A team, when described in layman's language, would be a group of people with the right mix of professional skills working together. But, a successful team is not just that. Building up a strong team and for leadership development, it requires an equally strong and driven leader. Without a good and dedicated leader, the team is most likely to not function to its full potential.

Leadership development is mostly about leaders helping themselves and their team members to do the right thing, set directions, have an inspiring vision and just be innovative at every step. Leaders are responsible for driving the entire team towards the ‘win’.

As a leader, your vision of a team must be clear and here is how you can realize your vision of creating a great team:

Create a blueprint

An effective team is not just accumulating the best talent. Until a certain level it is true that hiring the right kind of people is the most crucial part of building a great team, but, delegating a task to the right person provides a team member more autonomy and motivates them to work harder. This is where leadership development takes a front seat.

However, managing a team is not as simple as it may sound. Leaders have to play a more hands-on role to make sure the team is properly functioning. Planning everything ahead and prioritizing the tasks makes them less hectic and helps the team to move forward smoothly towards achieving their goals.

It is also crucial to line-up each goal carefully for maximum effect. Because even the slightest miscalculation can take the entire team off-course over time.

Create your team’s culture

A group of people working together develops a culture of their own. As a part of leadership development, you have the power to decide which behaviors to encourage and discourage. Remember, with great power comes great responsibility!

As a leader, you need to ensure that the team works well with each other. Also, you need to look for opportunities to set-up guidelines for how people will work together.

Set the tone of organizational work-culture

Always remember, if your team members feel that they are not being respected, it is a drawback in your leadership development and the team won’t be motivated to bring their best ideas forward. Not being trusted is the biggest hindrance in an employee’s performance.

The untrusting environment implies that employees will always think twice before sharing their out-of-box ideas, out of fear of it being dismissed.

So, it is incredibly important for leaders to set a tone and a model of behavior for everyone to respect each other and encourage each other at the organizational level.

Take accountability

Every company must discuss the culture of accountability explicitly early on. As a leader, the biggest strength of ongoing leadership development is that you hold everyone accountable for their action and work, including your own self.

Working as a team, sometimes people tend to place the blame on to the next person rather than taking the accountability of it. If you want to be acknowledged for all the hard work, as a part of leadership development it is equally important to take account of any mistake.

With the right kind of communication, it becomes easier for an employee to own-up his or her mistake and they would definitely try to make amendments for the same.

Set Expectations for Feedback

How often you give feedback is as important as how you deliver it to the concerned person. Usually, an organization where there is a tradition of providing frequent feedback (good or bad), employees are not so alarmed when they receive criticism. In fact, they are more open to listening and acting upon it

Delayed feedback can have a corrosive effect on the work environment.

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