Spark Passion On Your Team Without Spending Money!

Approximately 88% of employees in America don’t feel like they can give their full potential in their careers because they don’t feel passion for their work. It is, therefore, essential to work on helping your team nurture their passion, as this will enhance their motivation to achieve their goals and improve the company. Although passion and profits go hand-in-hand, how can you get your team passionate about work and start overdelivering?

You can get your team to feel passionate about work and start overdelivering by leading by example and showing your passion, encouraging open communication with your team members, and asking for their opinions on work-related issues.

In this article, I’ll explore these and other ways to help your team become more passionate and energized to succeed. I’ll also look at common workplace problems that can lower passion and ways to nip them in the bud.

How Do You Build Passion in a Team?

You can build passion in a team by encouraging an environment of connection and communication. When team members feel that they can discuss and solve problems together, they inspire each other to feel passionate about succeeding.

When team members feel that they can discuss and solve problems together, they inspire each other to feel passionate about succeeding.

With the above in mind, here are other important ways in which you can build passion in your team:

Let your employees work on projects they love. Even if it’s a small job, if your team member loves doing a particular task or project, this will motivate them to want to succeed and feel excited about doing it well.
Build a foundation of honesty. It would help to have open and honest communication with your team members, as this will give you insights into what they think and feel. This will also prevent team members from feeling misunderstood while encouraging feelings of connection between you both.
Be passionate. Leading your team by example will help members feel your passion. Show your enthusiasm for your work and the new projects on the horizon. When your team members see you have a spirit of adventure and zeal, it will rub off on them.
Encourage creative thinking. Your team members could have ideas for tasks and projects but feel uncomfortable sharing them, which can reduce their passion. Asking them questions like “What are your opinions on this?” can help them open up about their thoughts.
Focus on “we” instead of “I”. How you speak matters. If you’re always talking about what you want to achieve, this can make it feel like your team members aren’t included. Focusing on how you can achieve your goals together will help make everyone feel connected, increasing their passion and motivation.
Appreciate your team members. Studies show that 46% of people leave their jobs because they aren’t being appreciated. You can show your team members appreciation by rewarding and complimenting them for a well-done job.
Ask them what they’re passionate about. Everyone is motivated by different things. Ask your team members what they get excited about and what makes them get up in the mornings so you can find ways to help them feel more passionate about their work. For example, if you know a team member is a baseball fanatic, suggest a baseball event fundraiser.
Foster a sense of purpose. With a clear understanding of purpose, work can be meaningful instead of passionate. One way to bring everyone in your team on board with the same goal and purpose is to lead group chats in which you explain the purpose and importance of the work. This will help your team members connect to the greater goal.
Bring a competitive spirit to the workplace. Some healthy competition in the workplace can make your team feel energetic and passionate. An example of how to do this is to divide your team into smaller groups and provide a bonus or reward for the team that performs best. Remember that monetary incentives only work if the task is simple.
Build your team by focusing on skills. What skills do your team members have? Make it a priority to learn about their unique talents so that you can put them to use better. This will make your team members feel more engaged, creating passion and profits.

Focusing on how you can achieve your goals together will help make everyone feel connected, increasing their passion and motivation.

Ways to build passion in your team	Explanation
Let your employees work on projects they love	This will motivate them to want to succeed and feel excited about doing it well.
Build a foundation of honesty	Having honest communication with your team members will give you insights into what they think and feel.
Be passionate	When your team members see you have a spirit of adventure and zeal, it will rub off on them.
Encourage creative thinking	Asking questions like “What are your opinions on this?” can help them open up about their thoughts.
Focus on “we” instead of “I”	Focusing on how you can achieve your goals together will help make everyone feel connected, increasing their passion and motivation.
Appreciate your team members	You can show your team members appreciation by rewarding and complimenting them for a well-done job.
Ask them what they’re passionate about	Ask your team members what they get excited about and what makes them get up in the mornings so you can find ways to help them feel more passionate about their work.
Foster a sense of purpose	With a clear understanding of purpose, work can be meaningful instead of passionate.
Bring a competitive spirit to the workplace	Some healthy competition in the workplace can make your team feel energetic and passionate.
Build your team by focusing on skills	This will make your team members feel more engaged, creating passion and profits.

Summarized information regarding how to build passion in your team

Workplace Problems That Are Related to a Lack of Passion

Now that you know how to help your team feel more passionate, you can improve their performance. Here are some common performance-related problems your team could be displaying and how to correct them:

Your team’s productivity is sluggish: Your team members might be showing passion but not getting results. The issue could be that they need direction. To solve the problem, hold check-ins to get updates on their work and milestones. And for Pete’s sake, make sure your communication is on point.
Your team needs to communicate with precision: Get into the habit of asking your team for their opinions and ideas. Getting your team members to communicate with specificity is difficult, especially if this wasn’t the status quo.
Some team members are carrying the entire workload: When this happens, it causes imbalances and resentment in your team. It can also cause passionate people to stop feeling enthusiastic. You can fix this situation by communicating with your team about their goals and responsibilities. Helping them to feel passionate about those goals will also help them to get to work.
You’re blaming your team members: Even if you’re unsatisfied with your team’s productivity, it’s never a good idea to blame anyone in front of the team. This will cause resentment and hostility, which are guaranteed to zap passion. If you have an issue with a team member, speak to them privately and approach the problem from the perspective of wanting to move forward together. You must take extreme ownership of your team and your actions.

Even if you’re unsatisfied with your team’s productivity, it’s never a good idea to blame anyone in front of the team.

Here are 5 strategies you can do to make your team feel appreciated, which results in them being motivated and passionate about work.

5 Steps to Make Your Team Feel Appreciated

Final Thoughts

If you’re leading (or managing) a team at work, you can help everyone in your team feel more passionate in various ways. These include:

Speaking to your team members about what inspires them.
Encouraging creative thinking.
Focusing on achieving a goal together so everyone feels included.

Extreme Ownership: 13 Lessons For Leaders and Managers!

Leaders who take responsibility for every success and failure they encounter in their mission are more likely to succeed than those who give excuses and blame others. Jocko Willink and Leif Babin’s Extreme Ownership leadership style best summarizes this statement. So what are the most important lessons to learn from extreme ownership?

One important lesson from extreme ownership is that a leader’s mindset influences success. Although successful leaders delegate power, they are always accountable for everyone’s actions. They don’t look for excuses for bad performance but instead come up with solutions.

This article discusses all lessons you can steal from Jocko Willink and Leif Babin’s Extreme Ownership book.

Extreme Ownership Summary

Why extreme ownership in a team matters!

Leading a business is like going into combat with a troop following your lead, except you don’t have to kill anyone (unless you are mafia, I guess). That’s what Jocko Willink and Leif Babin demonstrate in their book Extreme Ownership.

Both are retired Navy SEALs. They share the lessons they gained on the battlefield for over 30 years to empower organization leaders. Most importantly, they borrow extreme ownership principles from leading SEAL’s Task Unit Bruiser in the violent battles of Ramadi, Iraq.

Are you a manager? Here are signs to look for that you are not taking extreme ownership!

Although I wasn’t in Iraq during the same period as them, witnessing the aftermath of those battles makes me think everyone who survived must have plenty of important lessons to teach. So I am all ears (or eyes) when they talk.

Their ability to manage the team under pressure and to make decisions in split seconds helped them secure the city. Mark you, it does not mean there were no mistakes. In fact, in one instance, a soldier lost their life while engaging in combat with a friendly group (something we refer to as “blue on blue”).

Despite Jocko Willink making a grave mistake that cost another’s life and injuries to other soldiers, his seniors did not dismiss him or terminate his career. Instead, he continued to serve in his position.

Why? Because he took responsibility for the mistake as the unit commander without blaming others. Also, he reviewed the standard operating procedures to prevent the mistake from being repeated. By doing so, his superior believed he had what it takes to lead the team.

