fbpx

How-to Win The Super Bowl Every Year

A modern sports team and a business environment rewards speed and agility. There is no time for a methodical march towards optimal impact. In my work coaching hundreds of leaders and teams, I have found there are two simple, interdependent ways for Elegant Leaders to fast-track their cultivation of high-performing teams.

Step One engages the heart by strengthening relationships amongst all employees.

Step Two appeals to the head by building alignment of how we successfully work together.

How Heart-focused leaders build a team?

Build Trust. Leading from the heart is demonstrated by confidence in your team’s talent. When you make it clear everyone, regardless of level, function or location, has substantial, sometimes untapped potential to contribute, you create the psychological safety necessary to achieve peak performance.

Create Social Cohesion. Elegant Leaders have strong emotional intelligence and build authentic, caring relationships with employees. They take time to get to know people beyond their work personas and apply knowledge about teammates’ personalities, values and experiences to inspire, motivate and develop others.

A Sense of Belonging. People-centric leaders emphasize the team’s collective identity, ensuring the group’s success supersedes that of any individual’s. It’s all about team success collectively. This positions the team as a source of pride.

How do Head-oriented leaders support team success?

They Align People. Leaders who are more task-focused begin by creating clarity about what the team aspires to achieve, why, how and when. They continuously return to these topics to check for shared understanding. When all team members agree on objectives, roles and implementation plans they act more autonomously, efficiently and with greater engagement.

Focus on Achievement. People who lead from the head help teams set measurable, ambitious targets then to do whatever it takes to achieve them. They ensure all team members have a hand in establishing a clear picture of success. They also ensure accountability for making that vision a reality rests on their shoulders.

Encourage Adaptability. Leaders that support their teams with an execution mindset empower them to test, learn and pivot as they pursue goals. They celebrate “fast failure,” making it clear that changing direction based on new information is a sign of strength, not weakness.

I’m not going to force you to choose between head and heart-oriented leadership, because you already have. I will caution you there’s a natural order of which leads first and getting it out of order will give you good maybe great results. But at what cost? Understand heart leadership is not emotional nor fuzzy. Head leadership is certainly linear and logical. We all have a natural bias. And, we are either part of the in-group or part of the out-group.

“Empower Your Day With Pervasive Hope”

Miles McPherson

Most leaders have a natural bias – they favor either heart- or head- oriented behaviors. Leaning into your less preferred style is a bit like writing with your non-dominant hand or riding a backwards bicycle. But if you want to accelerate your team’s path to thriving together, you have to excel at engaging people rationally and emotionally. That begins with heart-centered first and head-oriented second. Leveraging outside this order, the natural order, will have you combating in-group and out-group bias constantly.

Friend, trusted leader and former NFL player with a mission to deliver hope, bring unity and combat racisim, Miles McPherson will give you additional insights here.  Whatever your style, remember to submit your ego to what is right, honorable and true. It will become second-nature to you and will take you outside your comfort zone to greater results with your strongest relationships.