“Sometimes by losing a battle, you will find a new way to win the war.”
Donald Trump

In the 2004 Summer Olympics, the Australian Women’s Eight rowing team stood in fifth place, three seconds behind the leading Romanian crew team 500 meters from the finish line. When the Aussie’s were inside 400 meters one of the eight women quit rowing. She dropped her oars and lay back resting her head on the lap of the rower seated behind her. The Aussies finished dead last, 10 seconds behind the next closest finisher.

Ever feel like one of your teammates isn’t pulling their weight in your company?

Fortunately for most of us, this is the worst failure we will ever experience, there are times and places in my past where failure could have meant, someone on your team, lost their life. I don’t want to dwell on that type of failure, I want to discuss, parents, peers/friends, leaders, and role models. Yes I believe each of those positions in life will have to endure some sort of failure at some point or another. It will be a great test for us as leaders, not necessarily the failure, but how we come out of it, and how we work to prevent it in the future. Because believe it or not, at some point in our lives, we will all experience failure.

I have been fortunate enough in my life to have had some great leadership example, one of them told me once,

Christ selected 12 men from among his early followers to become his closest confidants and, dare we say, His friends. After an intensive discipleship course (Basic Training) and following his resurrection from the dead, the Lord fully commissioned the apostles to advance God’s Kingdom and carry the Gospel message to the world.

These men became the pioneering leaders of the New Testament Church. But they were not without faults and shortcomings. Interestingly, not one of the chosen 12 disciples was a scholar or rabbi. They had no extraordinary skills. Neither religious, nor secular, nor skilled, they were ordinary people, just like you and me.

Let’s take a few paragraphs and look at their personalities and discuss where they fit on the “Team”, and what their role was on that team.

Theological lessons tell us that Peter was maybe the favorite. So was he the 1st Lieutenant?

What does it mean to be a Tactical Teammate?

It seems everywhere we look these days there is someone or something advertising a new product that is tactical. It seems to me that it is just a good way to charge a little more or to make something a little more interesting. One of the best definitions of Tactical that I have seen is this: “of, relating to, used in or involving small military operations, typically close to the base, with speed and efficiency and with less long term significance”. My background dictates that I have a slightly different definition, so I say tactical is having definite and specific goals, or being of a specific military or military-like design.

So I am sure you are asking; “What does this have to do with being a team mate? Or how can I apply this thinking to my team?” Let’s look at it from two ways, the corporate world, and our families.

For almost everyone, having a job means working on teams. But not all team leaders know how to create successful teams. They do not know how to lead either by building consensus, setting agendas, meeting deadlines, encouraging good ideas, and so on. In fact, many team leaders are thrown into the role without training in any of these areas. If your leader seems to be less than fully competent or committed, there are ways you can make the experience bearable, and even successful, without stepping on toes.

Maybe your leader isn’t setting the most positive course for the team. But you should still be the kind of person you’d want to work with. Before you start casting stones at others, make sure your team behavior is exemplary. Are you on time for all meetings? Do you complete your action items? Do you leave your ego at the door? Do you respect other peoples’ ideas and acknowledge their contributions? Do you attempt to build consensus?

Leaders must know how to manage conflict with in their team.

Conflict and honest debate among team members can be helpful because it provides an opportunity for team members to see other perspectives on the issues at hand. However, if team conflict cannot be resolved, it can undermine team goals and harm the working relationship between team members. If you understand strategies for resolving conflicts with your team, your team will accomplish more. There are many things to consider here, but the few that I want to focus on are training, depersonalization, the type, the clarification and the resolution process. Finally, I offer a quick call for follow-up.

The Challenge of Team Decisions

Using team input is challenging, and it takes preparation and time. As the saying goes, “If you put three people together in a room, you’ll probably get four ideas”. People often see issues differently, and they all have different experiences, values, personalities, styles, and needs. Team decision-making should therefore be used when you want to get participation and achieve agreement.

When time is of the essence, a good decision is one that’s made quickly. That doesn’t usually happen with full team decision-making. And when one or two people have the necessary expertise to make the decision, it doesn’t make sense to involve the whole team, the leaders provide most of the input and make the final choice anyway.

However, where the situation is complex, consequences are significant, commitment and buy-in are important, and where team members can work together maturely, team decision-making is often best.

Is a consensus necessary when making team decisions?

While many of the decisions we make on a daily basis are quite simple, some are not. These decisions may involve gathering a huge amount of information, exploring many different ideas, and drawing on other peoples experience. The consequences of the right or wrong decision may be profound for the team, the organization and the team leader.

So, should leaders be decisive, think the issues through on their own, and take firm action? In some cases, no, in some cases, yes.

As the leader of a team, it is likely that you will be working as hard, if not harder, than anyone else on the team. With that said, however, it is critically important that if you wish to serve as a leader for your people – not just as a “commanding officer” – that you possess several important qualities. One of these qualities is the capacity to “lead from the front”.

Leading from the front is one of those general catch phrases that you may have heard spouted ad nauseum at a leadership seminar or a national conference for high achievers. I have often heard that phrase used as leaders talk about how great they are, and how you can also be great by doing what they do, like they do it. However, I would like to present an alternative definition.