Overall, extreme ownership emphasizes that a leader should be accountable for the failure and success of the business. This sets the pace for the subordinates while creating efficiency in the team.

If you want to own a copy, you can check the book on Amazon: Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win.

Extreme Ownership | Jocko Willink

The 13 Principles of Extreme Ownership

Every leader wants to manage a winning team. And if you’re wondering how you can lead your team to success, there are several lessons you can borrow from extreme ownership.

Principles of Extreme Ownership	Description
A Leader’s Mindset Is Key to Success	A leader should have an extreme ownership mindset that requires them to take responsibility for their actions and those of their team.
Leading Requires Accountability	A leader must hold themselves and their team accountable for success and failure. They must ensure the team understands the mission and provide the necessary resources and support to achieve it.
Teams Are Always a Reflection of Their Leader	A leader’s actions directly influence employees’ morale, and they must lead by example to create a positive work environment.
You Can Only Lead From a Place of Clarity	A leader must have a clear understanding of the mission, the strategies required to achieve it, and why it matters to communicate it effectively to the team.
The Mission’s Success Should Override Personal Interests	A leader’s ego should not dominate their drive for success, as it can lead to dismissiveness, lack of accountability, and blaming others for failure.
Teamwork Requires Proper Coordination	Effective teamwork requires proper coordination and communication to avoid competition, blame games, and resentment.
Simplifying Orders and Plans Avoids Confusion	A leader must simplify orders and plans to ensure everyone understands them and has a clear picture of what’s expected of them.
Pressuring Situations Require a Leader To Set Priorities	During a crisis, a leader must prioritize avoiding the worst outcomes and make quick, informed decisions to restore order.
Sharing Power Propels Success	A leader should share power and responsibilities with their team to increase their chances of success and build a team of leaders beneath them.
Plan Before Implementing	Planning helps leaders prepare necessary resources, identify challenges, and chart organizational goals and activities to execute the plan effectively.
Discipline Brings Freedom and Flexibility	Leaders who cultivate discipline can stay focused on what matters and follow a routine or structure to be more efficient and flexible.
Leading Requires Prompt Decision Making	Leaders must be quick at making decisions with little information and no time and adjust them as necessary to serve the organization’s interests.
Anticipate Threats	Leaders must continuously train themselves and their teams to improve their skills and adapt to new challenges and environments.

The 13 Principles of Extreme Ownership

1. A Leader’s Mindset Is Key to Success

Leading a winning team starts from a leader’s mind. Leaders must cultivate beliefs and attitudes that govern how they conduct themselves and interact with others.

An extreme ownership mindset requires the leader to look from the inside out. The leader should know they are responsible for their actions and the actions of their juniors.

When disruptions occur in the business, as they inevitably do, a leader should always find ways of changing the course for better results—even if they are not directly responsible.

An extreme ownership mindset empowers the leader to act without excuses. Cultivating this attitude calls for a balance between humility and confidence.

An extreme ownership mindset empowers the leader to act without excuses. Cultivating this attitude calls for a balance between humility and confidence.

You should be willing to accept your shortcomings and appreciate everyone’s opinion irrespective of their position, yet lead with authority and firmness.

2. Leading Requires Accountability

Accountability is a muscle that every leader needs to develop over time. It’s easy to take the glory of a successful project, but admitting failure requires high accountability.

Since you are at the top of the ladder, your team is your responsibility. You should ensure your team members understand the mission and the strategies needed to achieve it. Then you must gather the resources needed, including training, to fully equip your team and provide support where needed.

When a leader is accountable for success and failure, even employees follow the example. This strengthens relationships within the team because everyone is doing their job without pointing fingers.

3. Teams Are Always a Reflection of Their Leader

Teams are a reflection of their leaders.

A leader’s actions directly influence employees’ morale. For instance, if the leader constantly attributes poor performance to the employees’ inefficiency, employees will also pick up the attitude. The result? Infighting, damaged attitude, and unwillingness to cooperate throughout the organization.

If you don’t have your desired team, look at yourself first. What can you do differently to improve how you lead your team? Once you identify your weaknesses, turn them into strengths, and slowly you’ll influence your team members.

Owning up to your shortcomings openly without using your juniors as scapegoats sets an excellent example for them to emulate.

4. You Can Only Lead From a Place of Clarity

Clarity eliminates confusion and deviation from the main objectives. Before owning a mission, a leader must clearly understand what the mission entails, what tactics and strategies will help achieve the goal, and why the mission matters.

With this in mind, it becomes easy to communicate the mission to the team. You can also answer questions from your team and clear any doubts before implementing the strategy.

When everybody in the team believes in the plan, you don’t have to explain each decision. Your actions and words impart confidence, which is crucial to success when working as a team.

As the team leader, you must risk being uncomfortable with your superiors and ask questions until the mission is crystal clear.

As the team leader, you must risk being uncomfortable with your superiors and ask questions until the mission is crystal clear.

5. The Mission’s Success Should Override Personal Interests

Everyone wants to succeed and build a good reputation in leadership positions. However, when ego dominates this drive, a leader’s judgment becomes clouded as they seek recognition. In return, they become dismissive of the organization’s and team’s welfare.

The ego thinks highly of itself. It denies the leader a chance to receive constructive criticism and advice from lower positions. It also avoids accountability, causing the leader to shift the blame to others.

Instead, a leader should seek performance excellence where the organization’s mission and the team’s welfare come first. Pursuing this keeps everyone motivated while making them feel valued for their contribution.

My own experience tells me that many leaders struggle to balance the needs of the team, the mission, and the organization. If one fails, the other will soon follow. A great place to start is by improving your Self-awareness.

6. Teamwork Requires Proper Coordination

Teamwork allows sharing of responsibilities, making it possible to accomplish goals faster. It also brings interdependence, which pulls diverse experiences together. However, working with teams also has its risks.

If not properly coordinated, teams get carried away in their immediate tasks and forget to cooperate with other teams. In return, competition arises, which bleeds blame games and resentment.

As a leader, you are responsible for keeping your teams in perspective by reminding them you are all pursuing the same goal. Regular meetings with all team members to remind them of the main objectives can help you achieve this. When one team wins, the other one wins too.

7. Simplifying Orders and Plans Avoids Confusion

The way you perceive mission execution plans is different from how your subordinates do. Though some concepts may seem easy to you, they are challenging for some.

One issue I had as a team leader of an EOD (bomb disposal) team when trying to convey the plan to my guys was that I was presented with much more information than they had.

This meant that I sometimes lost my understanding of what they knew and what they didn’t. Those sometimes made me give too little information and, thus, did not provide a clear enough picture of the situation.

So, before passing orders and plans, it is good to test them to ensure even the employee at the lowest rank can understand them. Remove all unnecessary details and leave what’s critical to the mission.

When plans are simple and actionable, everyone knows what’s expected of them. This eliminates confusion and mistakes. It also brings flexibility when things fall out of plan.

8. Pressuring Situations Require a Leader To Set Priorities

Inevitably, all businesses suffer from unforeseen risks or crises occasionally. You have little or no control over how things will unfold as a leader, yet you must pivot quickly.

When this happens, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. You have to make decisions fast to restore order and to see things from an emotionless perspective.

In times of crisis, it’s more about avoiding the worst outcomes than finding the perfect solution.

In times of crisis, it’s more about avoiding the worst outcomes than finding the perfect solution.

Secondly, you have to set priorities. Issues that matter most to the well-being of the business should be on top of the list, while the least urgent ones should come after. However, your plan should be flexible to accommodate changes as the crisis unfolds.

You can use the Eisenhower matrix to understand what needs to be done now. Book a free call with me to learn more about the Eisenhower matrix here!

