By Tony Frost, MD, Sirocco Strategy Management

11 January 2012

I was watching some dungbeetles at work the other day. It was fascinating! They were busy, busy, busy. There was no apparent supervision but they got on with the job and quickly the pile of dung was nudged and pushed and rolled into perfect round balls.  Then the balls were rolled away and buried in the most suitable spot to ensure succession and sustainability.

It seemed as though each member of the team knew exactly what to do to tidy up the mess. There was no General making battle plans, and no Colonel directing operations! Surely we can learn something from this?!

We make a big song and dance about the importance of leadership and perhaps in this rush to glorify leaders and leadership we forget some of the most important fundamentals.

Firstly we forget that without a team there is no necessity at all for a leader.

Secondly, we tend to forget that the power of the leader comes from the team. It is the team that gives him the gift of leadership; the power to lead, if you will. And, just as easily, the team can take it back. Therefore leaders should focus all their energy on gaining, retaining and building the team’s enthusiasm to be part of the team and its objectives with him at its helm.

Thirdly, there is no point to leadership if the entire game is about the leader and his/her needs goals and aspirations - no matter how laudable these may be. If this were the case who would take care of sustainability and succession? Arguably the most powerful and important thing a leader can do is focus on how the team would operate when he is no longer there and what be his legacy would be in that case. Handing over the reins and power is about the sustainability of the team. Building succession is about making sure that the team’s future is in good hands.

Fourthly, and this is one of the most critical of issues, it is about the members of the team. When discussing leadership we tend to talk about what the leader must do, how he must behave and what he must or must not say. This is all good and well.

But what of the team members? What is their contribution to great leadership?   It is absolutely critical that team members help to make the leadership as great as it possibly can be! In many cases, we appoint/elect a leader and then watch him struggle with the burden of leading, sometimes going out of our way to add to the burden, without helping him, and cheer as he falls. In some cases it goes even further than this, especially in cases where the leader is appointed. Some of the team members decide that they do not want this particular leader and so they actively work towards his demise. In this scenario there are absolutely no winners, except possibly the personal satisfaction of a few. The reality of the matter is that the whole team is set back and a culture of teaming and teamwork becomes an even more remote possibility because the levels of suspicion and trust drop to an all-time low. I have had personal experience of this and it is terribly painful for all. Worst of all, the brand of the team takes years to recover.

So what is expected from team members?  They all need to be skilled in leadership and understand the dynamics, joys and stresses of leading. They need to appreciate that it is no easy task and even the best leaders feel lonely and vulnerable most of the time.

The very best leaders that I have worked with are also outstanding followers and go far out of their way to make sure that their team succeeds. The best followers are those that do just this. They subjugate their own needs to those of the team and its leader. This does not mean that they become shy, retiring and reticent to present their own thoughts and ideas. On the contrary, they do what the most excellent of followers do: they challenge everything positively, they push for their own ideas but don’t sabotage the team, or the leader, if their ideas are not accepted. They wake up thinking about what they can do to help the team and their teammates and they accept help gratefully knowing that this is what teambuilding is all about.  This is a team that executes world-class leadership and a team that prizes being the best that it can be almost above all else.

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