It is likely that most of us have taken some leadership training. Or at the very least some sessions to find more about the team you are on. Whether it be True Colours, Myers-Briggs or a recent favourite of mine 16 Personalities there are many options out there. And I highly recommend them. Any effort made to discover your strengths, areas for improvement and tendencies, both individually and as a team, can have big benefits for everyone.
I do believe we have a ways to go however to fully realize the potential these times together can bring us. From experience, I can suggest we often leave sessions with a greater sense of team, knowledge of self and team and are motivated to leverage these - but only briefly and very temporarily. The very best teams intentionally embed the learnings into their existing infrastructure and processes to see benefits longer term.
One of the ways I feel we can use this valuable information about our teams is to look for opportunities to bring together people who have very different results in the training. In fact, the sessions will have shared, either very intentionally or perhaps a bit less obviously, that the best teams have a myriad of different personalities on it and that there are times when all these differences will be needed or have to be leaned on.
In nature, our greatest example of where opposites come together to create huge energy is lightning. Lightning happens when positive and negative electrons clash. In a cloud, positive electrons migrate to the top and negative to the bottom. Hot weather stresses clouds and causes them to move around and invariably encounter other clouds - tops and bottoms of clouds meet. This encounter causes lightning. Around the lightning is super heated air (30,000 degrees celsius or 5X that of the sun). And as this quickly expands thunder is heard.
We can create this kind of energy if we look to bring together opposites. What this might look like is when a new project comes your way, you can intentionally reach out to a couple of different leaders to come up with a plan of attack. Let's say we have decided to explore a new benefits provider. There are many different requirements here. To name a few: cost, benefit package, billing, payments, provider reputation/performance, interviewing, etc, etc. As you can see there are technical aspects as well as emotional aspects. A perfect opportunity to look at the results of our leadership training to bring together leaders who excel in very different areas. Sparks may fly - but in a good way. Challenge the leadership team to learn from each other along the way. You could even ask for a post implementation report on their experiences. Make this a habit.
When we look for growth opportunities like this we are building resiliency in our team. They will appreciate the differences we have rather than potentially avoiding them. And when exposed to these different styles they will invariably strengthen their areas for improvement. Teams will become more rounded and able to tackle anything thrown their way. Confidence is built. And lightning strikes!
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