What Do You Know?

You are a leader. You work hard to bring your team together. You are consistently working to improve morale and ultimately productivity. So how much do you know about your leadership team? Can you tell me what your top leaders love? Where they grew up? How many siblings? What their parents did? Biggest challenges they had growing up? What their dreams are? What brings them true passion?

In most cases the answer is no…me included. I recently learned how important this is to building a team that has sincere trust in each other—a critical component to an effective team. I will be the first to tell you that I thought I knew my team and that overall we were solid and worked well together. On the surface, this is very true. But as I looked deeper and evaluated our team, I recognized that even though we were a solid team, we were leaving a lot of potential on the table.

In any close relationship that you have, you probably have spent a lot of time with that person. During that time you spent majority of the time if not all of it talking about each other. Discussing each other’s experiences, learning about hurts and loves. And overtime, the more you learned, the closer you became. You got to a point where being honest happened naturally. You felt secure to share your thoughts and feelings, even though they may not have been what the other person wanted to hear. And even though these conversations may have been a little uncomfortable, you both trusted that it came from a perspective of love and best interest. As a result you grew together and became stronger and better individuals. And as a result you have someone you know you can count on no matter what the circumstance.

Developing a team that operates on trust is no different. It can only happen if you take the time to genuinely learn about each other. Not about what they think of today’s weather or where they ate for dinner last night. But to learn intimate things about each other that exposes ourselves to who we truly are on the inside. These are the things that shape us. These are things that cause us to react in certain ways. These are the things that drive our perceptions and assumptions about others. These are the things that drive our decisions at work.

As leaders, we must know who our teams are. Not on the surface, but on the inside. You have to build an environment of sincere trust. Then and only then will you have a team that meets its greatest potential.