The road to a better team…

Every leader has EXACTLY the team they deserve.  This is a really hard truth to accept.

Recently one of my clients commented about how sad the state of his team.  They are mostly asleep and just going through the motions, he said.  I reminded him this is normal.  Most associates around this great gift we call “the working world,” are just doing enough to NOT get fired.  The world of work is mostly disengaged.  Follow Sully’s post on disengagement and Gallup’s research and you’ll find the melody line.

Mediocrity reins supreme.  It just does.  It doesn’t have to.  A simple law of physics will reveal the road to a better team.

Remember, mass attracts mass.

Want a better team, become a better leader.  Period.

Every leader gets exactly the team he or she deserves. The angry leader will attract a team that cowers, does what they’re told, and tries to creatively “stick it to the man.”  The driven leader will attract a team of drivers that runs through obstacles to get it done.  The problem is some of those obstacles are their team mates and some are those they are supposed to serve.  The compliant leader will attract a team that conforms, compromises, and complies.  This worked in the industrial age.  That ended a long, long time ago.  The occasional leader will attract a team that performs occasionally.  The absent leader will attract a team that performs one way when they’re here and another when they’re NOT.  The “country club” leader will attract a team that looks good on the range but can’t take their game to the course.  The conflict avoiding leader will attract a team that brushes most of it under the rug until the rug trips ’em up.

AND, the  leader that gained their leadership position by the power of their last name will have a hard time attracting at all.  This leader will first have to figure out how to work with the previous generations leadership legacy.  God, help him or her.

The leader that is working and living out his OPUS is another human altogether.  This “HUman” has a really cool, Overarching vision they believe is worth dying for.  It only makes sense, then, that they appear to really live it.  Funny, huh.  Their Purpose is the defining statement of their work and answers why they come in on Monday looking like they did on Friday.  Unifying strategies aren’t something they got from some Michael Porter session.  They slowly authored these in the dark and rinsed them with us out in the open and the real world.  These strategies make sense.  Lastly their Scorecard for significance is a meaningful measuring stick that isn’t used to beat the competition much less the team; it’s simply a means to measure progress.  This leader knows it’s all about progress and that progress is NEVER linear.  This leader attracts a team of folks that want to practice their OPUS with him or with her.  This team performs.  This teams performance is attractive.  Mass attracts mass.  Magic…

Want a better team, become a better leader.

AND, remember, OPUS is the one you want.