Building Leadership through Teams, Building Teams through Leadership: A Systemic Approach
Written by Charles J. Meltzer Ph.D., President of SyntecGroup, CEO of Innerview Concepts Inc. 
Sitting and talking with John, a senior division director at a large Canadian corporation, you would get the impression that his team of senior managers were all on the same page and that they worked exceedingly well together. According to John, they challenged each other and provided pointed feedback to decisions that he and the team needed to make. John felt this was true for all managers on the team, except for one manager who he saw as a "trouble maker". His perception was that this manager consistently disagreed with the team and him and, as a result, she was a negative influence. The team, however, had a very different picture of the situation. They viewed their leader as highly dictatorial and not open to ideas or disagreement. One might describe him as being somewhat right of Attila the Hun. If you risked disagreement with his ideas, decisions or directions, the consistent result was a harsh verbal attack in the presence of the rest of the team. The team did not view each other as supportive and generally lacked confidence in their individual and collective ability to make decisions and to lead.
Teams are guided by a set of unwritten rules that determine how they interact with each other and the "boss". Some of these unwritten rules are functional and some are dysfunctional. Once these rules are established, they are reinforced by the team and its leader, making it very difficult to change. Even if the team and its leader complain about the resulting impact of the rules (symptoms), they are stuck in a dance that keeps repeating itself.
In the described case example, the perceived troublemaker was the manager who most consistently risks disagreement. The dysfunctional rule "Don’t be the first to disagree with the boss", was one rule that guided the behaviour of the team. When the exchange between the boss and this manager occurred, everyone else got busy and became disengaged. The only time the other managers would speak up was on the rare occasion when the boss agreed with the troublemaker’s point of view. The director only received feedback from the team when the troublemaker and the leader were perceived as being on the same page. No one was happy but the dance continued.
Unless the rules or interactions of the team change, new leadership behaviours explored through executive coaching and the Booth Task Cycle® surveys are less likely to be sustained. The leader’s attempts at new behaviours are at risk of being sabotaged by the rules of interaction between the leader and the team.
It has been my experience, both as a former family therapist as well as in my present organizational development practice and the experience within the SyntecGroup, that change occurs more readily and is more likely to be sustained if it occurs within the context of the system. Thus we facilitate change within the team as the first step in the development of leadership.
We have developed a process that surfaces the unwritten rules and establishes functional rules that guide the behaviours of the team. This approach removes blame and enables the team to realize the impact of the unwritten rules on sustaining the perceptions and interactions between themselves and the leader. The new functional rules are rated and tracked for progress over the next number of months. Through this process, inclusive of another day of team development and subsequent follow-up, the team embarks on a path that enables its members to support new behaviours on the part of the leader and the leader to engage in new behaviours that support the team.
We have discovered that employing this first step adds to the powerful impact of the next step, executive or managerial coaching. Once the team begins to practice the new functional rules, we take the leader through one of the Booth Task Cycle instruments. At this point, the coaching process with the leader can begin. Whether we employ Executive Leadership, Leadership Practices or Leadership Competencies for Managers, our experience has been that the team leader is more amenable to examine their competencies and the behaviours that will translate into better performance of the team.
Much of the feedback that the leader receives from the 360 assessments and reports makes greater sense when placed within the prism of prior team frustrations and the changes that have occurred within the team. Likewise, the course of developmental change determined by the leader within the coaching process is more likely to be supported and reinforced when the team is similarly engaged in new behaviours. As the team leader practices these new behaviours, team functioning is also enhanced.
A new dance is established that will lead to both team and individual success. In this case example, the process described was cascaded to the senior managers and their teams. The division became significantly more profitable and measures of division wellness improved.
We strongly encourage the sequential development of teams followed by the use of the Task Cycle surveys as part of effective leadership coaching. This strategy translates into systemic sustainable change for leaders, managers and their teams.
Charles J. Meltzer Ph.D.
Dr. Chuck Meltzer is the president of SyntecGroup, a consulting firm that specializes in organizational development and change. His training at a doctoral level in clinical psychology coupled with over two decades of direct management experience allows him to bring practical "hands on" business experience as well as his psychological perspective to his twenty year consulting practice. Chuck has for over 12 years employed the Booth 360° tools as part of a large executive coaching practice. He is also the CEO of Innerview Concepts Inc., a company that has developed performance measurement applications for conducting 360° performance reviews, customer and service performance satisfaction evaluations and employee satisfaction.
