By: Philip C. Bolger, Senior Advisor
Compass Executives, LLC
During my formative years and long career, I’ve had the good fortune of affiliating with organizations that exuded teamwork as a core value, and subsequently attracted amazingly talented teammates. It allowed me to experience many teams that achieved extraordinary success, and frankly, some teams that woefully underachieved.
So what makes the difference? What is required to build high performing teams? In pursuit of answers, I was so blessed to know Dr. Frank LaFasto, Ph.D. Frank was a “Yoda” as an H.R. executive with pioneering expertise in building organizational effectiveness during my early career years at Baxter Healthcare. He made a significant, lasting impact by inspiring many aspiring minds toward developing team excellence as empowered leaders. I am forever thankful for his key teachings about Teamwork instilled in my career and in my life.
Frank taught 8 fundamentals of building high performing teams. Each of these fundamentals deserves a deeper evaluation to best understand their impact on building a team excellence culture. So today, we will focus on the foundation of which great teams are built...Principled Leadership...a leader’s ascribed core values that guide, and are shared by the team. They must be aligned and consistently patterned between their own attitudes, motivations, behaviors, decisions, communications and actions.
Principled Leadership alone is an important subject evidenced by entire books dedicated to the topic. It also is critical in building the foundation of a GREAT TEAM. Without it, teams will simply not sustain success long term.
What are the key attributes of a principled team leader? There is an abundance of amazing present and past leaders for sound guidance, both in life and in business. I’ll touch on two.
• Inspiring Vision – Martin Luther King, Jr. transformed society as the leader of the Civil Rights movement. His “I Have a Dream” speech inspired equality for all of humanity by challenging the darkness of racism. His memory continues as a guiding influence addressing critical issues of humanity today, 51 years since his death.
• Guiding Core Values - MLK lead the movement with the guiding principle that non-violent resistance engendered moral superiority. He brilliantly exposed racism in its ignorance and reactionary anger, hatred and violence that inspired societal transformative changes.
• Instills Trust - Herb Kelleher, Founder and Past CEO of Southwest Airlines transformed the airline industry into its greatest growth era by making leisure travel affordable for the masses. Leading with a servant’s heart at his core engendered the trust of his team, unions and other stakeholders, distinguishing Southwest from all other airlines. Trust was earned due to Herb’s belief in these 5 key “C” attributes...
• Camaraderie - Herb shared, “I’d rather have a company bound by love, not one by fear”. The “heart logo” of Southwest is emblematic of this legacy. He exuded fun in work. He treated others with respect and dignity, while building an esprit de corp team culture.
• Collaboration - Herb was an empathic listener. Teammate voices mattered. An employee shared, “Herb was uncanny at drawing you into a dialog that made you fill smart where your ideas were worthy”. He also detested tribalism “us versus them” behaviors as deadly to teamwork that was prevalent at other airlines.
• Commitment - Herb was passionately engaged by his own convictions, perseverance and determination to change the industry. He expected and appreciated the same commitment from teammates. In the early years, it was not uncommon for him to show up on Thanksgiving day to handle bags, and thanking others for the same dedication.
• Confidence & Competence with Humility - Herb had a uniquely effective combination of business acumen, intellectual inquisitiveness, and egoless, witty warmth about him that was disarming in building trust and engagement across his organization.
• Empower Teammates as Extended Leaders - Herb unleashed and supported the talents around him to believe in their high potential, and shared in his high expectations. He delicately balanced demonstrating human decency and respect while still being tough-minded. He valued diversity of ideas, experiences, and independent thinking that constructively challenged the status quo, provoking debates with sound reasoning and rational analysis.
There are so many other terrific highly principled team leaders we have experienced in business that also ascribe to these highly principled team leader attributes. I welcome hearing from you of other inspiring examples.
References:
1) “TEAMWORK” by Carl E. Larson & Frank LaFasto, 1989
2) inc.com, “3 Skills MLK Mastered to Become a Transformational Leader, 1/12/2018
3) Forbes, “Upon his Death” by Kevin and Jackie Friefurg, 1/4/2019