9. Sharing Power Propels Success

Leaders who hoard power limit their ability to succeed. Sometimes, the responsibilities may be overwhelming because they have no time to monitor everyone’s actions. This leaves room for mistakes that might not be traced early enough.

Conversely, leaders who share power increase their chances of succeeding in their missions. You gain real power by building a team of leaders beneath you and giving them the right to make decisions. You get a team willing to support you and make your plans succeed.

You gain real power by building a team of leaders beneath you and giving them the right to make decisions.

Empowering your team shows that you trust them, which gives them the confidence to make decisions that will propel them closer to the business goals.

10. Plan Before Implementing

Planning helps to chart organizational goals and the activities that must take place to realize them. It enables you to paint the picture of where the business has to go and why things must be done in a specific way.

Planning helps leaders prepare the necessary resources and identify challenges before they occur. This makes it easier for everyone to execute the plan.

Planning in the military is heavily emphasized; I don’t know how many hundreds of hours I have spent planning and practicing planning. It’s an arena in which most leaders seem to be underperforming.

The planning process must be structured to be effective; this allows others to critique the planning, not just the outcome. One very effective method of planning is the “forging plans framework” we use here at Sancus Leadership.

This method is born out of military situations like the ones Leif and Jocko discuss and has then been improved to work in a business environment.

You can book a free call with me here to see how a battle-proven planning method can save you time and prepare you for the next crisis without any expensive or complex software.

11. Discipline Brings Freedom and Flexibility

Being disciplined as a leader involves doing what’s expected at the right time. It’s about having the drive to follow a routine or structure to stay focused on things that matter. Leaders who cultivate discipline develop the willpower to stay on course regardless of their feelings.

Discipline should give people freedom and flexibility to adjust to new situations. However, leaders must be careful not to impose restrictive discipline that promotes poor performance. A leader should also remember that discipline is a skill that takes time to develop.

A leader should also remember that discipline is a skill that takes time to develop.

12. Leading Requires Prompt Decision Making

Sometimes, leaders have to make decisions with little information and no time. This requires you to be quick at making the best decision that serves the organization’s interests at that time. You can then adjust your actions as you get more details about the situation.

Researching and analyzing a situation is important. However, you must be able to respond to every event within the required timeline to prevent situations from escalating to uncontrollable levels.

“You must make a good enough decision in time rather than the perfect decision too late.”
Gabo (yep, me quoting myself)

As a leader, you have to be decisive and flexible to drop action plans that are not yielding the desired results.

We must be able to detach from our plans emotionally. This is incredibly hard if you have spent a bunch of time committing to it. You need to practice this!

13. Anticipate Threats

The beauty of planning before implementing is that you are aware of the highs and lows you will likely experience. When you know a threat is likely to occur, you should take the necessary actions to mitigate it.

Some risks are unpreventable, but preparing a contingency plan ahead of time helps you manage risks without causing much disruption in the business. I personally love contingency plans; they have saved my butt so many times.

With the experience I have today, I know that situations change incredibly fast, so I spend most of my planning time on contingencies.

While managing your team, you should balance your focus between the present and the future and prepare how you’ll sustain the business amidst disruptions.

How Can You Cultivate Extreme Ownership in Your Business?

If you are new to the concept of extreme ownership, you might wonder where to start to make it work in your business. The answer is simple: it starts with you. You’ll first have to evaluate your leadership style and see where it needs to improve.

Take responsibility for everything that happens under your command.

Once you find areas you need to adjust, you can introduce extreme ownership to your team by:

Building trust: Your team must see you as a dependable person. They should know you have their back and are confident you’ll not use them as scapegoats for your mistakes. You can build trust by communicating openly and taking responsibility for your actions.
Leading by example: Your words should resonate with your actions. People are always willing to follow a leader who walks their talk. You’ll encounter less resistance when you do what you expect of your team.
Getting rid of ego: As a leader, you should cultivate humility by acknowledging everyone on the team and listening to their opinions. It would help if you also promoted this attitude in the team by showing you are all equal and working towards the same goal.
Communicating frequently: When your team has regular updates on the overall mission, they’ll feel involved and recognized. It also allows you to understand your team’s needs.

Final Thoughts

Being a successful leader requires you to adopt extreme ownership. This means you take responsibility for everything that happens under your command. Exhibiting this mindset pushes you to be thorough because there is no one to blame for the mission’s outcomes but you. When you set this example, your team emulates you, bringing efficiency to the organization.

Emotional Intelligence and Self-Managing Guide For Leaders!

When I started my military leadership career, I thought emotions weren’t part of the equation; I thought the best leaders could set aside their emotions and only look to the facts. With over 13 years of leadership experience in every arena, from sports to youth education to military deployments, I now know I couldn’t have been farther from the truth. Self-management and emotional intelligence help managers increase their empathy, lead with compassion, and work together toward common goals.

Self-management in emotional intelligence is a person’s ability to regulate behaviors triggered by emotions. It involves being aware of your motivations and dispositions, then choosing better responses to emotional triggers. Leaders can then apply these principles in small group settings.

This article will explore what it means to manage your emotional intelligence. I’ll also discuss building, leading, and managing teams with emotional intelligence in mind. Along the way, we’ll cover the role of neuroplasticity and how to form new habits.

What Is Emotional Intelligence?

Emotional quotient, or EQ for short, is a person’s emotional intelligence level. Two psychology professors first mentioned emotional Intelligence, or EI for short, in a 1990 research paper. Then in 1998, Rutgers psychologist Daniel Goleman wrote an article that equated good business leadership with high emotional Intelligence.

Emotional Intelligence means being aware of your own emotions and the emotions of others and then using that information to understand and manage emotional signals. It helps people know themselves better and develop empathy in interpersonal relationships.

Why Emotional Intelligence Is Valued in the Workplace

The World Economic Forum listed key skills all employees will need by 2025. Many of these skills require a high level of emotional intelligence.

CareerBuilder surveyed that over 71% of employers value EQ over IQ. 61% went as far as to say they’d promote candidates with high emotional intelligence over those with high IQs. In other words, they would rather have employees who empathize and relate to people well than employees with only theoretical knowledge.

Specifically, the survey discovered employers found workers with high EQ to be good at the following five things.

Staying calm under pressure
Resolving conflicts
Expressing empathy to other team members
Leading by example
Making thoughtful business decisions

These findings echoed President Theodore Roosevelt’s statement, “No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care.” Workplace environments generally rely on teamwork and managing several relationships within the organization. It’s no wonder understanding the feelings of those around you is considered a high-level skill needed for business success.

No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care.

CareerBuilder’s survey also found that HR recruiters and hiring managers assessed candidates’ emotional intelligence by considering if they possessed the following characteristics.

They admit when they’re wrong.
They can have tough conversations without getting too emotional.
They’re good listeners.
They can take criticism constructively.
They remain composed in stressful situations.

With these skills, a team leader can manage employees more effectively.

They’ll know how and when to express appreciation for hard work.
They’ll understand how to create motivation and maintain enthusiasm in the group.
They’ll recognize signs of burnout.
Leaders will also know when to pivot and adapt to whatever changes come their way.

What Is Self-Management?

Self-management is the regulation of behaviors and thoughts to develop habits that will improve one’s life. Though emotions may be involved, it is less about emotion and more about taking action.

Here is a list of nine items someone may include in their self-management efforts.

Time management
Budgeting
Health
Career
Education
Adaptability
Stress
Motivation
Decision making

Reading this Self-Management Article is a great way to improve your communication with your work so you get less questions and faster results!

How Do You Develop Self-Management in Emotional Intelligence?

You develop self-management in emotional intelligence by practicing better habits in empathy, teamwork, and leading by example. The process involves organizing your priorities and goals so you can transfer those skills to a team setting.

In essence, self-management in emotional intelligence is about developing good habits and breaking bad ones. You can then apply this process to your leadership style, personal life, and work.

