"There's no I in Team"..."There's no Us either"
When I first began my part-time job in retail, I started at the bottom. On the shoe department to be exact, so when I say I started at the bottom, I mean the floor; literally picking shoes off of it. I was eighteen, it was my first job, and I hated it. What I hated the most was being constantly bossed around by my manager, unaccustomed as I was to any sort of workplace hierarchy. The way I saw it, I had two options: admit defeat and quit; or push myself to where my manager was and do it better. None of this team stuff, I could be a leader, be an individual - do things my way. How did it turn out? I got myself promoted. Twice.
Ironically, as part of the management team, the experience I’ve come to draw upon the most is that which I gained as a shoe-loathing sales assistant. It enables me to know what’s going through the minds of the people I’m trying to manage while they’re enduring complaints (see my previous blog) and trying valiantly to maintain some sense of calm amid the chaos; and so is the best tool I have as their manager. It’s what ties me to them and helps them to trust that I really know what I’m talking about (most of the time). I’d expected that to be a leader was to be an individual (a star one at that), but I’ve found myself inextricably bound to a collective.
I was considering this transition between being one person to being part of many when I found this article in Training Journal in November (also referenced in the January issue). It analyses a study by the Kenexa Institute which ranked leadership effectiveness across 21 different countries – the UK came 17th. The authors of both TJ articles suggested that there was something drastically wrong, and that UK leaders need to take a good hard look at how they lead.
What I found interesting is that of the 21 countries sampled, four of the top five are considered to be collectivist societies (emphasising the priority of group goals, e.g. China), while four of the bottom five (including the UK) are considered to be individualist societies (emphasising personal goals over the group). It boils down to the age old dilemma – the individual vs. the team. Is it possible that in individualist societies, we place too much emphasis on our ambitions, our personal goals, and how to realise them? Whereas, do leaders of collectivist societies have more room to lead because their followers are not constantly criticising or snapping at their heels to pinch their job from under their noses?
Don’t get me wrong, I love being an individual, and I greatly treasure the side of individualism that allows for creativity, innovation and freedom of expression – and these are qualities we cannot afford to lose in the workplace – but what about being team players? Even the most experienced, skilled leader would encounter difficulties trying to lead a team who refuse to be led; and more importantly, how can we be good leaders if we’ve never known what it was like to be good followers?
In my slightly naïve 18-year-old skin, I believed that the best way to get promoted was to get noticed for being different. To some extent that was true, but the real turning point for me was when I resisted a little less and stopped thinking about how horrible this job was for me. I absorbed myself into the team on my floor, tried doing what I was told (a bitter pill to swallow) and it worked. It’s a balancing act: pure individualism may lead to conflict, aggression and limited progress; but pure collectivism risks the loss of the unique qualities that each member can bring to the group. My balance was prioritising the group in my day-to-day duties which would lead to the realisation of a personal goal.
Maybe we can learn some lessons from our international counterparts in how to be a team. That old saying “There’s no I in TEAM” couldn’t be further from the truth, a team is a whole collection of I’s who come together behind a common vision. Effective leaders can see that; they inspire their individuals to work as a collective and let them loose – becoming facilitators before managers. Being the best you can be sometimes means bringing out the best in others first.
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