leading teams — The Latest at CCG — Carroll Consulting Group

Leadership Skills that will Excel over Technology

What can skilled leaders excel in that technology can't? According to research, it seems leaders who are strong-willed enough to be persuasive yet flexible enough to think differently and admit when they are wrong. This takes the type of vulnerability @BreneBrown talks about in her new book #DareToLead.

Being open-minded to new ideas or being wrong can trigger feelings of defensiveness or fear of not being in control. Yet without flexibility in thinking skills like creative analysis, imagination and strategic thinking are compromised. The below article looks at the traits important in walking the tightrope of having the willingness to change and the wisdom to know when you shouldn't. It's called Intellectual Humility and it's measured by: 1. Having respect for others viewpoints 2.Not being intellectually overconfident 3. Separating one's ego from one's intellect 4. Willingness to revise one's own viewpoint.

Organizations often ask me to share with them what great teams do to become great. I thought you might like to know this as well. So, I'll be posting one tip each week for the next four weeks. I encourage you to begin practicing the tip right away with your team.

This is tip #1. Great teams take time-outs to assess “how” they are doing "what" they are doing.

With more pressure than ever on teams to continue to improve their performance, there are several key team activities and ways of operating that keep teams on track. Over the next few posts, I will be sharing these processes with you. Let's get started.

It sounds pretty simple but with the speed at which teams must work, and their workloads, it happens rarely. Stopping to assess processes that are being used to accomplish tasks can reveal great gaps in communication, duplication of work and inefficiencies. Great teams schedule check-point meetings every 3 months. During these meetings teams discuss what they are doing well, and what could be improved with how they are working together and how they are doing their work. Teams that engage candidly in this process have never failed to find ways to improve productivity and meet timelines faster while reducing workloads. During one such meeting, one team came up with a process that shaved 3 months off their production schedule.

Stopping momentarily to get a bigger picture of the team’s process allows teams to work smarter and to take the time to improve relationships.