A CEO For All Time
For two millennia, people around the world have been observing it with traditions and practices that are both religious and secular in nature. Popular customs include exchanging gifts, decorating Christmas trees, attending church, sharing meals with family and friends and, for some, waiting for Santa Claus to arrive. Perhaps your family traditions are like these.
OWN YOUR TEAM’S DEVELOPMENT
It is very important that we, as leaders, determine what developmental stage our team is in, not only for the purpose of knowing our responsibilities, but because your team needs to work its way through the elements of each phase. There are valuable formation skills that are attained through each stage. Wise leaders regularly reflect on those under their care, both individually and as a team.
NORMING & PERFORMING
After the first two stages of team development, the third stage is called norming – the time when the team is actively working together. During the norming stage, most teams have achieved an open climate where team members express emotions constructively, willingly and confidently contribute to the team, and demonstrate caring attitudes about the team and organization. In this third stage team members are consciously skilled. The final stage of team development is performing – the time when the team is fully functional as individual members and in collaboration with other team members. During this fourth stage, team members are unconsciously skilled. Consequently, team members comfortably reveal their true selves and self-identify as an integral member of the team.
Making Others Successful: SUCCESS THROUGH COACHING
If you have ever played on a team, whether academic, athletic, or a hobby, you’ve experienced coaching. This individual who serves as “Coach” invests knowledge, understanding, know-how, personal experience, and study into making others more capable and successful in that specific field. Professionally, these individuals go by different names: supervisor, manager, director, trainer. But they all involve elements of coaching. Coaches prepare the team to successfully think through potential challenges, using the resources at hand to find solutions, and lead them into fruitful production and achieving goals.
Making others Successful: Servant Leadership
In the most basic terms, Servant Leadership is about meeting the highest priority needs of another person. As servant leaders, we must train ourselves to recognize our team members’ high priority needs and seek ways to meet them, but not their every whim. True servant leadership removes barriers and empowers people to get things done, while helping them grow. Leaders intentionally present opportunities as a means for growth to occur. These moments give team members a chance to rise to the occasion, while serving as environments to develop their own skills and leadership.