How To Manage Yourself

Self management always begins with awareness to oneself. — Self-management always begins with awareness of oneself.

Self-management begins with awareness and understanding your core motivations better. Often, people do not pay attention to their own “self-talk.” Changing how you view yourself is difficult. It means understanding you can’t always choose your circumstances, but you can always pick your response.

Changing how you view yourself is difficult. It means understanding you can’t always choose your circumstances, but you can always choose your response.

Self-management requires replacing bad habits with good ones. Neuroplasticity plays a massive role in this. It’s the idea that our brain cells change in response to behavior. Learning creates new connections between neurons, which strengthen with repetition.

The bad news is that behavior constantly reinforced through repetition is hard to change. The good news is that it’s not impossible.

New behaviors can be learned and practiced to form new connections. By stopping the behavior, old behaviors can be unlearned or weakened. Your brain remains a constant learning machine for the duration of your life.

A lot goes into the pursuit of developing better habits. Countless books are released on the subject every year. One of the more famous titles in this space is The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. In it, author Stephen R. Covey lists the following habits as imperative to self-growth.

Be Proactive
Begin With the End in Mind
Put First Things First
Think Win/Win
Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood
Synergize
Sharpen the Saw

Self-management is prioritizing, goal-setting, and replacing poor habits with better ones. Managers who expect to lead teams effectively must learn how to manage themselves first.

Managers who expect to lead teams effectively must learn how to manage themselves first.

The process of learning how to manage yourself begins with two simple principles.

1. Avoiding Bad Habits

According to Atomic Habits by James Clear, there are four things people need to do to break bad habits.

Make It Invisible: In other words, figure out the environment and triggers enabling the bad habit. Do whatever you can to reduce your exposure to these bad habit cues.
Make It Unattractive: Focus on what you gain by avoiding the bad habit. Highlight the benefits in your mind.
Make It Difficult: Create steps between you and the bad habit, making it harder to reinforce.
Make It Unsatisfying: Find someone to be accountable to so that the price of continuing the bad habit will be public and hurt more.

How to Break Bad Habits	Description
*Make It Invisible*	Identify the environment and triggers that enable the bad habit and take steps to reduce your exposure to them.
*Make It Unattractive*	Focus on the negative consequences of the bad habit and the benefits of avoiding it. Use visualization techniques to reinforce the idea that the habit is unattractive.
*Make It Difficult*	Create obstacles or steps between you and the bad habit to make it harder to engage in.
*Make It Unsatisfying*	Find someone to be accountable to, such as a friend or mentor, who can help you stay motivated and hold you accountable for your actions.

How to break bad habits

2. Forming Good Habits

Likewise, James Clear outlines four things people need to do to form good habits.

Make It Obvious: Create an environment where the triggers for the good habit will be visible. Write down the time and location you will regularly engage in the new habit.
Make It Attractive: You can do this by combining things you want to do with things you need to do. Joining a group where the desired habit is the norm will help reinforce your motivation.
Make It Easy: Remove or reduce steps between you and the good habit. Use technology to automate habits. You can also prepare your environment to make the habit easier to maintain in the future.
Make It Satisfying: Reward yourself immediately after completing the good habit. A reward will make the process more enjoyable. Utilize habit-tracking technology to stay motivated and to keep up with your progress.

How to Form Good Habits	Description
*Make It Obvious*	Make the desired habit obvious by creating an environment where the triggers for the habit are visible. Write down the time and location to do it.
*Make It Attractive*	Make the habit attractive by combining things you want to do with things you need to do. Join a group that reinforces the desired habit.
*Make It Easy*	Make the habit easy by removing or reducing steps between you and the habit. Use technology to automate habits and prepare your environment.
*Make It Satisfying*	Make the habit satisfying by rewarding yourself immediately after completing it. Use habit-tracking technology to stay motivated and track progress.

How to form good habits

Self-management involves intentional habit-forming, prioritizing the right things, and setting goals. Habits take time to become automatic. One study found it took people anywhere from 18-254 days to form a habit. Whether you’re trying to budget your time or money, learn more, or advance in your career, it will take forming good habits and breaking bad ones to get there.

Whether you’re trying to budget your time or money, learn more, or advance in your career, it will take forming good habits and breaking bad ones to get there.

Here’s a YouTube clip by Andrew Huberman where you will learn how to make and break habits. It’s a long watch, but I can recommend it!

The Science of Making & Breaking Habits | Huberman Lab

How To Lead Others With The Aid of Emotional Intelligence

Now that we’ve discussed emotional intelligence and self-management separately. Let’s take a look at what it means to apply the principles of self-management in emotional intelligence. This is a key skill business leaders need to master to manage their teams with maximum efficacy.

A supervisor or manager with high emotional intelligence will display the following qualities in their leadership style.

Effective communication
Understand the emotions of individuals on the team
Understand the emotions of the group as a whole
Can express their own emotions in healthy and helpful ways to the group
Respect employees at all levels of the company
Active listening to the concerns of others
Navigate stressful and difficult situations with calm and resolve
Maintain positive atmosphere
Anticipate and prepare for staff reactions to disappointing news
Make employees feel safe to share ideas and concerns
Show appreciation for effective work
Handle pressure well
Empathize with customers
Open to both good and bad feedback
Resolve conflicts within the group fairly
Inspire staff to achieve goals
Possess empathy for employees at all levels
Keep team motivated

The leader who displays these qualities will have a much easier time gaining the trust of those under their management. Once you earn their trust, employees are more likely to perform better at their jobs and work as a cohesive team with shared goals. Individuals and teams with high emotional quotient will likely enjoy their jobs more as well.

7 Steps To Building Small Teams With High EQ in Mind

Leaders of small teams of 2-10 people will want their team to operate as cohesively as possible. This can only be done with a high quotient of emotional intelligence. Let’s look at seven steps that you, as a leader, can take to transform your team’s culture for the better.

1. Normalize Empathy

First and foremost, there needs to be empathy. Employees need to feel understood to offer their full potential. Leaders need to understand their teams contain many individuals. These individuals have personal lives apart from the team. These lives have their problems, stresses, and issues separate from the group.

Employees need to feel understood to offer their full potential.

Managers with developed listening skills will win the trust of their employees faster than those who do not. This is especially true when leaders have the additional skill set to increase their sense of humanity in the employees under them and not treat them like cogs in a machine.

Managers who empathize with their employees and offer appropriate accommodations are likelier to build a healthy, positive work environment.

2. Normalize Appreciation

Practical work should always be noticed. Managers need to habitually and publicly show appreciation for the EFFECTIVE work of individuals on the team and the group as a whole. Even if certain positions are technically disposable, the people who fill those positions should be treated as such.

Rewarding the type of work you want to see more of you is essential. If you reward hard work, you will likely get more people working hard, i.e., people will do more extended hours, but it is not sure that the impact on revenue is more significant.

Instead, if you choose to reward practical work, that is, not caring how hard people work but rather focusing on the output they should achieve, aka how effective they are. Then you’ll likely see a bump in revenue and a drop in sick leaves (fewer overworked employees).

…if you choose to reward effective work instead of hard work … you’ll likely see a bump in revenue and a drop in sick leaves.

3. Normalize Idea Sharing

In addition to employees needing to feel understood and valued, they also need to feel heard. Leaders should create a safe environment for employees to share their ideas for the organization. This space may come in the form of a brainstorming session. Whenever possible, leaders should implement employee ideas.

Make sure you attribute the ideas to the person or the team that created them!

4. Normalize Collective Goals

For a group of people to become a team, they need a common goal to work towards. Managers may find it helpful to incentivize reaching quotas. They can do this with friendly competitions with other groups in the department or within the group itself. Leaders should think creatively about group rewards when the group achieves its targets.

