Is one of our jobs as leaders to develop other leaders? I think it may be our most important job. As I strive to be a leader, I often try to use qualities I see in people I consider leaders to complete my objective. As parents are we grooming our children to be good parents? Are we properly grooming our team mates to be leaders someday? I once asked a friend of mine, who is a teacher, how he managed to deal with 20 to 24 high school age kids every day. His response is something that has stuck with me for years, he said “He understands he is nurturing a flower he may never see bloom.” As leaders should that be our mantra? Are we preparing our teams for future leadership?

With how the world is today, there are a lot of distractions that can prevent people from performing at their best on a Team. Whether it’s stress on the task itself, or worries about home life, or simply being distracted by other things that you do on your own time, any lack of focus can be detrimental. As a leader, you need to rely on your leadership skills to bring everyone’s focus back on the task at hand and ensure that everyone is doing their best.

One of the great traits of a leader is the ability to keep their team focused on the mission, while still allowing everyone to excel and be successful at the same time. The ability to ask for input along the way, without anyone getting side tracked. Encouraging teammates to come up with new ideas, as long as they do not deviate from doing anything else that they become disruptive or counter-productive to the task is one of the most important leadership skills you can have.

It’s very easy to find your team in a scattered state of affairs, either physically or mentally. And it’s equally as easy to

Unity is the key. Whether we’re talking about a sports team, work team, school team, seal team, church team, or home team (family), it’s essential that we get everyone on the bus and moving in the right direction with a shared vision, focus, purpose and direction. When a team comes together, and stays together, they are able to succeed together.

But if unity is so important then why aren’t more teams more united you might ask? Why are there so few great teams and so many average and dysfunctional teams? The answer is simple. It’s not easy to bring people together. Agendas, egos, politics, power struggles, negativity, poor leadership, mismanagement, complaining, whining, and a lack of vision, focus and purpose all prevent a team from uniting and performing at their highest level. Leaders, how much of this can we prevent?

The bad news is that there are hundreds of negative forces and factors that can sabotage your organization, teamwork, unity and success. The good news is that unified teams show us it is possible to overcome them. There is evil around us everywhere, destroying families, undermining work groups, and tearing down churches. Supporting, and keeping our Teams together is the most important thing we can do. Christ said we, the people make up the church, and I’m saying the unity of the people is most important on any team.

Unity happens when leaders are committed to and engaged in the process of building a united, (successful) winning team. It requires focus, time, and energy. Unity occurs when team members care more about the vision, purpose, success and health of the organization than they do their own personal agenda. Changing or developing the mindset is essential. Unity happens when each person on the team can clearly see how their personal vision and effort contributes to the overall vision and success of the team. This involves meaningful conversations, and exchanges. This results from weeding out the negativity that sabotages far too many teams. The dissolution of a team, of any kind, is painful.

The great news is that the process of unification of a team, no matter how long it takes, is a beautiful thing. Think of how awesome a father daughter dance is at a wedding; think about what the perfectly executed football play looks like. I have heard from leaders who have increased their productivity and performance by simply developing unity. I don’t think any of this is difficult, it just requires COMMITMENT. When all members are committed team unity is a foregone conclusion. I wish that for you and your team.

Leaders are we promoting unity? Fathers are we supporting and being involved in all aspects of our families lives? Pastors are you making periodical visits to all outreach ministries? Bosses are we involved in our companies off property gatherings? Commanding officers, are we spending time with our men, in the real difficult time, the off time and the training?

I have to be the first to admit; I am not doing all I could be.

Photo credit: koalazymonkey / Foter.com / CC BY
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Photo credit: Neil T / Foter.com / CC BY-SA

Being on a team can be a great opportunity for us to pool our skills to reach goals and achievements that would be difficult by ourselves. While good teams take advantage of talent and increase effectiveness, teams that don’t work well together can be a source of frustration. Understanding the advantages and disadvantages of being on a team, and recognizing team members strengths, allow leaders to place them in a situation to be successful.

One of the greatest advantages of being on a team is being able to divide up the work and reduce the load on each person. On a Team that I participated in once we also cross trained each other so if there was a failure or a loss, we were still an effective team. Each member gets focus on doing the part he is best at. A downside to this division of labor is that there are some individuals who take advantage of others and fail to do their part. Are there people like this in your family? Are there people like this in your peer group at work? Are there people like this in your clique at church? Is it you? Are you walking by the young man there by himself with your head down, so you don’t have to talk to him?

In this series of articles, I am calling “On the Team” Tuesdays, I hope to explore our families, our churches and our friendships as “Teams”, and how that applies to us as the leaders within those teams. I will be applying some military strategy and doctrine to help illustrate my points, so if that offends you, I apologize upfront.

Let’s start with our team ethos:

• I will always place the team and the mission first.
• I will never accept defeat, I will never quit.
• I will never leave a teammate, or a fallen comrade behind.

I think there are team and leadership lessons right here in this three line statement.

Who the team is; is pretty obvious, but what is the mission?