Share this article


GUEST BLOGGER: Mehmet Baha, Founder of Solution Folder

No one would know when he would explode in a meeting. Even worse he could humiliate you in an office corridor, if you dared to strike up a business conversation with him. If he had a bad day, employees would communicate this to each other so that they were ready, once he talked down on them in a meeting.

What connected employees to each other was the sense of protection from him. Apart from that, teamwork hardly existed; trust among employees was negligible. This is what I experienced about one manager in one of the companies where I worked previously.

Effective Leadership

Leadership plays a crucial role in creating and maintaining high-performing teams. Inspired by MIT’s Four-Capability Leadership model, which includes sense-making, relating, visioning and inventing, I created five groups of leadership skills for great teamwork.

Instead of sense-making, I included executing and added essentials. The skills you can see below are based on cutting-edge research from Harvard Business Review, Gallup, path-breaking companies such as Google and leading business thinkers including Amy Edmondson.

Effective Leadership Skills for Great Teamwork

Relating: It is the ability to create ties with team members.

Visioning: We have a visioning capability once our team members are inspired to follow our vision, know where they are going and why.

Inventing: Is creating conditions to do something that has not been done before. For instance, it can be a new product/service or a process.

Executing: Some of the skills in this category are analytical and technical.

Essentials: This includes basic abilities to set clear goals, respect team members and earn their trust.  

There is not any one-size-fits-all leadership style to achieve great teamwork. People with varying degrees of the skills above can be successful leaders.

Simon Sinek once said: “The ability for a group of people to do remarkable things hinges on how well those people can pull together as a team.”

Based on the visual above, what are your strengths as a leader? What are some areas of improvement? What specific actions can you take to improve yourself and collaboration in your team?

About the Author: Mehmet Baha is Founder of Solution Folder which provides training solutions to create collaborative work culture in companies. He has more than 16 years of work experience residing in Germany, USA, Turkey, Cyprus and Ireland. He was one of the first employees of Facebook in Europe where he helped Facebook scale its business. He is also a REMO-endorsed artist. Combining his skills in music and his expertise in business, he designs and delivers unique learning experiences to improve collaboration in workplaces.

Under Title Selector Center

Join our Learning Community for Team Building Professionals

Learn. Share. Practice. Move FORWARD. Join the Better Teams Community, FORWARD, to network and grow with some of the most experienced professionals in the field of team building and facilitation.

Get team activities, tools & resources delivered straight to your inbox