific needs. I am increasingly convinced that highly effective leaders often impact not only because they are highly gifted but also because their leadership styles mesh perfectly with specific needs. It follows then that discovering and developing your unique leadership style is another major key to your leadership effectiveness."

I have concluded that to be in the position of building leaders and finding the right people for our organization to achieve the goals we have set, that we need to be well read and understand (if not a master) in the different types of personalities types and leadership styles so we can place the right people in the right positions.

THE TEN LEADERSHIP STYLES

1. The visionary leadership style
What distinguishes the visionary leader is that he or she has a crystal clear picture in mind of what the future could hold. Such a leader casts powerful vision and has indefatigable enthusiasm for turning those visions into reality.

2. The directional leadership style
The directional style of leadership doesn't get much press, but it is exceedingly important. The strength of this leader is his or her uncanny, God-given ability to choose the right path for an organization as it approaches a critical intersection.

3. The strategic leadership style
Strategic leaders have the God-given ability to take an exciting vision and break it down into a series of sequential, achievable steps. This gift of leadership allows an organization to march intentionally toward the actualisation of its mission.

4. The managing leadership style
Manager leadership style, I'm describing a leader who has the ability to organize people, processes, and resources to achieve a mission. The manager leader salivates at the thought of bringing order out of chaos. He or she finds deep satisfaction in monitoring and fine-tuning a process, and motivates team members by establishing appropriate mile markers on the road to the destination. It's surprising how many visionary leaders are inept at managing people, processes, and money.

5. The motivational leadership style
Leaders with the motivational style are on the constant lookout for "sagging shoulders and dull eyes," and they move quickly to inject the right kind of inspiration into those who need it most. They have a keen sense about who needs public recognition and who needs just a private word of encouragement. They seem to know exactly when a particular team member would get a necessary boost from a day off, an office move, a title change, or a training opportunity.

Some leaders view the motivation approach as a lightweight style of leadership. But it's a huge mistake to underestimate the value of this style.

6. The shepherding leadership style
The shepherding leader is man or a woman who builds a team slowly, loves team members deeply, nurtures them gently, supports them consistently, listens to them patiently, and prays for them diligently. This kind of leader draws team members into such a rich community experience that their hearts begin to overflow with good will that energizes them for achieving their mission.

7. The team - building leadership style
The team-building leader knows the vision and understands how to achieve it, but realizes it will take a team of leaders and workers to accomplish the goal. Team-builders have a supernatural insight into people that allows them to successfully find and develop the right people with the right abilities, the right character, and the right chemistry with other team members. Then good team-builders know how to put these people in the right positions for the right reasons, thus freeing them to produce the right results.

When the appropriate people have been placed in appropriate position, the team-building leader says to the appointed team, "You know what we're trying to do. You know what part of the mission you're responsible for. You know what part the rest of us around the circle are responsible for. So - head out! Get on with it! Work hard in your department.

Communicate with your co-labourers. Create action. Get the job done!" The difference between the shepherding leader and the team-building leader is that the team-builder is driven more by a clear understanding pf the vision than by the desire to nurture and build community.

Of course, building teams always involves building community, but the unique strength of team-building leaders is that they have a stranglehold on the strategy and an acute insight into people that allows them to make precise placements of personnel into critical leadership roles. Leaders gifted as team-builders may or may not be skilled at managing their teams. In fact, many of them reason that management isn't all that critical anyway; if the right people are in the right slots doing the right things for the right reasons, these people will accomplish their goals whether or not there is someone looking over their shoulders.

8. The Entrepreneurial leadership style
The Entrepreneurial leadership style has a unique twist. Entrepreneurial leaders may possess any of the other leadership styles, but what distinguishes these leaders from the others is that they function optimally in start-up mode. If these leaders can't regularly give birth to something new they begin to lose energy. Once a venture is up and operational, once the effort requires steady ongoing management, once things get complicated and requires endless discussion about policies, systems, and controls, then most entrepreneurial leaders lose enthusiasm, focus, and sometimes even confidence.

9. The Reengineering leadership style
While entrepreneurial leaders love to start new endeavours, reengineering leaders are at their best in turn-around environments. These leaders are gifted by God to thrive on the challenge of taking a troubled situation - a team that has lost its vision, a ministry where people are in wrong positions, a department trying to move forward without a strategy - and turning it around. This leader says, "This is my lucky day. I get to start reengineering this mess."

