Creating Great Leadership Teams

I was talking with a friend recently who said she had never experienced passion for her work and was now wanting to experience that. As she spoke, I had a visual ‘flash’ of my very circuitous career and spontaneously said: ‘I’ve never not been passionate about my work!’ I paused to feel the truth of my statement, did a quick introspective joining- the- dots backwards and said: ‘Gosh yes…that’s true.’ And we both looked at each other in surprise.

It's a big statement and I have been reflecting on it since. It’s not that I always find my work easy, flowing and I’m bouncing with happiness all the time. The phrase “If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life.” is either arrogant and/or ignorant. I prefer Steve Jobs’ comment: “Our work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do." 

Jobs is talking about creating excellence and this requires focussed dedication, a commitment to mastery… through humility and learning from our mistakes…and sheer hard work. It also means our heart has to be in it. We can be technically brilliant at something but if we don’t feel passion for it, we will never become excellent at it. Look at a concert pianist: they can be superb technically, but they will not move the audience if they are not feeling it in their hearts. This is what passion is.

In my current work, I am passionate about developing authentic leadership and also creating great leadership teams.

I realised many years ago that my passion for leadership was the result of both personally experiencing, and also witnessing, the great harm abuse of power has on others. My…originally unconscious…driver was to try and change that: to challenge abusive power and do what I can to encourage ethical leadership, owning one’s power cleanly and using it with wisdom and integrity. As I say to my clients: do you want to be Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader? With power comes the invitation and propensity for both and it is up to the individual to make the conscious choice: not choosing consciously to use our power cleanly will tip us unintentionally into abusing it.

I now understand why ethical leadership is so important to me. So, what’s my driver for creating high-performing leadership teams and why ‘leadership’ teams, beyond teams in general?

I’ve been working with teams for many years, and I experience deep joy witnessing the arc-dynamic with a group of people as they become a true team. Core to any teamwork is creating a circle of trust. It’s always about building trust: in themselves and with each other. They start off very aware of how different they are to each other and are…quite rightly… cautious about opening up to people who might not understand how or why they are different. But, through this process of shared vulnerability and connecting, the group becomes a beautifully bonded team that is not only deeply respectful of their diversity but also experiences a profound awe in their commonality, in how much they share as human beings. There is immense freedom in this learning on many levels.

As for me, what I love is witnessing profound change happening in front of me. I see this with individual clients of course, but there’s something extraordinary about witnessing a group of people transform together.

I have been blessed with being a member of… and also leading… many high performing teams. It’s huge fun and also satisfyingly productive, always my favourite combination at work! The experience of belonging to such teams is best summed up by a former client of mine: “A truly great team is comprised of a group of exceptionally talented people who build rare personal bonds and find incredible satisfaction in the team's collective achievements and in the social interaction the team offers.” Scott Satriano, Strategic Advisor with PwC to the world’s largest banks,

And I also know the frustration and misery of being in a bad team… and remember partners and families are also teams! …where there is no sense of trust or respect, where individuals feel unsafe and the only communication is one of conflict where the most dominant member wins.

These are my two key questions when working with teams:

1. ‘Why do we want you in our team: what you do and also who you are?’ (i.e., beyond your technical expertise, what are your strengths as a person?)

2.   ‘How might you sabotage our team?’ (i.e. how might your mindset and behaviour get in the way of great teamwork?)

The question of how we can sabotage a team is crucial to our personal happiness: how we are in a work team is no different to how we are in our personal lives. It’s easy when it’s going our own way and we can be gracious and cooperative, but how do we behave when it’s not going our own way? In what ways do we react and potentially sabotage ourselves and the team i.e., how do we take our ball home? Examples are: we physically walk out; we stay in physically, but we are not ‘present’; we are passive aggressive, pretending to comply but undermining the team in various ways, including backstabbing, cliques etc. Or we bulldoze through: it’s my way or the highway!

Once we understand our defensive behaviour, then we can do something about it. We can communicate to others: ‘This is why and how I behave when I am feeling threatened.’ It gives others a chance to understand us and be more tolerant and patient with us.

Understanding is not enough, of course. We need to change our behaviour, which takes time, so we do this by inviting ongoing feedback from our trusted inner circle.

The above questions are relevant for all teamwork. But how is a Leadership Team different from a regular team and why do I love working with them? The key difference is a LT is composed of high achievers who are leading their own teams and developing their leadership skills. Their focus is on themselves and they are brilliant at creating silos. And high achievers have usually been trained from a very early age to compete with their peers and to channel their individual drive and passion to succeed for themselves. Being a good team player demands a very different collaborative dynamic: it’s essentially the difference between Yang and Yin energy.

But Leadership is changing, because the workforce is changing: much of what we used to teach about Leadership is no longer relevant. Leaders now have to be simultaneously highly competitive and successfully collaborative. I have seen many talented stars hit their own glass ceiling and derail because they cannot make the necessary transition into the peer matrix.

What touches me most is that, beyond the workplace, this push/pull dynamic is at the heart of our most personal relationships. We are social animals, born with a deep need for intimacy and connection and we are also hunters born with a hunger for exploration, growth and freedom. This internal contradiction can cause much heartache for all concerned and yet if we can push through our fears and find that creative synergy, we will find the courage to connect and create something greater than we could individually. This is how all great teams, all great partnerships are made.

Hannah Elizabeth Greenwood