Ren Zhengfei once talked about the relationship between bosses and employees in an interview, "Huawei does not have a boss, and the boss also works and works every day", "Employees are the future bosses", which reveals the attitude of leaders to integrate into the team and do it themselves.
It is precisely this right balance that motivates Huawei to achieve high-performance teams to the greatest extent.
So, if you want to build a high-performing team, how should managers view their relationship with their team members, and how should they balance their own control and decision-making power?How to improve team effectiveness when all the personnel, capabilities, goals, and working methods are in place?
Jon R. Katzen**, Director of PwC USA and former Director of McKinsey, shares the core principles of becoming a high-performance team leader and the 6 things you must do to become a good leader in the book "High-Performance Teams".
Always put team performance first and acknowledge the need for help.
As a team leader, your attitude towards your team and subordinates is crucial. To better understand this, let's first look at the story of a person in charge of the logistics department of the US military during the Gulf War.
On his first day in his new role, Colonel Randy Gale declared that he was different from his predecessor, Carl.
Gale's department is the logistics organization within the U.S. Army's planning department (hereinafter referred to as the "Logistics Department"), which is responsible for the safe withdrawal of soldiers, equipment, and supplies to the United States after the Gulf War.
Although Gail was familiar with the logistics management business, he was not as experienced as Carl, which was a huge challenge that had never been seen before. It's like moving the whole of Wyoming to a new location, and you can see how difficult it is.
Gale knew that without the 100 percent contribution of the entire logistics department, he would not be able to meet the challenges at hand alone. "I don't have the professionalism and principled nature of Carl," he said. Carl is the best person, the smartest person, I'm not. ”
So at the beginning, Randy Gale denies himself and makes it clear to his members that he wants and needs their help.
We've found that for people to work together as a team to achieve a common goal, it is important to have Gail's attitude, rather than emphasizing the leader's own personality, reputation, or status.
Only teams can succeed and fail" begins with the belief that the leader. The work of a good team leader includes defining common and segmented goals, building commitment and self-confidence, strengthening the team's collective capabilities and working styles, removing external barriers, and creating opportunities for the rest of the team.
But the most important thing is that the team leader should be as hands-on as everyone on the team.
At the same time, team leaders must be able to perceive when their actions will hinder the team's work, and also know how much their patience can greatly improve the team's vitality.
In other words, the performance of a team depends almost entirely on the leader's ability to maintain a balance between doing things themselves and delegating things to others.
And in the process, its attitude is everything.
You have to admit that you don't know everything, and you have to understand that you can't solve everything on your own, and you don't need to make decisions ...... everythingAt the same time, a good leader will firmly believe that he cannot succeed without the joint efforts of his team members. As a result, all actions that may limit the team's input or limit any member will be avoided.
Good leaders are masters of "balance".
Since a leader's attitude and behavior are so important, can it be Xi?Of course.
1.To be a good leader, you must learn to delegate power.
The right attitudes and behaviors of leaders are neither difficult to learn nor difficult to practice, and most of us can do it. But in a business setting, few people can do this practice on their own.
This is because authority often means the ability to command and manipulate subordinates, as well as to make all difficult decisions, and is sometimes referred to as the "absolute power of managers".
This type of manager sees his or her "omniscient" attitude as an effective way to support and facilitate the operation of the working group, but it also weakens the likelihood of potential team leaders. It's not that team leaders don't have good decision-making or control, both are equally important to the team.
However, the level of performance of the team ultimately depends on the team's decision-making and control, as well as the team's heroes. This requires the whole team to share the risk of conflict, trust, interdependence, and hard work.
None of this would happen if it was always up to the leader to make the final decision, and we could not guarantee that the leader would "never make a mistake".
Therefore, transforming a team from a potential team to a real team requires the leader to give up some control, which means that he has to take some real risks.
Of course, it's not something that can be done simply by releasing all decision-making power to potential team members.
The real challenge is that leaders must give up as much space for decision-making as possible only when the team is ready to accept and use free decision-making.
Too many directives can stifle members' ability, initiative, and innovation, but too little guidance, instruction, and regulation can lead to the same consequences.
2.How can leaders avoid "managing" too much?
Since each team has its own distinctive characteristics. As a result, the delicate balance of how much is right varies from team to team.
We must understand that there is no standard model approach that can guarantee success for leaders. The role of a leader is never static, and his or her responsibilities change dramatically as the team progresses.
In this process, the official authority of the leader remains the same, but when, if, and how it is used is changing.
Therefore, the core of the evolution of the leader's role is to figure out whether the leader needs help when his team is operating. This is also the gold standard for judging whether you are "managing" too much.
The team leader is like the deciding substitute who needs to be there when needed.
No one underestimates the importance of a team leader in the success or failure of a team, and neither the leader nor the team members are expected to be the sole decision-maker. In the very beginning of the story, Gail, the head of the logistics department of the US military, did this very well.
