A leader lets the team play

Every weekend our televisions and internet feeds are full of sport: clips of great plays, goals scored and adversities overcome. Yet if you step back and take a bigger-picture point of view, there are some real powerful lessons about leadership right there in front of us.

If you could take away your knowledge of who’s who on the team and the roles they play, and just watch the interactions between the players, you would find it a challenge to identify the captain of the team.

Why is this? Elite sporting teams have significant clarity in the roles each member plays and their end-point, thus people trust people will act and deliver the outcomes in a defined way. The role of the captain is to oversee this process, not control it on a game-by-game, day-by-day basis.

Teams and leaders are judged on outcomes, simple as that. Therefore if there is someone who can contribute, guide or lead better in a given situation to reach the desired outcome, the mature leader encourages that person to step up. Although this isn’t the wild west where anything goes, the key to success is that every team member knows the boundaries and expectations of the team and will act within these.

Recently I was completing a team day with a group of men in the resource industry that included an apprentice, operational staff, a supervisor and a General Manager. At the start of the day, I set them a difficult team task that would test their conflict-management skills and their ability to define roles and responsibilities.

After about 3 minutes of conversation, the apprentice tentatively started to give his suggestion as to a possible solution. I was surprised to hear it was the correct solution. Although, before the apprentice could explain, the General Manager interrupted him and said: "He is new to the team and to the apprenticeship, and as such, would speak when spoken to." The apprentice retreated into his shell. I had to bite down hard not to respond at the time.

The group spent a total of 4 hours on the task. Finally, they got to the solution. During the (wild) celebrations of success, they each noticed the disappointed look on my face and the room eventually fell quiet.

I highlighted that the solution was right there in front of them within 3 minutes of commencing the activity and that they had missed it. Not because it was a cryptic solution; because of the processes the team had implemented. I walked them through what had happened and, to the credit of the General Manager, he took full responsibility and made a commitment to change this type of behaviour in the workplace.

Although the General Manager’s response was unusually intense, this sort of strategy is observable in workplaces every day.

Teams are about outcomes. Are you the leader who allows that to occur? Or are you the leader who gets in the way?