Staffing & Culture | 02.08.23
5 Leadership Strategies To Build a Championship Team
by: BISA Staff
As we head into the most popular sporting weekend of the year, we’re reflecting on the steps teams take to get to success. In football, leaders play a major role in building championship teams, and in the business world, it’s no different.
Here are 5 mentalities that “winning” leaders portray — and how to get there. You may find yourself relating to these Super Bowl coaches more than you thought you could.
Emotional Intelligence
Emotional Intelligence, as described by Harvard Business School Online, is defined as an individual’s ability to recognize and manage emotions in themselves and others. This skill, although not easy to develop, is necessary in the making of a championship leader. By developing your emotional intelligence, you enhance your flexibility, understand your team’s boundaries and connect with them on a respectful level, enabling them to trust your judgment and honesty as you create a winning team.
According to the Harvard Business Review, leaders who show emotional intelligence listen, acknowledge, care for and take action to support staff and address challenges. Learn more about the power of emotional intelligence on BISA Portfolio.
Communication
Communication is critical in maneuvering a team’s collaboration and successes. In our daily lives, communication is essential. Not only does this include dialogue, but it includes honesty, perspective and an open-door policy. In order to “win” in the corporate world, communication is essential to ensure progress for all parties involved.
Wallace Harris, president of BMO Investment Services and a BISA member, shared strategies for powerful communication on BISA Portfolio:
- “ It is much more than saying the right thing — the messaging should be clear and concise, incorporating empathy with a generous dose of authenticity. “
- “The most significant opportunity for communicating effectively in a digital age is that we have more platforms available to deliver information in various formats. There is no longer a one-size-fits-all method for communication — messaging can now be personalized and delivered in the format the audience wants to receive.”
- “[During a crisis] it is essential to be transparent, share information promptly and admit when you don’t have the answers. During a crisis, it is also better to over communicate and be redundant to avoid anyone not hearing or misunderstanding your message.”
Adaptability
In order to create an efficient team, you need to adapt to different communication styles, methods of learning, acceptance of feedback and understanding that every individual on your team might have a different way of executing. As a leader, take the time to know and understand your team’s different styles in order to work on understanding them yourself.
Here are a few strategies:
- Embrace diversity. Instead of allowing only one right way to get something done, realize that different methods can actually have big benefits for your team. Diversity is proven to increase success.
- Focus on strengths. Gallup found that if a manager focuses on employees’ strengths, instead of weaknesses, 99% are engaged staff members.
- Set a clear game plan. Ensuring your team knows their role and why they’re doing what they’re doing builds a strong foundation that allows team members with different workplace needs and styles to work together towards the same goals. As Arthur Osman shared on BISA Portfolio, “Preparing for a conference presentation, preparing for a client meeting, preparing for a strategy meeting, whatever it is, preparation is key.”
Self-Awareness
Having a healthy relationship with your own self-awareness as a leader can help you fully digest, recognize and control your emotions during times of stress, pressure or even spirited events. Being self aware enables you to gauge how your staff perceive you, so you can identify your weaknesses and know where to improve.
Here are a few ways to develop self-awareness:
- Take time to reflect. Super Bowl coaches and business leaders alike have full schedules, but if you’re constantly pulled in different directions, it can be tough to reflect on what you’re doing well and what you could be doing better. Schedule time in your day to evaluate your progress – even if it’s as simple as jotting down three things you learned every day at 5 p.m.
- Identify patterns. Does staff morale tank every time you skip your morning coffee before a big meeting? If you’re able to identify this, that’s some serious self-awareness – perhaps you could start prioritizing caffeine breaks!
- Do something outside work. Whether it’s volunteering at a food pantry or helping coach your child’s sports team, getting away from the pace of your everyday routine can help you put things in perspective, improving your empathy, communication and self-awareness.
Resilience
Not everyone can win the Super Bowl. But coaches don’t quit if they lose. Instead, they take stock and learn from their mistakes. In the business world, too, leaders fail every day. Sometimes, what you see as a perfect pitch misses the mark. Leaders who push through failure are resilient — and resilience brings growth.
In BISA Portfolio Podcast Episode 12: Circle of Excellence Awardees on Cultivating Growth, Ram Nagappan and Howard Hammond shared their strategies for pushing through times of stagnation:
- Make a change if you need to. Howard felt stagnant at his past company but wasn’t sure at first about transferring. When he took that leap of faith, it was better than he could’ve expected. He said:
- “I think that sometimes people … let their career happen to them. You see a pattern of folks that are successful and make it reaching out and trying to figure out ‘hey, what do I need to do to get better? What connections do I need to make to make sure I get the next opportunity?’ I’m constantly trying to coach, mentor and help people get to that next step.”
- Ram suggests gaining a different perspective. Instead of growing horizontally, grow vertically, meaning focus on finding ways to meaningfully impact your company. Increase your value proposition, bring in new ideas and help reimagine the experience.
Whether you’re leading a team of two or 50, adopting these winning mindsets will help you build a championship team (even if they couldn’t win the Super Bowl!).