Each team is made up of different people who have different strengths, weaknesses, communication preferences, levels of motivation, etc. Not to mention that each leader is different too. Therefore there’s more than one way to build successful teams.
I work as a leader for many years, and some might say that based on my experience I am very competent for writing about this topic. The truth is that even after so many years of experience in this field I’m still learning and developing my leadership skills and especially my soft skills. This development process is never going to end, at least for me.
In this article I will give you a few tips for creating successful teams and more pleasant work environments. My field of work is hospitality industry but the tips can be applied anywhere.
When you develop competencies it’s important to keep the difference between hard skills and soft skills in mind. Remember that “hard” and “soft” are about concreteness, not difficulty. Soft skills often take longer to master because they have guidelines and variables rather than the fixed learning processes that hard skills use. Instead of writing about the differences between hard and soft skills I will share this interesting video that explains it all in a very simple way.
So, in order to be a successful leader and to build successful teams beside of hard skills you have to develop and to use in practice your soft skills on a daily basis. If you are not sure what soft skills are representing, then take a look at the next video.
Everybody can understand after watching this video that soft skills are good manners and personality traits, needed to get along with others and build positive relationships. I found a very accurate soft skills description in the following short video.
I always approach the team as a beautiful forest. This forest is is full of many different kinds of plants and the diversity of these plants actually makes the forest so beautiful. We are all different and unique. We all have our cultural and social diversities. A good leader should enable all the team members to contribute their best attributes to the team’s well being. All team members are valuable and all team members should be treated equally at the workplace. The only challenge regarding diversity within the team is that different people need different approaches. Therefore every good leader should know each team member personally in order to find the best way to communicate with each person.
It is very important that the team members get to know each other in order to improve the communication and respect within the team. I tend to hold one hour team meetings at least once in a month. Every morning I hold short from five to ten minutes team stand up meetings.
I start my team gatherings with some small ice breaking games. Through these small games we are accomplishing better understanding and better communication within the team. Those games are helping the team members to get to know each other better and to feel more comfortable around each other.
So, my advice is to start each team meeting with small and simple team bonding funny games in order to put everyone in a good mood. I’m planning to write more about this topic in some of my upcoming articles. So, if you like to learn more follow Embrace yourself, embrace the world and stay–tuned.
When everyone is in a good and positive mood at the team meetings it is much easier communicating the team goals and expectations regarding the numbers, results and the team productivity later on.
Happy employees are more open to changes, and more willing to commitments. Some people with negative mindset might say that this technique is manipulative. Based on my personal experience as a leader you can’t have long term success and good results unless you create a great working environment and trust first.
You can create great working environment by improving the communication within the team. You have to know all your team members very well. If you know your people and they get to know you, only then you will be able to build the trust between you as leader figure and the team. When everyone finally feels comfortable and happy at workplace you can be able to gain their trust and their commitment.
In order to reach the desired results together with your team, the team members commitment to those goals is the most important thing. Making a commitment involves dedicating yourself to something. So, in my opinion success without commitment is a mission impossible in general. You can apply this lesson regarding commitment into your daily life as well in order to achieve desired success in any field of your life. The most important tip is to look at any challenge from the positive aspect.
Willing to adapt and learn is a very important factor for a leader. I’m not the same leader I was several years ago, nor do I aspire to be the same leader in the coming 5 years. I always strive to get better, to learn more and to improve my skills. I hope that you are going to find this article helpful. I wish you good luck in building the best team ever. If you need any advice, or if you are facing some difficulties regarding leadership I am here to help with an advice.
If you wish to share a good advice or personal experience regarding leadership and team building with me, my readers and followers you are welcome to comment below. If you liked the photos in this article, please check the links below the photos. The links will lead you to the ”beautiful destinations” category, where I describe the places I traveled along with a lot of information and tips for travelers, accompanied with a bunch of photos all captured by me.
Best regards and thanks for following my blog. I hope you find my content valuable.
Embrace yourself, embrace the world 