This is a guest post by Joe Anand, President and CEO of MecSoft Corporation, a worldwide leader in providing computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) software products for the small to mid-market segments. Joe is a proven expert in Software Development, Mechanical Engineering, Entrepreneurship and project management and sales.
It is “better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.”
This famous quote from Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince is still employed by those seeking to build teams. A leader who commands his team by fear – either by loss of job, public humiliation or career suicide – can be effective. A case in point is Steve Jobs, the very epitome of someone who led using Machiavelli’s quote. The unfortunate reality, however, is that such Machiavellian leadership occurs far too often.
That said, another quote, equally relevant, from John Quincy Adams, the 6th President of the United States goes like this: “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” Those leaders who earn the loyalty of their team through their own selfless conduct don’t need to use fear tactics.
Given these two opposing tendencies toward team building, here are some best practices you can use when building your teams that avoids the Machiavellian approach.
Define Company Culture and Hire Based on Those Criteria
The way you act as a leader should be admirable enough to be emulated by other members of your team. According to Harvard Business Review, the six components of a great company culture include vision, values, practices, people, narrative and place. The culture of a company can be defined by a common set of values, goals and beliefs that relate to the way each individual thinks about the organization and its mission.
Particularly important is the company’s vision. The vision defines values and mindsets needed to achieve the organization’s aspirations. The people within the company must identify with the vision and its accompanying values to create a cohesive culture. The workplace that is formed creates an atmosphere that spurs positive interaction.
Encourage Communication and Information-Sharing
MIT’s Human Dynamics Laboratory discovered that cohesive teams generally perform better. A key reason for this higher performance is that team members had a high level of open communication. MIT’s research suggests that team members should communicate with one another both informally and formally in a variety of situations, to include socializing with their teammates away from their office cubes. One call center that heeded MIT’s suggestions for team building was able to improve efficiencies by more than 20 percent and saw a rise in employee satisfaction.
As good as it is, the mere process of communication isn’t enough to improve the way a team is actually interacts. Attitude is just as important. Team members should be encouraged to be positive and supportive in their manner of speaking and in their body language when interacting with others. This approach is even more important when conflict or difficult conversations arise. A good attitude and forthright feedback among team members results in increased confidence, sharper problem-solving, and higher performance.
Use Assessments
Many companies turn to assessments to help them put teams together. Assessments are valuable tools that can be used to measure emotional intelligence, productivity, teamwork, communication styles, and personality types, among others.
For example, you can use assessments to help you select for the personality traits you are looking for within your team. If you know you need a worker bee as a team member because you already have a leader in place, you can assess potential hires who exhibit cooperative personality traits. In this way, you can increase the odds of the new hire meshing with the rest of the team and ramping up to productivity more quickly.
The bottom line is that it’s one thing to read a resume and conduct in-person interviews, but it’s quite another to get data-backed evidence as to what someone’s capability will really be like.
You Set the Tone for Team Building
As the leader of your organization you will be setting the tone for the values, vision and culture that defines the way you work and conduct business. As such, you should not merely leave it up to chance to build your team but instead define the type of organization you want, encourage communication to spur team cohesiveness, and hire based on the traits you need to produce high performing teams.
So don’t be a Machiavelli and rule by fear. Rather, be a Lincoln and set up your team to give it the best possible chance of achieving the organization’s goals. For Lincoln that meant creating a “team of rivals.” If anything, you’ll be favorably judged by another Machiavellian criteria: the first method for estimating the intelligence of leaders is to look at the people around them.