Page 49 - Develop your leadership skills- John Adair. -- 2nd ed

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40 ■ Develop your leadership skills

consider their own agreed success criteria, you are performing
the function of evaluating.

Because it is a major mental function, an integral part of
thinking (see my Decision Making and Problem Solving in the
Creating Success series), valuing or evaluating will play a
crucial role in your decision making. When you assess the
possible consequences of a decision, for example, you will be
evaluating. But you also evaluate in the other two circles: the
team and the individual.

Why evaluate the team or get the team to evaluate its ways of
working together? Because that is the principal way to build
or develop the team. No team is perfect. Many are good; a few
are very good; and still fewer are excellent. Here are some of
the criteria or hallmarks of an excellent, high-performance
team:

■ Clear realistic objectives. Everyone knows what the team’s
objectives are and what their part in the plan is.

■ Shared sense of purpose. By this I do not mean that every
member can recite the organisation’s mission statement,
but that you experience what engineers call a ‘vector’:
direction plus energy.

■ Best use of resources. All resources belong to the team and
are put to work according to priority.

■ Atmosphere of openness. There is excellent two-way
communication between leader and members, and among
members. People can speak openly, without fear of being
thought critical. All that matters is to ensure that the best
decisions are taken.