Team up is number four in Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s six keys for leadership. These keys are a simple way of getting to the principles of decent behaviour in organisations. They might be simple but they contain layers of reflection that I have found helpful in my own practice.
While it’s important to do some work alone and for me this is reading, researching and writing, there’s no doubt that having a natter with others helps me to consolidate my hunches and challenges me where I’ve got things wrong.
However, the real traction when we want to move the needle on a project is to team up with others. There’s only so much we can achieve on our own and we need the firepower of others to get stuff done. And I believe it goes further than bringing projects to life, working on a strand of school improvement or developing new plans for the curriculum, for example.
When it goes well (which is not to say everyone needs to be in agreement in every moment) there is a by-product of deepening relationships with colleagues. That sense of a shared endeavour is sweet.
Teamwork takes work. It doesn’t just arrive ready-made. Thought needs to be given to how we work together: respectful disagreement, shared goals and creating the conditions for high challenge and low threat.
To my mind, teaming up has two bonuses – when it’s going well, we are not only more effective but we also build strong relationships with others. For myself, the best work comes out of collaboration and I’m thinking of the work on the Huh curriculum series, interviewing colleagues and writing the chapters with John Tomsett.
And for the primary Huh, doing the interviews with primary subject specialists, Emma Turner, Lekha Sharma and Rachel Higginson. Not only were the final products better aligned with what the sector needs, we also had great fun!
It might be a truism but I reckon it holds: together everyone does achieve more!
I’ll be reflecting on the other keys in future posts.
And the Leadership Lobby is now live! It’s a paced leadership course blended with live sessions over 4 terms with Andrew Morrish. If you’d like to know more, here’s a link to our recent webinar.
I hope this is helpful, feedback welcome!
Until next time
Mary