Leadership is not about you.

It’s not about you.  It’s not about your success. It’s not about your work.  It’s not about your salary,  paycheck, benefits, amenities.  It’s not about your intelligence,  experience,  knowledge.  It’s not about your professional attire,  your height,  your good looks.

Leadership is not about you.

Organizations are made of people.  Without people,  leaders and organizations are irrelevant. For leaders to be successful,  people must be successful.

It’s about the people.

Genuine leaders understand they are only successful when their team thrives: when all are passionate about their role in achieving success for their customers.

1)  They achieve a level of trust that team members often don’t give each other…because they genuinely care. They work toward transparency, clarity.  They manage conflict and practice openness.

2)  They understand success is shared by the organization and measured by the customer. Genuine leaders see themselves within a larger structure. They live and share the mission of the organization

3) They specialize in understanding others. They work to help others achieve personal success on the team or in other areas that help the organization achieve the mission.

4) They celebrate risk and tolerate failure. They have your back. They understand the valuable benefits of innovation for the people and the business. The status quo is not enough.

5) They work themselves out of a job. Leaders transfer knowledge to empower others to be successful. They seek opportunities for others to step into their role and learn.

Leaders understand the value in developing others. They coach,  encourage,  and empower while they effectively manage the work and organizational dynamics.

Leaders understand it is not their win,  their success,  or their competition.  It’s the people working together as partners to achieve success for the whole- that is what leadership is all about.

When leaders truly lead,  their teams experience 33-40% increase in productivity.  I have observed these stats first- hand. People are happier,  more likely to achieve a level of loyalty that is quite rare.

So what is holding us back from strong leadership? What can we do individually to “manage up” and help others be more effective at the work they want to do?

Be the Worst Player on Your Team

I play volleyball weekly.  It’s one of my passions, and also one of the best analogies to discuss leadership and team dynamics.  Even at the Executive level, people love to talk sports!

Below are 6 lessons I have learned from playing volleyball that easily apply to leadership.  Use them with your team and see what happens…

1)  If you’re the best player on your team, you’re not challenging yourself.   I talked with a referee once after a match.  The referee gave me some pointers about my serve and hitting form, and then said to me, “Carolyn, you know you’re the best player on your team, right?”  I knew what he was saying:  I needed to find a new team.

In volleyball, it’s helpful to play alongside teammates who are better than you so you can intimately learn from them.  If you’re the best player on your team, you’re more likely to get lazy and complacent and less likely to hone your own skills.

This same theory applies to work as well. If you’re not challenging yourself by surrounding yourself with people you want to learn from, you are more likely to become complacent and disengaged.

2)  Not all coaches are great players.  The best coach who brought my high school team through play-offs and almost to state (closer than we’d ever been), learned how to play volleyball by watching great players, reading manuals, and by googling volleyball plays on-line.  He was more interested in learning how he could use the team’s skills to play a great game rather than playing the game himself.

At work, we often assume that the best worker on the team would be the best supervisor of the team.  Over the years, we’ve found that often it’s to our detriment to promote the best worker on the team because they want to get in the details of the game and not work to organize a powerful team.

3)  Cross-training keeps the team alive.  In volleyball, you never know when a team member will be injured.  Not only do you want to have a strong bench, but you also want to have every player understand clearly what changes when a team member is off the court.  The only way to achieve confidence with change is to practice.

At work, we often have “experts” who are our “go-to people” for certain information.  Some organizations force team members to leave their jobs for a week or more at a time unexpectantly. This creates a team environment that encourages cross-training and prepares the organization to thrive in almost any situation.

4)  Each person has a significant role to play.  If you want to truly understand the effectiveness of clear roles and responsibilities, talk to a volleyball setter.  This person is involved in nearly every play, and is often shoulder to shoulder with team members.  The setter ALWAYS gets the second hit unless they indicate otherwise. When team members aren’t clear about the setter’s role, injuries happen.

At work, when team members don’t have clear roles and responsibilities, irreparable problems occur (duplication of work, missed deadlines, personality conflicts, etc).  When roles and responsibilities are clear, it’s the person’s responsibility to do their part or ask for help when needed.

5)  If one person wins, we all win.  Volleyball is a team sport.  One person can be MVP for a game, but we always recognize that the player would not have been valuable without a pass from another player, set, serve, etc.  It’s always a team effort.  Also, if one person loses, we all lose- we are only as strong as our weakest player.

In powerful and effective work teams,  each participant understands clearly the goals of the team and works hard to each that goal.  Even when faced with challenges, the team is able to support and defend each other.

6)  Communication is key.  I once played on a winning team that added a new player halfway through the season.  We were pumped to have this tall, agile, awesome player join our team!  We were sure we would win the Championship that season!

We were shocked to lose our first game with this new player.  We were even more shocked to lose our second game with this player.  We knew we had the ability to win with the talent on the court, but we were challenged with communication.  This new player didn’t TALK- she didn’t call the ball, she didn’t support others, and she didn’t tell us what we could do to help her be a better player.  We didn’t win the Championship that year, but we did learn a powerful lesson:  Even with the best talent, if the players aren’t communicating effectively, we all lose.

At work, communication is key.  Purposeful communication about strengths and teamwork, clear roles and responsibilities, goals, cross-training, and challenges or barriers is necessary for successful teamwork.  Without it, you won’t win.

Volleyball is Life

Volleyball players and sports fans, what other lessons would you add to this list?