We have all participated in assessment exercises or team building days when a group of aspiring graduates or managers are organised into teams and set tasks to achieve upon which they are measured.
In these slightly artificial situations one of the most interesting aspects is the way in which the leadership of the teams work out. There will often in my experience be one man or woman who tends to talk the most and seeks to dominate the team. They always seem to know best and try to assume the mantle of the team leader. They often succeed as well in becoming the team leader because the other team members are perhaps more reticent in putting themselves forward.
They probably see themselves as the natural leader, but are they the right person for the job? You actually have no means of knowing because they have sort of been self selected, by themselves. Their qualities, good or bad have not really been assessed or tested in any way.
Jim Collins in the book Good to Great said of the business leaders that succeeded in taking their companies to the highest level:
“The good-to-great leaders never wanted to become larger-than-life heroes. They never aspired to be put on a pedestal or become unreachable icons. They were seemingly ordinary people quietly producing extraordinary results.”
In fact sometimes these self electing leaders can be very bad news for the team. I recall one such situation where one of the team knew the answer to a particular task – because they had done the exercise before. However the self chosen leader would not listen and tried to insist the team took a different approach. Interestingly and fortunately the rest of the team saw sense and refused to follow the “leader”.
So in artificial tests and even more so in real life business situations I suggest that more care and intelligence is applied to the selection of the team leader. At the very least the person who thrusts themselves forward should be questioned to see if they have the required qualities.
In these slightly artificial situations one of the most interesting aspects is the way in which the leadership of the teams work out. There will often in my experience be one man or woman who tends to talk the most and seeks to dominate the team. They always seem to know best and try to assume the mantle of the team leader. They often succeed as well in becoming the team leader because the other team members are perhaps more reticent in putting themselves forward.
They probably see themselves as the natural leader, but are they the right person for the job? You actually have no means of knowing because they have sort of been self selected, by themselves. Their qualities, good or bad have not really been assessed or tested in any way.
Jim Collins in the book Good to Great said of the business leaders that succeeded in taking their companies to the highest level:
“The good-to-great leaders never wanted to become larger-than-life heroes. They never aspired to be put on a pedestal or become unreachable icons. They were seemingly ordinary people quietly producing extraordinary results.”
In fact sometimes these self electing leaders can be very bad news for the team. I recall one such situation where one of the team knew the answer to a particular task – because they had done the exercise before. However the self chosen leader would not listen and tried to insist the team took a different approach. Interestingly and fortunately the rest of the team saw sense and refused to follow the “leader”.
So in artificial tests and even more so in real life business situations I suggest that more care and intelligence is applied to the selection of the team leader. At the very least the person who thrusts themselves forward should be questioned to see if they have the required qualities.
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