Weeding and Cultivating a Winning Team

I used to get so frustrated because I thought I was building unity and teamwork on my team, only to discover some of our employees were not interested in being on the same page. I understand the hard (sometimes discouraging) work being done in organizations everywhere.

This week, I spoke to a leader who had taken over a major operation to “right-the-ship.” He recently discovered many of his direct reports have been actively working against him behind his back. I spoke with another leader who told me it was her boss who was her problem because he was doing all he could to cause chaos and confusion. Her good people were retiring, quitting and finding better places to work. She added, “If you were successful under the last bosses, the new boss didn’t want you here.”

When this happens, it is called fragmentation: the process or state of breaking or being broken into small or separate parts. Team unity should be an intentional process on the part of the leader. Some just don’t know how to get it, so they divide the organization to conquer the insecurities they have about their own leadership abilities. Unity rarely just happens, especially if you work in a large organization. Ego gets in the way of team unity because unity requires the leader to let go of his/her ego in many ways.

I used to stay in this hamster wheel; chasing down who said what to who so I could hold them accountable. Short term it was exhausting, but somewhat effective. I wasted so much time/energy and accountability never seemed to last very long. So, I had to repeat the cycle again.

Then I discovered a better way. I began letting the weeds on the team weed themselves out while I cultivated the strong team players. It was so simple. I started Jeff’s Leader-to-Leader Program or L2L for short. I haven’t stopped doing it in over 10 plus years, it is powerful and a secret weapon to cultivating a winning team.

All plants thrive in the right environment. They will produce more growth and more fruit. When you walk into a negative culture how do you flip it to a positive environment? Surely there is an easier way? If you are already modeling personal growth habits, you will understand this process.

Leaders are not made, they are cultivated.

Jeff