These leaders enthusiastically dig in to uncover the original mission and the cause of the mission drift. They re-evaluate personnel, strategy, and values. They repeatedly meet with team members to help them figure out where the "old" went wrong and what the "new" should look like.

10. The Bridge-building leadership style
Bridge-building leaders make important contributions to large organizations and educational institutions because they have the unique ability to bring together under a single leadership umbrella a wide range of constituent groups. This enables a complex organization to stay focused on a single mission.

The unique gift that Bridge-building leaders bring to this feat is enormous flexibility. They are diplomats who possess a supernaturally inspired ability to compromise and negotiate. They are specially gifted to listen, understand, and think outside of the box.

CREATING A CLIMATE FOR POTENTIAL LEADERS

The leader's toughest challenge: Creating a climate for potential leaders.

Those leaders, who believe in our ability, do more than stimulate us - they create an atmosphere in which it becomes easier for us to succeed. Creating an environment that will attract leaders is vital to any organization. Creating an environment is the responsibility of the leaders. They must be active; they must generate activity that is productive; and they must encourage, create, and command changes in the organization. They must create a climate in which potential leaders will thrive.

Leaders must be environmental change agents.

The leaders in any organisation must be the environmental change agents. They must be more like thermostats than thermometers. At first glance, a person could confuse these two instruments, as both are capable of measuring heat; however, they are really quite different, how. A thermometer is passive; it records the temperature of its environment but can do nothing to change that environment. A thermostat is an active instrument, it determines what the environment will be; it effects change in order to create a climate.

The attitude of the leader, coupled with a positive atmosphere in the organization, can entice people to accomplish great things. Consistent accomplishment generates momentum. Many times momentum is the only difference between a winning, positive growth climate and a loosing, negative growth climate.

Don't delegate - empower

The next time you find it difficult to adjust the environment in your organisation, keep in mind this simple fact from the laws of physics:

Water boils at 212 degrees, but at 211 degrees, it is still just hot water

One extra degree, an increase of less than one half of one percent, can make the difference between a pot of languishing liquid and bubbling caldron of power. One degree can create a full head of steam - enough power to move a train weighing tons. That one-degree is usually momentum. Leaders in some organisations don't recognize the importance of creating a climate conducive to building potential leaders; they don't understand how it works.

Before people will want to connect with your team or they will need to know we care about them, how do we do this? We need to Connect - Communicate - then this shows we Care. Once they are on our team or in our church, we need to Care - Communicate - Connect.

Connect
How do you connect with people?
The word Connect is a verb which means we have to do something.

What are some ways to connect with people?
Introduce yourself, Eye contact, Ask their name - and remember it! Ask them about themselves - people like talking about themselves - and be interested in what they are saying

Let's have a look at the word Connect!
Join together, link, associate with, connection, connector (introduce to others).

Thesaurus
Attach, Couple, Fasten, Join, Tie, Unite, Bond, Hook up, Link up, Link, Interlock, Associate, Relate, Bond with, Get along, Correlate, Bracket together and Secure.

Communicate
"The basic building block of good communications is the feeling that every human being is unique and of value."

How do you Communicate with people?

There are people who, instead of listening to what is being said to them, are already listening to what they are going to say themselves. -Albert Guinon (1863 - 1923)

"People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." Bonnie Jean Wasmund

Trevor's own ministry, Faith Works Itinerant Ministries, is available for seminars, training programmes and teaching on a variety of topics; some that he specialises in is the Ministry of Helps seminars and team and leadership development.

For further information regarding any of the above courses or for Trevor's own ministry, please feel free to contact him direct at:

FAITH WORKS
PO BOX 2702 NERANG
QUEEENSLAND 4211
0412 380 444
E-mail : lifestylets@optusnet.com.au
http://www.lifestyletrainingschool.org
http://www.sysm.biz
He has CD's available and has written the following books and training manuals:

Ministry of Helps
Leadership & group facilitation
Where have we Robbed God?
Basic for Believers

The Word of God, The Character of God, Supernatural Prayer, Evangelism, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, Faith, Exposition of Ephesians (focusing on the new creation reality) Ministry Gifts & Talents, The book of Mark, Abundance, Worship, Apologetics, Marriage and family, Thou shall Prosper, Heroes of the faith.