The main focus should be to form inner drive and intrinsic motivations; we have known since the 70s that external incentives, such as money, only work if the task is simple. It only improves outcomes if the job is simple and creative.

5. Normalize Adaptability

Adaptability will mitigate a significant change’s negative impact on a group. With improving technologies and changing work habits, many companies frequently go through periods of change. Group leaders need to prepare their employees to pivot when required routinely.

6. Make Constructive Feedback a Routine

Remember that feedback is not the same as criticism. There is a negative connotation to the latter. When an employee’s poor performance in a given area needs to be addressed, leaders should have a system to normalize giving feedback with improvement steps to take.

The feedback process should be about helping employees identify where they need to improve and providing the framework to do so. It should not be about publicly tearing down the employee.

7. Normalize Group Socialization

This one may be harder to maintain in your group’s culture. However, you can organize outings and events to allow your team to get to know one another away from the work setting. Friendships and bonds can strengthen the group’s interpersonal relationships.

These seven steps will help boost team morale while creating a group culture where individuals feel valued. We as leaders must first engage in self-management in our personal lives to know how to steer our team toward higher emotional intelligence.

The Cost of Low Emotional Intelligence

The reason high emotional intelligence is so crucial in the workplace is twofold. First, there are many benefits of high emotional intelligence. However, having a team low on emotional intelligence also has many costs.

When a leader, a small group, or a business team suffers from low emotional intelligence, the following may be characteristic of the group.

Lack of socialization with fellow team members
Being critical of others
Little empathy
Not handling stress or pressure well
Ineffective communication
Unable to take criticism constructively
Not respecting the perspective or concerns of others

These traits can bring team spirit and morale down. There will be less trust between staff and leadership. The group will be less likely to work hard towards common goals.

Final Thoughts

There’s no such thing as successfully developing yourself or your team without scoring high in emotional intelligence. Being aware of and sensitive to your own emotions and the emotions of those around you will serve you and your group well.

Self-management in emotional intelligence is more than just a tool or strategy for leaders to implement in their private and professional lives. It means living and leading with the empathy and awareness required to make sound decisions that benefit everyone involved. It takes the discipline of good habits, compassion, and, most of all, deliberate practice.

7 Proven Effects of Self-Management! (For Leaders)

The most rewarding thing I have ever done was to lead a small team of six bomb disposal experts. But to be completely honest, it was also the hardest. Leadership is complex and demanding, requiring individuals to juggle various tasks, responsibilities, and expectations. We must have strong self-management skills to successfully lead and manage a team.

Leaders need self-management skills to stay organized, focused, and productive. Self-management involves mastering self-control, managing feelings and emotions, and taking ownership of one’s actions. Skilled self-managers make wise decisions, prioritize tasks, and handle pressure efficiently.

Self-management skills are also essential for maintaining a healthy work/life balance, which is critical to the long-term success of any leader. Leaders with strong self-management skills are better able to cope with stress, handle criticism and take deliberate risks.

7 Ways Self-Management Improves Leadership Skills

Self-management is more than just managing your time. It’s about managing your thoughts, behavior, and emotions. It provides the foundation for effective problem-solving, allowing leaders to objectively evaluate different scenarios and alternatives before deciding.

Here are seven ways self-management can improve your leadership:

1. Increased Self-Awareness

As a leader, it’s essential to recognize your strengths, weaknesses, and limitations to make decisions based on facts rather than emotions. Highly self-aware leaders can assess situations from multiple perspectives, anticipating possible outcomes and taking initiatives that benefit the team’s collective goals.

Since you don’t spiral down into emotion-driven reactions and interpretations, you can stay true to your team’s mission and values.

Self-awareness is the enabling factor for emotional self-management; you can not change what you are unaware of. Therefore improving self-awareness should be central to any leadership development.

2. Improved Decision-Making

Leading a team requires sound judgment and the ability to make decisions quickly and confidently. Self-management skills help leaders stay focused on the facts and avoid being swayed by personal biases.

The best counter to subconscious biases is to make them conscious so that we can notice how they impact our decision-making. To fully understand cognitive bias and how to spot one, I suggest you read the book Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman (Amazon.com). It truly has changed the way I make decisions!

Self-managers can objectively weigh the pros and cons, allowing them to make more effective decisions that benefit their team. Mental focus and clarity of thought are also essential for managing challenging situations.

3. Improved Interpersonal Skills

Interpersonal skills are essential for managing relationships with team members, stakeholders, and other key organizational people.

Self-management skills give leaders the insight to understand what motivates others and the ability to remain composed when managing conflicts.

Leaders with strong self-management skills can also better empathize and communicate clearly, leading to more effective teams. How you interact with others often reflects how you interact with yourself.

Common interpersonal skills leaders must have that are also impacted by self-management:

Empathy
Active listening
Patience
Conflict resolution
Teamwork
Mediation
Persuasion

Social interactions will help you understand your strengths and weaknesses and hone your interpersonal skills.

4. Increased Productivity

Increased productivity is the cherry on top of the cake for any leader. To be productive, leaders must clearly understand their goals and objectives and develop strategies to achieve them.

Self-management skills allow leaders to prioritize tasks appropriately, allocate resources effectively, and stay focused on the big picture. Self-managers can also better recognize and address potential problems before they arise, which could derail progress.

5. More Effective Communication

Leaders must clearly articulate their vision and expectations to their team to achieve success. Effective communication requires self-discipline and managing your emotions to avoid misunderstandings and motivate people toward a common goal.

When managing your thoughts and emotions, you’re more capable of listening actively, providing constructive feedback, and creating an environment of trust. You’ll also be able to maintain composure during heated discussions, which is essential for managing conflict.

6. Greater Credibility

Leaders who demonstrate strong self-management skills foster trust and respect among their team members. When your team sees that you’re managing yourself effectively, they’ll be more likely to follow your lead and trust your decisions.

Great leaders also exhibit self-discipline, respect for others, and a commitment to their team’s success. Since you make decisions based on facts rather than emotions, people will trust that your decisions are based on logic and reason rather than your emotional state of the day.

7. Improved Adaptability

Often, leaders encounter unexpected obstacles that require quick thinking and the ability to adjust course as needed. A team member may call in sick, a project may be delayed, or a budget cut may require the reallocation of resources.

Leaders with self-management skills can stay calm in the face of change and rapidly adapt to new circumstances. This flexibility and mental agility help leaders develop innovative solutions to complex challenges.

Here’s an interesting video where former CEO Helen Sanderson gives a talk on how self-management is the answer to happiness, productivity, and engagement at work.

Self-management improves overall team performance.

How To Improve Your Self-Management Skills as a Team Leader

Follow these tips to improve your self-management skills:

Set Clear Goals

Before embarking on any task, define the outcomes you want to achieve.

What does success look like for you? Is it completing a project on time, managing your emotions effectively, or managing difficult conversations?

Having a clear roadmap will help you stay focused and on track. You don’t have to tackle your goals alone. Seek feedback and support from others.

Prioritize

To succeed, you must prioritize and focus on the most critical tasks.

To succeed, you must prioritize and focus on the most critical tasks.

Every morning I start with a walk, then I journal the three “must-do” of the day; I don’t work on anything else until those are finished.

This can help you stay organized and focused so you don’t get sidetracked by small tasks that distract from your bigger goals.

How to improve self-management as a team leader

Develop Habits

Good habits are essential for managing yourself effectively. Establish routines that help you stay focused and organized. This could include setting aside time for reflection, setting daily reminders to review your goals, or scheduling breaks to help you stay energized. Take breaks when needed to stay motivated and energized.

I definitely recommend starting out really small when you’re building new habits. If your goal is to write a book, your habit shouldn’t be writing 1000 words before work. But instead, start by just opening the document and writing the first line. This will reduce the threshold to get started, and if you want to learn more, I recommend the book Atomic Habits (amazon.com).

