Every day leadership insights, leaders have to face challenges, take the heat and embrace pressures. Then how do they inspire their teams to show up and rise up to the challenge ahead? How do they motivate their people to stand up for each other and sacrifice with a selfless attitude?

When you lead a team which is on a winning spree, leadership becomes a privilege. You enjoy the role. And you become better at leading teams. Leading great teams doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time. It requires highest level of self-leadership.

How do you prevent one person overshadowing everyone else on team?

Leadership Insights #01
Answerability

Teams either win or lose. Whatever the outcome is, everyone has a stake in it. Blaming each other doesn’t help teams win. Teams that hold each other accountable, generate extra ownership and trust. Every member should be answerable for two things: personal contribution to the team objectives, and personal accountability for

achievement or non- achievement of the collective goals. This surely asks for personal sacrifices to win together.

Leadership Insights #02
Everyday Discipline

In the final game, the team that wins the gold is not hugely different from the one that doesn’t. The winning teams exhibit small daily habits. Members behave in a certain manner every day without failing. Leaders of these teams challenge members to reflect daily on their individual contribution to the overall team effectiveness. This daily discipline allows teams to build on their strengths every day and achieve a level of performance that other teams cannot.

Leadership Insights #03
Cultivate Trust

In high performance teams, leaders build trust at two levels. First at the individual level and then at the team’s level.

Team trust can only become a reality if every individual on team trusts himself as well. We can call it self-trust. And what does this self-trust mean? It means sticking to what is right, not taking things too personally, refusing to make assumptions, being authentic, being honest in expressing your feelings and thoughts and giving your best to the team.

Leadership Insights #04
Purposefulness

Teams having an enormous sense of purpose outperform those who don’t. Without believing in the ‘why’ of team, they cannot achieve the ‘how’ of team. Members with a deeper sense of purpose channelize efforts in a common direction with ease and excellence. Teams that wander aimlessly cannot compete with a purposeful squad.

Providing your team a sense of meaning and purpose instills an unstoppable desire to surpass expectations and set new performance benchmarks.

Leadership Insights #05
Openness

Winning teams create an open culture. Everyone feels free to share their heart out. Establish in the very beginning the ground rules. Let your team share their ideas in setting up the fundamental principles that will govern this team. Ask them how they would like this team to operate? What values would they like to adhere to? Against what benchmarks would they like to evaluate team’s performance?