We do a lot of executive team coaching with all sizes of teams including some with as many as 16 executives. The larger the team, the likelier the question comes up “Is our team too big”? If you’re asking yourself the question, the answer is often – Yes.

To have your team truly operate as team vs a working group, its essential that the team has clear goals for the team to work together to achieve. Patrick Lencioni describes a team as a small group of people who work together to achieve a goal. He suggests that when your team gets over 8-12 people, it may no longer fit this “small group” definition and become very difficult to stay as a single team.

One paradox we face as leaders is how difficult decisions get made effectively with our teams – we know it’s helpful to gather perspectives to inform better decisions and yet we are also supposed to be bold and act decisively – so which is it? I think the answer is in the choices we make between these two polarities to fit the situation at hand.

The 2022 word of the year, according to Collins Dictionary, is permacrisis: an extended period of instability and insecurity, especially one resulting from a series of catastrophic events. 2022 globally has been filled with pandemic, war, volatile markets, weather chaos, rising inflation and more. As leaders you’re dealing with supply chain, talent retention and attraction, quiet quitting, hybrid work environments, economic uncertainty, rising costs for labour and materials and so much more.

Imagine if we could harness all the lost energy by eliminating the times when people in our teams said ‘yes’ but really thought ‘well maybe’ or ‘nope, not doing that’. That is a dirty yes. It’s is an invisible process that drags down the speed of every organization. Not only that, when this happens we lose mental energy, get frustrated with each other and erode trust – all the things opposite to what we want in great leadership.

This is especially relevant right now as many organizations are renewing their business strategy and looking for buy-in to new priorities. Exposing the dirty yes takes some courage – what if I get disagreement? How will I convince everyone? This is a great opportunity to practice ways to eliminate the dirty yes – success of those new initiatives is at stake.

So what does a dirty yes look like?

Have you ever started a conversation and the other person begins to explain everything around the topic you brought up without addressing what you want? (why, yes, of course… we have all been there). When that happens to me, I feel frustrated and not really understood. These situations make it easy to wish people would just listen more but what if there was something in your control that could change the conversation to get your ideal outcome? It starts with getting clear about what you want in the conversation.

You can’t make me. Oh, how I’ve been in conversations where I’ve been frustrated that the other person isn’t agreeing to what I want them to. Who was I really frustrated with? At the time I’d tell you the other person, but in reflection I was frustrated with myself. I couldn’t get them to see what was obvious to me and couldn’t figure out how to make that happen to get to my ideal outcome. I’ve seen this same frustration show up for my clients too.

Having the right people in your leadership team is one of the most impactful choices we make as CEOs. People with the right leadership characteristics not only bring successful results to your organization they also contribute to our personal sense of fulfilment, success and happiness. Gut feel is important as is testing that gut feel over a few meetings to really get to know a potential addition to your executive.

We all get the same amount of time – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year – it’s what we do with our time and how we talk to ourselves that makes all the difference. 

We are also hearing from lots of clients about finding their purpose in pursuit of living their most fulfilled life. In a recent strategy development workshop our participants painted their inspiration on black rocks to capture their team purpose. It felt as good as winning the lottery at the realization of how important their work was.

I’m reminded of the life lessons that taking on running parallels with any difficult goal you want to attain. The most important lesson I keep coming back to is: you have to run slow to run fast.

We all have a vision for the future and contribution we want to make, to our organizations, to our community, to our social networks. All these aspirations lead to tension and there is no escape – with ambitions for a better future comes the possibility of failing to achieve it. The grander the vision the more risks come along for the ride. The work of leaders is to act on purpose towards our vision and accept the risks. Leadership is inherently risky and requires courage.

We all have a vision for the future and contribution we want to make, to our organizations, to our community, to our social networks. All these aspirations lead to tension and there is no escape – with ambitions for a better future comes the possibility of failing to achieve it. The grander the vision the more risks come along for the ride. The work of leaders is to act on purpose towards our vision and accept the risks. Leadership is inherently risky and requires courage.

If you want to develop stronger, more confident, and greater success with your team and team members, a culture of empowerment is key. These five elements of empowerment will provide you with the building blocks to grow empowerment with your team.

Creating a set of norms is a helpful practice in high-performing teams. It’s the easiest and most proactive step a team can take to help team members be clear about each other’s intentions and build trust. We should also keep the perspective that everyone on the team has a positive intention to follow the norms. It’s the minimum standard of trust needed to build stronger relationships.

You’re exhausted. You made it to the end of the project or through another challenging yet successful year. At the end, it can be easy to push on to whatever lays ahead or to collapse into vacation or a quiet period. I want to encourage you to take a moment to do something else first, even briefly. Celebrate. There is huge value in arriving and taking stock of the journey you’ve completed. Doing so means looking back and reflecting on where you started and what you’ve accomplished. It’s important to acknowledge the effort, learning, challenges overcome and growth that it took to get here.

No can be a difficult answer to give when you value the relationship with a team member, colleague, client or other stakeholder. Feelings of disappointing others, appearing difficult or being unhelpful can get in the way. And yet, you find yourself saying yes and then feeling a pang of regret right after. You might even engage in negative self-talk for saying yes instead of no. Effective leaders master the ability to say no with grace so they can align with what they believe and value.

There’s a feeling inside of wondering. A curiosity that can feel unsatisfied. How am I really doing? Am I making the impact that I want? What don’t I know? How could I become even better? Lacking feedback contributes to feeling this uncertainty, but how can you resolve these feelings when you’re in a leadership role with a vacuum of feedback from your team, peers or even your boss (if you have one)?

What kind of impact does your vision have on the people around you? I’m often in leadership discussions about the future of an organization where the topics start out around an ambitious goal – to be the leader in… or achieve a revenue target of X. Recently, one leader of a small business explained, “I would like to have 5x our current revenue in 2-3 years so that I can have flexibility when and where I work.” This falls short when it comes to inspiring your customers, shareholders, employees and everyone else that supports your organization.

What makes a leader? I’m often asked this question and find myself reflecting on it almost weekly. One of the inspirations I look to when considering this mystery is the work of Simon Sinek and the idea of leadership outside of business. Outside of a titled role. His book, Leaders Eat Last, speaks to the small everyday actions people take that transform them into leaders. In his book, Sinek says, “Leadership is not a license to do less; it is a responsibility to do more. And that’s the trouble. Leadership takes work. It takes time and energy. The effects are not always easily measured and they are not always immediate. Leadership is always a commitment to human beings.”

There is no shortage of leadership resources online, in print and live, including talks, conferences and workshops. So why is it so challenging to develop as a leader? The secret is intentional practice.