Take Responsibility

Strive for excellence, and don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Take responsibility for your actions and be accountable to yourself and others. Learn from any missteps and use them as an opportunity for growth. This will also increase the trust team members have in you (how important is trust really?).

A truly great read is the book 12 Rules for life by Jordan Peterson. He is controversial, but his thoughts on responsibility are very interesting. Another good book about ownership is former Navy seal Jocko Willinks’s book called extreme ownership!

Monitor Your Progress

Self-management requires ongoing self-reflection and assessment of your progress. Set aside time each week to review your accomplishments and identify areas to improve. This will help you stay motivated, stay on track, and adjust your strategy as needed.

Over the years, I have constructed a pretty legit, if I might say it myself, spreadsheet where I can keep track of my monthly, quarterly, yearly, and five-year goals without paying a single dollar. You can find a copy of it here.

Final Thoughts

Strong self-management skills are essential for managing a team effectively. Leaders need the proper mindset and skillset to stay focused, remain calm under pressure, and make decisions that benefit the team.

Skill	Benefits
Increased self-awareness	Enables leaders to make decisions based on facts rather than emotions
Improved decision-making	Helps leaders stay focused on facts and avoid being swayed by personal biases
Improved interpersonal skills	Gives leaders the insight to understand what motivates others, manage conflicts, empathize, and communicate
Increased productivity	Enables leaders to prioritize tasks, allocate resources effectively, and recognize and address potential problems
More effective communication	Allows leaders to listen actively, provide constructive feedback, and maintain composure during a conflict
Greater credibility	Fosters trust and respect among team members
Improved adaptability	Helps leaders stay calm in the face of change and develop innovative solutions to complex challenges

The Seven Ways Self-Management Improves Leadership Skills

Self-management skills give leaders the insight to understand what motivates others, build trust in their teams, communicate effectively, and stay productive. Ultimately, these skills give leaders the edge to maximize their potential and set a good example for their team.

3 Signs You’re Not Taking Extreme Ownership of Your Business (and Life)

When I was 23 years old, my go-to when something didn’t bear in my favor was to blame it on someone or something else. I used to have a bizarre haircut, and it got blamed for the lack of women in my life (sad, I know). True or not, I did nothing to change my situation. But my life drastically changed the day I decided to take ownership of everything in my life. Taking ownership is a critical skill that will significantly affect how you manage your business and live your life.

Signs that you are not taking extreme ownership

Extreme ownership means taking full responsibility for your business and life and focusing on what you can change instead of blaming others. Signs that you need to take more extreme ownership of your business and life include indecisiveness, unwillingness to delegate tasks, and inability to take responsibility.

In this article, I’ll talk about the signs that you’re not taking extreme ownership of your business and life and how these can take a toll on your leadership, management skills, and personal relationships.

1. You’re Indecisive

The ability to make sound decisions promptly is a crucial leadership quality that can make or break a business. Indecisiveness will put your business’ welfare at risk, especially in the face of uncertainty, conflict, and crisis. You must always be on top of things and know how to handle various situations strategically.

Wondering if you are indecisive? The first step is to become self-aware.

Effective decisiveness is about being okay with limited information but still able to make a decision and move forward; action creates clarity.

Effective decisiveness is about being okay with limited information but still able to make a decision and move forward; action creates clarity.

That being said, managing and leading a team doesn’t mean you make all decisions, big and small. You must learn to delegate tasks to competent individuals so the team functions efficiently and synergistically.

Wanting to decide on even the most minor aspects of your business makes you a micromanager, which is not a useful leadership quality.

Our jobs as leaders are to present a what and why but not the how. The how is up to the individual who is closest to the problem. We must trust our team to make the right decisions; we offer feedback and training when they don’t.

Indecisiveness may translate into your personal life and make you feel overwhelmed at times; an excellent tool for improving your decisiveness is the Eisenhower matrix.

Tasks are placed in one of four categories; urgent and important, urgent but not important, important but not urgent, and not urgent and not important. This clearly shows what must be decided here and now and what tasks can wait.

When you want to start prioritizing and making more beneficial decisions on time and minimizing decisions made too late, I invite you to book a call with me to see if we should work together.

2. You’re Not Willing to Delegate Tasks

An efficient leader is one who can delegate tasks.

No matter how skilled you are in leading and managing your team, you will still need other individuals’ help, especially those with a particular field of expertise. The mark of a good leader isn’t one who can do everything all at once. Rather, an efficient leader is one who can delegate to those who can accomplish the tasks the best.

An efficient leader is one who can delegate to those who can accomplish the tasks the best.

Delegation of tasks empowers your team members. It shows them that you believe in their capabilities, which is why you give them autonomy over their work.

The key to practicing extreme ownership and effective delegation is allowing your team members to see the bigger picture. Hence, they understand their unique and significant roles in achieving the goals you’ve set.

Creating a synergistic team is just as crucial in business as in your personal life. Truer words were never spoken than the adage, “No man is an island.” Both in business and life, remember that nobody is entirely self-sufficient. We must all rely on others, one way or another, to succeed.

The Damaging Effects of Micromanagement

The opposite of effective delegation is micromanagement; I think considering why delegation is so important is worth considering.

People generally want enough space and opportunities to do what they think is best. Your team members will undoubtedly appreciate your good management, but they also want to feel they contribute significantly to the business. If you lean toward micromanagement, chances are you’re doing more harm than good.

Here are some of the most damaging effects of micromanagement:

Team members may feel demotivated. Although team members may appreciate support and advice, they might start feeling utterly powerless if you don’t allow them to make even the smallest decisions about how they should accomplish their jobs.
Team morale may go down. Making your team members feel that you don’t have faith in their capabilities may make them lose interest in their work.
Team members may start feeling paranoid. Managing your team too closely may sow seeds of self-doubt in them, especially if you’re constantly scrutinizing every aspect of their work.
Suppression of creativity and innovativeness. If you expect your team members to follow instructions to a tee, you will hamper their ability to think of ingenious solutions to complex problems. You will also hinder them from thinking outside the box and maximizing their full potential.

3. You Don’t Take Full Responsibility

Always take full responsibility and ownership.

If you often point fingers whenever something doesn’t go as planned, it may indicate that you’re not taking extreme ownership of your business. Leading a team involves taking full responsibility for every aspect, both the good and the bad, even if you delegate tasks to people you highly trust. Remember that the bottom line is everything, and everyone depends on you.

If you often point fingers whenever something doesn’t go as planned, it may indicate that you’re not taking extreme ownership of your business.

The ability to take full responsibility and ownership of your business will be evident in how you live your daily life. Do you frequently find yourself blaming others, especially the people you love most, whenever things go wrong? Is it easy and almost instinctive for you to put the blame on others in the face of blunders and frustrations?

If so, take it upon yourself to step more into the spotlight and take full responsibility for various aspects of your life and business. Take these failures as learning opportunities to improve yourself and enhance your modes of action and tactics. Show your team (and your friends and family) that you — whether as a team leader, spouse, or parent — are willing to step into the line of fire for the betterment of the people around you.

You are often not the reason why something happened, and you might not even be able to do something about it. But if you approach life with a sense of genuine ownership, the direction of your life, just as mine did, will profoundly change for the better.

Suddenly you are the king of whatever happens, and it’s better to be king than a peasant, especially in a shitty kingdom.

Signs of Not Taking Extreme Ownership	Description
Indecisiveness	The inability to make sound decisions in a timely manner can put a business at risk, especially during uncertain times. Effective decision-making involves being comfortable with limited information and taking action to create clarity. Leaders must trust their team to make decisions while providing feedback and training when needed.
Unwillingness to Delegate Tasks	Good leaders delegate tasks to individuals with the right skills and expertise, empowering team members and helping them understand their roles in achieving goals. Practicing extreme ownership involves allowing team members to see the bigger picture and take ownership of their work.
Failure to Take Full Responsibility	Effective leaders take full responsibility for the good and the bad, even when delegating tasks to trusted individuals. Blaming others for mistakes and failures indicates a lack of ownership and responsibility. Taking ownership of one’s actions is crucial for success in both business and personal life.

