Leadership Team EffectivenessAntidotes to “6 Dysfunctional Leadership Team Behaviors…

Make sure everybody in your boat is rowing and not drilling holes when you’re not looking.
– Anonymous

The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime.
– Babe Ruth, considered one of the greatest baseball players of all time

The one who gets the most satisfactory results is not always the one with the most brilliant single mind, but rather the one who can best coordinate the brains and talents of his associates.
– Sir William Alton Jones, English philologist and jurist

My team interviewed executives at six top banks to gauge their teams’ level of candor. We found that the teams that scored the lowest on candor saw the poorest financial returns among those banks during the recent global economic crisis. In contrast, groups that communicated candidly about risky securities, lending practices, and other potential problems were able to preserve shareholder value.
– Keith Ferrazzi, “Candor, Criticism, Teamwork,” Harvard Business Review

Coast redwood trees can soar to more than 370 feet tall … redwood trees seldom fall over. Their shallow roots form an extensive system of intertwining threads that connect with the roots of neighboring trees, providing reinforcement against the powerful winds of winter storms.
– Visitor Guide, Redwood National and State Parks

With remarkable consistency, the data showed that the most important predictor of a team’s success was its communication patterns. Those patterns were as significant as all other factors — intelligence, personality, talent — combined. In fact, the researchers could foretell which teams would outperform simply by looking at the data on their communication, without even meeting their members.
– Alex “Sandy” Pentland, “The New Science of Building Great Teams,” Harvard Business Review

The leaders who work most effectively, it seems to me, never say ‘I.’ And that’s not because they have trained themselves not to say ‘I.’ They don’t think ‘I.’ They think ‘we’ they think ‘team.’ They understand their job to be to make the team function. They accept responsibility and don’t sidestep it, but “we” gets the credit … This is what creates trust, what enables you to get the task done.
– Peter Drucker, prolific research and author often called “The Father of Modern Management”

Great organizations become great because the people inside the organization feel protected. The strong sense of culture creates a sense of belonging and acts like a net. People come to work knowing that their bosses, colleagues and the organization as a whole will look out for them. This results in reciprocal behavior. Individual decisions, efforts and behaviors that support, benefit and protect the long-term interest of the organization as a whole.
– Simon Sinek, Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action