Following before you Lead - from the Team Member's Perspective

I remember while reading the autobiography of Lee Iaccoca one aspect of his story that made a lot of sense to me. Lee said that his career as an executive began when on the first day working for Walter Chrysler, Iaccoca found himself working on the factory floor. Walter Chrysler believed that in order for his leaders to fully appreciate and understand the breadth of his organization, each member needed to first understand each and every aspect of the manufacturing process. The same holds true for any leader or future leader. In other words, before one could lead, they must first know how to follow. The best way to go about this is to be a member of a team.

Team building and team membership are two of the most critical stages in leadership development. Once a leader become entrenched in his or her position, they often forget what organization looks like from the employee's perspective. Team membership is complicated. When you first enter the team there is an assimilation period, a meet and greet if you will. Trust has to be built and if the person is successful, creditability will follow. In many instances, the existing group will test the waters with the new member by seeing how far they can push the person, before the person pushes back. There are also other complex issues. For instance, in the case of new organizations, business still has to be done even when the team is brand new. it is not unusual for members to jockey for position, hold back key information in order to look good to the leadership, or simply engaging the art of political positioning. However, before we discuss the negative side of team membership, let's discuss the positive side.

You can consider team membership very much like family membership. There is usually someone that is in charge, one or people who support the leader, the defiant brother or sister, and that peculiar uncle which no seems to speak to or talk talk about much. Now take a moment to consider of of the people who are part of your workplace team. As you can see there are direct connections between these two groups. Maybe the largest difference between these types of teams is that in the case of your natural family, there are many years to become familiar with the members, to assimilate to the environment, and to come to the realization that you really can't change your family and have to deal with each member's eccentricity. But what about the team that you work with everyday. This is voluntary membership given the fact that you have to work and provide for yourself and your family. The work family (team) in many instances is not as forgiving and in many instances could be quite complex and problematic. In this instance there is a definable difference that will require you to engage a special "relationship" toolkit in order to be successful.

The reality is, the ultimate goal of any team is to reach one or more goals set forth by the organization. When a team is assembled, whether short or long-term, the group is responsible for producing a work product, service, or function defined by the system the groups serves. Members have to find a workable relationship to fulfill this requirement. However, there are many factors that can and do in many instances affect performance and ultimately, work output. Issues such as interfering outside forces, egos, and accountability rank at the top of the non-performing team list. Another issue is the fact that not ever member is motivated to succeed or lack commitment to the project, organization, or the rest of the team. The question then must be, how can we get the group to be productive, to care for its members, and reach the assigned goals? Rest easy reader, there are processes and mechanisms that can be set into motion to address these complexities.

To be continued...