Signs you’re not taking extreme ownership of your business

What Is Extreme Ownership in Business?

Extreme ownership in the business is the idea that you, as the leader, own everything relating to your business. You take full responsibility for each triumph, failure, and obstacle. You can simultaneously manage all aspects despite all that is happening in your professional and personal life.

You should delegate tasks to people you trust but also to those you don’t trust; delegate the less important tasks and let them slowly build confidence back up.

However, remember that you’re still in the driver’s seat, and it’s your job to ensure that the people on your team are aligned with organizational goals.

Extreme ownership is significant because it forces you to focus on your impact on the situation; it’s the difference between focusing on “why the problem arose ” and “how do we fix it.” The first will look for something/someone to blame, and the latter will direct you toward a solution.

Extreme ownership is, in a way, telling yourself, “There are no excuses; I will get it done.”

The book Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win (available on Amazon.com) is an excellent source of information and insights on the value of extreme ownership in your business (and life). The lessons learned from these SEAL officers will help you better manage and lead your team toward success.

How Important Is Team Trust in Comparison to Other Tasks?

As a leader, it’s your responsibility to improve your team’s performance. You can have the best, most qualified software developers in the world in the same company. But trust is necessary for them to perform as individuals, and you’ll miss out on the synergies from a high-trust team.

Building trust with your team is essential because it creates a sense of safety among members, improving productivity, morale, creativity, and risk-taking. Furthermore, faith encourages group members to open up about their weaknesses, allowing you to address them before they affect the team.

This article will look at the importance of trust within a team and allow you to prioritize better trust-building activities about all other tasks you have.

How Important Is Trust in Comparison to Other Team Dynamics?

Trust is the glue that holds the team together.

Trust is the most critical team dynamic – a group cannot function effectively and at its maximum potential without trust. Trust is the glue that holds the team together, improving productivity and creativity.

Through trust, you build a cohesive unit that works to each other’s strengths and is willing to cover for each other’s weaknesses. With faith, it’s nearly possible to improve different team dynamics.

Simon Sinek, in a talk, discusses why trust is the key to high-performing teams and why it is important for leaders to create a trusting environment.

Trust is the foundation of any successful team.

Trust Builds Safety Among Team Members

Trust is a crucial element of military operations, especially EOD (Explosive Ordinance Disposal), where the consequences of making a mistake are significant in every task.

When operating in an environment where the enemy’s primary purpose is to eliminate you, having people you trust watching your back makes you feel safer and perform at a higher level.

Although this is an example from my past on foreign deployments, it also applies to civilian situations since it’s introductory human psychology.

The office environment is much less chaotic and life-threatening than the front lines of a war, but without trust, it can feel like a warzone. When there’s destructive conflict among team members, productivity suffers.

Google surveyed its employees and concluded that psychological safety is the key dynamic in a successful team. Trust creates psychological safety as team members know the group will react positively to inquiries and ideas, fostering an environment where members engage freely.

Conversely, in an untrustworthy setting, individuals will retreat into their shells in fear of the actions and utterings of their teammates. The instinct in a shady work environment is self-preservation and selfishness with ideas.

Leading a group that trusts each other, regardless of rank or title, is more accessible as the members feel safe in the team. Group members produce better results working for a leader they trust. A leader who trusts their team can focus on supporting them and spend more time planning for the future.

Trust Fosters Easier Communication Among Members

Communication is a crucial aspect of success in group settings. Fast and easy communication enhances problem-solving and task completion.

As a leader, you want team members to approach you freely with questions about tasks and projects. They may only come to you with trust between you and your employees. A team member who worries about approaching the leader with an inquiry will much rather muddle through a project than ask for help.

Unsatisfactory results and projects that must be redone are typical signs of teams that fail to communicate. Trust also promotes communication among team members.

Unsatisfactory results and projects that must be redone are typical signs of teams that fail to communicate. Trust also promotes communication among team members.

Most social media posts about unsavory work environments highlight the tones of emails and memos sent among workmates. A simple request from a team member you don’t trust can seem condescending, which might draw a snarky response from you. The lack of trust can lead to a conflict that doesn’t exist.

However, a request or communication from a trustworthy teammate or leader draws positive responses and reactions. The team member knows the person managing them has no ill intentions and only wants the best for the group.

Trust Encourages Team Members To Take Risks

In EOD, risk-taking is a natural part of the job; it is the one skill that every person on the team must be an expert at. Being a risk management expert allows you to explore new avenues of operating, surprise the enemy (your competition), and develop new and better ways of solving problems.

Most leaders punish mistakes harder than they celebrate victory; this is entirely backward if you want to build creativity and trust in your team. People will make mistakes whether or not you punish them, but people will only innovate if you encourage them to do so!

With innovation comes failures (most new ideas fail), but you only need one great idea to pay off all the evil thoughts.

Members will shy away from taking beneficial risks in an untrustworthy environment. For instance, in a workplace where members know they will receive rebuke from the leader if a risk they take fails to pay off, they are unlikely to do so.

People will make mistakes whether or not you punish them, but people will not innovate unless you encourage them to do so!

Conversely, an employee in a team bonded by trust will know they have the support of teammates and their leader when taking reasonable risks.

Leading a team that feels free to take risks can be greatly rewarding as it’s easier for members to think freely and present innovative ideas.

Trust Increases the Group’s Efficiency

A surefire way of increasing your team’s efficiency is building trust between you and the teammates and among teammates. Team sports provide excellent examples of trust’s effect on the unit’s efficiency.

Talented groups with teammates who don’t trust each other often crumble. Conversely, teams with lesser talents bonded by trust regularly exceed expectations.

If we take an American football team as a representation of the team, the coach is the leader, and the players are the team. The coach and the player aim to win games as efficiently as possible.

A team that trusts its coach will carry out the manager’s plays and won’t be afraid to speak out if they disagree with specific calls. That way, the manager and players will determine how to win together. A cohesive manager and team combination is efficient on the pitch and, in your case, in the office.

If the players don’t trust the coach, they are unlikely to perform plays wholeheartedly or offer their input. The same applies in the office – if the team doesn’t trust you, they will disagree with your decisions, leading to poor workplace efficiency, and perhaps more concerningly, they won’t speak out for fear of retribution.

Therefore, the leader and team must function like a well-oiled machine to increase efficiency. The oil that lubricates a high-functioning business team is trust.

Trust Increases Morale

People want to work for leaders they trust. If you want your team to look forward to every day of work, you must build trust.

Team members perpetually psyched up for work produce better results and work better with each other. A manager’s dream is leading a group that enjoys working towards a shared goal.

The term ‘disengagement’ has increased in the quiet quitting era, but it has been around for a long time. Quiet quitting is different from actual quitting in that an employee doesn’t leave the job — they stick around but do the bare minimum due to a lack of morale.

Team members perpetually psyched up for work produce better results and work better with each other.

A study by Jan Pech of Spandrel Group and Bret W. Slade identified two principal reasons for employee disengagement: poor leadership and lack of trust between leaders and subordinates. Employees need more motivation to work if they trust their leaders.

Money is one of the main reasons why people show up for work. However, you want your employees to do more than “show up.” If the employees lack enthusiasm for your tasks, they only do what is required. I mean, why wouldn’t they?

An organization with disengaged employees grows slower than it would with engaged, motivated employees.

Engagement is critical in a small group, where the lack of effort by one or two employees can cripple the entire operation.

Trust Reduces Employee Turnover

As a manager, it’s always frustrating to see an employee leave. The reality of the industry is you’re likely to continue employee turnover. However, you can minimize the rate of employee attrition by building trust between you and your team.

