Are You Holding Back Your Team (and Yourself)?

In the last two weeks three very successful, highly competent, senior leaders who are executive coaching clients of mine have complained their team members seem to be lacking the energy, interest, and hunger they had previously demonstrated.

We can blame post-pandemic fatigue, the robust job market that provides options to many, and maybe even the summer blues. Or we can look at ourselves as leaders who may be playing a role.

I understand parents aren’t the only reason some kids don’t reach their potential and it is also true with team heads and their team members. It isn’t all anyone’s fault. That said, maybe you are an unintentional contributing factor holding back your team. Maybe you’re not sure what to do.

How can a leader influence quality execution, collaboration, and not hold back their team?

Let me ask you a few questions:

1. “Why are we here?” Survey your team members. What would they say? Would it be consistent among people in the group? Would you give the same answer? Without a shared mission, vision, and strategy there is little chance quality execution and success will occur. At best, people will get stuck with grueling, head down, never-ending, tactics.

   Propagating important beliefs and goals gives direction, outlines what success will look like, and how it will be measured. It shows pathways to the future. Hanging posters in the breakroom, saying it in the annual report, or mentioning it at a town hall meeting, does little to validate the ideas and says nothing about the “here and how to.”

   Repetition works. If you are lucky, listeners will hear 25% of what you say at the time you say it. They will remember less than 10%. In two months, they will have forgotten almost all of it. Because of this human trait, you, as the leader, need to be consistent and repetitive with your messages, in both words and especially actions. Otherwise, you risk holding back your team.

2. Does your team have trust and loyalty? If your team can’t trust you, they will not give you their best and will never feel or show loyalty. Psychological safety is essential in any group, even the workplace. Behavior is what develops or damages trust. If you are showing trust through ethical behavior, transparency, and success sharing, you will be seen as trustworthy. How you treat others, at all levels, will help your people believe you will consistently treat them in a similar way. Earning trust and loyalty takes time and effort. Losing it can be fast and permanent.
3. Do your team members fear mistakes? Hard to imagine any great figure in history never making a mistake. Why would your employees be any different? Criticizing rather than encouraging mistakes is a mistake on your part. People who know it is okay to try something different, be curious, ask for help, will take more calculated risks.

   The experienced leader understands people sometimes need to know more, require more resources or authority, have failed to give enough attention to the most important problem, listened to a poorly informed other, and all the many reasons humans come to a wrong conclusion. If they do not fear mistakes and believe you have their back, they will tell you the problem sooner, not hide the error, and will speak up or share their thoughts without trepidation. Leaders need to expect, even encourage, mistakes if they want original ideas and don’t want to be accused of holding back their team.

4. Does your team have a weak link? Is there a member of the team who is not competent or trying in their role? Are they a poor match to the culture? Could they be an asset to the firm in a different role? Are others forced to carry them? Weak links hold back the entire team and are a threat to everyone’s success, including yours. Their issues need to be assessed and discussed quickly and regularly, with a final decision date set. Action, whether it is termination, transfer, demotion (usually not successful), it needs to be handled professionally.

   Allowing the person to stay could result in others leaving, diminishing your image as a fair decision maker, while impacting collaboration. Holding on to a weak link holds back the success of the team and impacts your future. Teams are only as good as their weakest link.

5. Are you training and mentoring your team? Simply telling someone what to do is not training. Nor is giving them a pep talk. Training has to do with skills, processes, and approaches to managing people and projects. Teams and individual team members need commitment from you for all aspects of intellectual and behavioral growth. It can be formal and informal; it needs to be consistent with specific goals.

   Mentoring is the next level in employee growth. It shares experiences as a more advanced person. Internal or external executive coaches can play a part in this. Mentoring plans for new and varying projects, ideas, and exposure for people. Often it involves career direction. Quality mentoring and training is the primary reason people stay with their organization and specifically their boss. Both are important for the growth of team members and succession within and outside the team. It prevents holding you and the team back.

No person can be held responsible for the success or failure of another person. It’s their job, not yours. The role of leader is to guide, teach, encourage, and at times, correct. The leader who takes this approach accelerates the growth of their team. Those who fail to do so often remain as managers holding their teams and themselves in place.