Leaders must demonstrate a strong belief in the team's common goals and trust in their team members and the community as a whole. This belief is empowering and can motivate and inspire potential team leaders to act naturally and create a true team.
Excellent team leader.
There are 6 things that must be done.
So, what are the characteristics of a high-performing team leader, or are there some things that must be done?
In "High-Performance Team", the author also gives 6 suggestions based on his decades of experience in PricewaterhouseCoopers and McKinsey:
1.Everyone ensures that the team's common goals, segmented goals, and working methods are relevant and meaningful.
All teams must develop common goals, segmented goals, and working methods.
While the leader is necessarily the core of the team, everyone expects the leader to maintain a sense of distance and focus on helping the team clarify and believe in the mission, goals, and approach.
Of course, bosses can't overstate this. This creates a sense of distance between you and your teammates, which is contrary to the way teams work.
Any advice you give may be interpreted as a command, limiting or even stifling the energy, creativity, and motivation of your team members. This is very common in the business environment.
As a team leader with a knack for trade-offs, you should be patient and calm when the team discusses details of common goals, segmented goals, and working methods that go beyond the topic itself.
2.Build commitment and confidence.
Team leaders should be committed to cultivating the commitment and confidence of the individuals and the team as a whole, which is what we often call vision, to give greater positive social value to the work they do.
While there is a world of difference between individual commitment and responsibility and the mutual responsibility of members, both are necessary for every group to become a true team.
Therefore, leaders must consider both the individual and the team, and strive to provide positive and constructive reinforcement measures to ensure that the team produces this "team spirit", but also take care to avoid leadership-style threatening behavior.
Within the enterprise, it is easy to coerce and suppress others in the working group.
This type of oppressive group leader is often unconvincing, and members lose their passion and initiative in the face of a fearful leader, and naturally do not integrate as a team.
The team's combat effectiveness, activity, and creativity will also slowly collapse, and then the team's performance will be low.
It can be seen that positive and constructive reinforcement measures help to build a sense of responsibility and confidence in the team, and help the team's performance take off.
3.Enhance the integration and level of ability.
Effective team leaders are very sensitive to competence because they have a clear goal: the team that can adapt and achieve high performance will inevitably be made up of all-round members who have all the technical, functional, problem-solving, decision-making, interpersonal and teamwork skills needed for the team to function.
To achieve their goals, team leaders must encourage team members to take the risks needed for growth and development. And you need to help team members improve their abilities by constantly setting tasks and changing role patterns.
In order to achieve their goals, the team will encounter many unprecedented difficulties and challenges, and in the process, everyone must constantly push themselves to grow in order to meet the long-term and performance goals.
4.Manage relationships with people outside the team, including removing impediments.
People outside and inside the team always expect team leaders to handle most of the team's relationships with other organizations.
This requires the team leader to effectively communicate the team's common goals, segmented goals, and working methods to anyone who may be able to help or hinder the team.
Leaders must also have the courage to mediate on behalf of the team when obstacles that stand in the way of everyone can weaken the team. Mutual trust is extremely important to the team, and this trust often begins with the leader showing that the members can rely on him to achieve team performance.
5.Create opportunities for others.
Team performance is not achievable if team leaders have all the best opportunities, tasks, and credit in their hands.
So, as a leader, the real challenge for you is to provide opportunities for the team and team members to perform. For example, let a member with a little less seniority but outstanding ability coordinate a more important project, and give him the opportunity to practice independently.
This does not mean that leaders abdicate their responsibilities to guide, supervise, and control. You should participate in meetings on the project to keep track of progress and provide support when members need help.
At the same time, in a good organization, truly active leadership tends to be given to different members depending on the situation. In this way, the strengths of different members can be better brought into play, and the whole team can be given better opportunities to grow.
6.Leaders must be practical.
The amount of work done by members of a real team, including the leader, should be roughly similar.
Although team leaders may have some distance from the rest of the team due to their status and position, it does not mean that they will "sit on the sidelines and make decisions".
Team leaders must be hands-on and on the front lines, just like everyone else.
In addition, team leaders cannot afford to leave the "mess" to others. At the same time, the more high-risk work or "worse mess" appears, the team leader should step up.
When the work is done, the people call me natural."
Finally, you must also remember that there are two important things that a true team leader would never do: never blame or allow specific individual failures, and never make excuses for the lack of performance of their own team.
Because in a company, everything is a team action, and there is never such a thing as an individual failure.
Finally, Lao Tzu has a passage that can fully explain the qualities that an excellent team leader should have, and I encourage you here: "Taishang, I don't know what I have." Secondly, it is praised by relatives. Secondly, fear it. Secondly, insult it. ......When the work is done, the people call me natural."”
Contents**: High-Performance Teams
*From: China Cornerstone Management Review.