A business that hemorrhages employees will suffer from low productivity and morale. Furthermore, it forces the diversion of funds from other activities into the search for replacements.

This was the case at my old job; when I joined the unit, most of the “old guys” were leaving, and we had a massive drop in competence, which took many years to rebuild.

Instead of having someone say, “We tried that; it didn’t work,” we now had to reinvent the wheel.

The same thing happened when I got out; many of my veteran colleagues exited, leaving the company yet another time without much of its experience.

A study published in October 2019 found that one of the leading causes of employee turnover was the conduct of supervisors, closely followed by limited space for employee growth.

The study posits that your conduct as a leader significantly affects employee retention. Therefore, you must build trust between yourself and your team.

Employees who trust you will see no need to look elsewhere. Employees do not leave their jobs; they leave their bosses.

Employees do not leave their job; they leave their bosses.

Also, employees who trust you know you have their best interests at heart and won’t deny them growth opportunities.

It’s also essential to build trust between employees. Another leading reason why employees leave is toxicity in the workplace. Toxicity breeds among workers who don’t trust each other, increasing the likelihood of resignations.

Employees Are Receptive To Change in a Trustful Environment

Change is inevitable, and so is resistance to change. The effectiveness of alterations in a workplace partially depends on the employees’ adaptation to the changes. Faster adaptation reduces the impact on productivity and workflow.

Change is inevitable, and so is resistance to change.

Transitions in workplaces require cooperation from employees. Employees who don’t trust the employer are more likely to resist change—consequently, the transition time increases, leading to a longer-than-required disruption of company activities.

Managing a small group during a transition is more straightforward than overseeing the changes in a large corporation — fewer people resist change. However, resistance to change, however minimal, can be inconvenient.

If your employees trust you, they will incorporate the changes you implement while offering their input on improving operations.

Many employers appreciated the benefit of building trust with their employees during the 2020 pandemic when circumstances forced workplaces to switch to remote work. Employer and employee combinations bonded by faith adapted quicker to the new working conditions and profited as their less cohesive competitors labored to catch up.

Trust Makes Managing Remote Work Easier

The 2020 pandemic forced the adoption of remote work worldwide. As the pandemic subsided, some employers enforced in-office return policies, others adopted a hybrid system of in-office and remote work, while others went fully remote.

According to a 2022 report by GoodHire, nearly half of the American workforce would accept a pay reduction to continue working remotely. The stat shows that remote work is trendy and here to stay.

Remote work suits a small team of two to ten people – meetings occur online, and workplace operations like file-sharing happen in online workspaces.

Managing employees virtually can be an issue without trust between you and your team. Surveilling your remote workers ceaselessly isn’t feasible, nor is morale, and will distract you from performing more valuable activities.

In a remote environment, you must trust that the employees will meet deadlines and attend meetings as they would in an office. Due to the impracticality and pitfalls of micromanagement, especially in a remote workplace, you must trust that the employees will produce results.

Remote work can benefit your team and business immensely.

Trust Grows Employees

Employee growth improves a company’s productivity: As employee experience grows, competency and productivity increase.

Many employees aim to rise up the ladder, acquiring jobs with better pay and greater responsibility. However, employee development is a possibility. Some work environments hinder employee growth, promoting employee turnover and quiet quitting.

Employees learn a lot from their employers — leaders and managers are coaches of their team members. They often have more experience and skill in the business and are therefore suited to training and growing their employees.

Employees won’t readily take in advice and instruction from leaders they don’t trust. By failing to build trust with your employees, they’re unlikely to see you as a person to improve their skills and competence. Unwilling to abandon their ambitions, they’ll likely look elsewhere.

Additionally, even if you intend to help them grow, employees who don’t trust you will likely be uncooperative and not receptive to your coaching.

Importance of Trust in Comparison to Other Team Dynamics	Description
*Trust Builds Safety Among Team Members*	When team members trust one another, they feel safe to express their ideas, take calculated risks, and collaborate openly. This trust fosters a sense of psychological safety, where individuals feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and concerns without fear of judgment or reprisal.
*Trust Fosters Easier Communication Among Members*	This open and honest communication leads to improved understanding, collaboration, and problem-solving, ultimately enhancing team cohesion and productivity. Trust acts as a lubricant for smoother interactions, enabling team members to express their ideas and concerns without fear and thus, facilitating a more productive and harmonious work environment.
*Trust Encourages Team Members To Take Risks*	Trust fosters a culture of experimentation, where team members are more willing to push boundaries and explore new opportunities, often leading to growth, innovation, and improved team performance.
*Trust Increases the Group’s Efficiency*	Tasks are completed more swiftly and effectively, contributing to higher productivity and achieving collective goals more efficiently. Trust acts as a catalyst for a team’s overall efficiency and success.
*Trust Increases Morale*	This higher morale leads to increased motivation, engagement, and a willingness to go the extra mile for the team’s success. In such an environment, individuals are more likely to approach challenges with a positive attitude and resilience, ultimately contributing to a happier and more productive work atmosphere. Trust is a cornerstone of high team morale.
*Trust Reduces Employee Turnover*	Trust fosters open communication and problem-solving, addressing issues before they become reasons for employees to leave. Consequently, organizations with a strong foundation of trust tend to retain their talent, reducing the costly and disruptive turnover that can occur when trust is lacking. Trust becomes a critical factor in building a stable and loyal workforce.
*Employees Are Receptive To Change in a Trustful Environment*	Organizations that prioritize trust find it easier to navigate and implement changes effectively, fostering innovation and remaining competitive in a constantly evolving business landscape. Trust is the catalyst for a positive and agile approach to change.
*Trust Makes Managing Remote Work Easier*	Open and transparent communication, fueled by trust, bridges the physical distance, helping teams stay connected and aligned despite being geographically dispersed. In essence, trust is the linchpin for effective and efficient remote work management.
*Trust Grows Employees*	Trust provides a supportive environment where employees feel safe to make mistakes and learn from them, ultimately leading to personal and career advancement. In essence, trust nurtures a culture of continuous improvement and empowers employees to reach their full potential, benefiting both the individual and the organization. Trust is a catalyst for growth and development in the workplace.

Importance of Trust in Comparison to Other Team Dynamics

Importance of Trust in the team dynamics — How important is trust in the team dynamics?

Conclusion

Trust is the first and most crucial dynamic a leader should look to build with his team. Through trust, you create a safe environment that encourages collaboration, feedback, and communication and produces results.

By building trust, the team believes in your leadership and works towards your goals. Faith brings out the best in your team as individuals know they can work freely without fear of unfair rebuke. Crucially, team members who trust their leader openly offer ideas and take risks, which helps grow the operation.

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2. Leading Requires Accountability

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4. You Can Only Lead From a Place of Clarity

5. The Mission’s Success Should Override Personal Interests

6. Teamwork Requires Proper Coordination

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8. Pressuring Situations Require a Leader To Set Priorities

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10. Plan Before Implementing

11. Discipline Brings Freedom and Flexibility

12. Leading Requires Prompt Decision Making

13. Anticipate Threats

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2. Forming Good Habits

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1. Normalize Empathy

2. Normalize Appreciation

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Set Clear Goals

Prioritize

Develop Habits

Take Responsibility

Monitor Your Progress

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3. You Don’t Take Full Responsibility

What Is Extreme Ownership in Business?

How Important Is Trust in Comparison to Other Team Dynamics?

Trust Builds Safety Among Team Members

Trust Fosters Easier Communication Among Members

Trust Encourages Team Members To Take Risks

Trust Increases the Group’s Efficiency

Trust Increases Morale

Trust Reduces Employee Turnover

Employees Are Receptive To Change in a Trustful Environment

Trust Makes Managing Remote Work Easier

Trust Grows Employees

Conclusion