7 qualities of the most effective team leaders

It takes partnership and collaboration to build a team that can achieve goals and create sustainable success.

Any true leader will tell you that success isn’t achieved through delegation. It takes partnership and collaboration to build a team that can achieve goals and create sustainable success.
I’ve worked with financial advisers at many stages of their careers: Some who are personally very successful and contemplating whether or not to build a team; others who have built a team and are in the process of perfecting it; still others who’ve built a team only to find that they have to rebuild it; and finally those who have become so successful with their teams that they want to reach that next plateau of achievement.
In each of these scenarios, I remind the leaders of the seven qualities that the most effective team leaders and CEOs focus on, and in every scenario I find that these qualities apply to improving their situations:
Your own self-development: This is a crucial aspect of successfully leading an advisory team. Examining your self-development as a leader is the surest way to role model and lead an effort to develop team competence. As others see you working on new skills and behaviors, they will be inspired by your commitment to personal development and move to focus on their own.
Broadening individual and collective team competence to include and move beyond technical capability: While technical capability is the cornerstone of your business and a huge contributor to where you are now, there are additional capabilities that will make you and your team better equipped to achieve success. You should devote time to understanding and taking and supporting actions to grow and use your team’s problem solving and decision-making capabilities, as well as their relational skills. These skills provide better communication between you and your team, among team members and with clients.
Understanding the career and learning aspirations of individual team members and how they relate to team goals: Taking the time to learn about your team members’ aspirations shows caring and interest in both their personal and professional and successes. This provides an opportunity for you to validate their interests, offer your perspective and provide encouragement. Equally important, it allows you to understand how best to motivate and involve each individual in team goals and activities. This will naturally encourage significant time thinking about and acting on team goals, and greater engagement in activities that will increase your team’s ability to function and produce.
Assisting each team member to create a personal development plan: A development plan becomes a road map for how to leverage strengths and fill skill gaps for both short and long-term learning. This plan should include short and long term development goals, specific learning outcomes and success measurements. It should also be oriented to both the individual’s personal goals and his or her functioning as a team member and contributor. For greater ownership and accountability, the development plan should be jointly created by you and the team member, with the team member taking more of the lead.
Creating opportunities for personal learning: The greatest leaders involve their teams as much as possible by modeling and leading greater team competence through opportunities for personal learning. The crux of the leader’s challenge is not falling into the trap of failing to delegate. Delegating meaningful work creates learning and growth. Continue to challenge yourself to delegate work that offers learning opportunities for others on the team. Integrating personal learning with team activities is an effective way to combine individual learning with team building and achieve results on both fronts.
Providing regular feedback and coaching: There is no substitute for one-on-one coaching and feedback. Team members can benefit greatly from your feedback on how they are progressing with an important skill or behavior, particularly those behaviors that affect team functioning and ability. Make yourself available and accessible for regular coaching so team members have the support they need to discuss challenges, concerns and obstacles to learning.
Rewarding and celebrating learning and growth: True moments of satisfaction come from watching team members learn and grow. Celebrating key milestones of personal and team growth are “feel good” moments for the individual and the team, and also enhance team cohesiveness. Implicit within this is understanding what team behaviors foster team cohesiveness, success and sustainability, and then taking actions to maximize those behaviors.
Ray Sclafani is the founder and chief executive of ClientWise, a business and executive coaching firm working with financial professionals and teams.