The fifth C in our model is collaborative leadership. The reason we use the term collaborative is because successful team leaders typically need to collaborate with those within the team as well as persons outside the team in order to help the team function effectively. For example, to change the team's performance appraisal systems often requires the team leader to get approval from senior managers and help from human resources. A company's human resource managers typically play an important role in recruiting and training team members as well as helping the team develop competencies to succeed as a team. So the team leader may need to solicit their support. Team leaders may also want advice from outside consultants to help the team manage change effectively. Thus, the team leader needs to be willing to collaborate with a variety of stakeholders who can help the team improve its performance.

In addition to this “collaborator” role, we have found that effective team leaders do the following:¹

• Articulate a clear vision of the team's goals and the metrics that will accurately measure team performance.
• Set clear direction for the team with regard to how to achieve team goals.
• Motivate and inspire team members as they pursue team goals.
• Teach and coach team members in developing the skills necessary to complete team tasks.
• Help each team member feel that she or he is valued and an important contributor to the team.
• Hold team members accountable for their contributions to team performance.
• Include and listen to team members when making decisions that affect the team.
• Manage conflict and solve team problems effectively.

We find that team leaders often do not receive adequate training for the role of team leader. As a result they are ill equipped to lead the team and have been set up for a potential disaster. Bain & Company has a well-thought-out process for developing and selecting team leaders that ensures competent team leadership. No one at Bain is promoted to be the manager of a team without demonstrating the skill set necessary to be an effective team leader. Each manager may have one or two “case team leaders” who have responsibility for a portion of the team's work and lead the work of perhaps two or three consultants or business analysts. The company has adopted a promotion process that essentially results in the flipside of the Peter Principle.² Rather than promoting people to their level of incompetence, Bain requires that prospective managers demonstrate the full complement of managerial skills, and particularly “intellectual leadership,” in a “case team leader” role before they are promoted to manager.

Just like any other manager or partner, they receive a monthly evaluation from the team regarding their leadership performance. Over time the company has studied what makes an effective team leader. In the early days in the firm, they found that extraordinary teams (as measured by quantifiable results for the client) were led by team leaders who exhibited great “intellectual leadership.” Intellectual leadership might best be defined as the ability to create and communicate a clear vision for the team's client work. Effective managers are able to identify the key client problems that need to be addressed and they excel at laying out a structured problem-solving approach for the team. They also excel at drawing upon their knowledge and experience to brainstorm and generate value-added ideas for the client. The ability to personally solve client problems is at the heart of “intellectual leadership.”

However, more recent studies of employee satisfaction at Bain have found that the most effective team leaders are those who “motivate, inspire, and value” their team members. In other words, just being a smart, effective problem solver isn't enough to inspire a team of individuals to work collaboratively—drawing upon their collective knowledge and skills—to generate a value-added solution. Thus, Bain now evaluates and gives roughly equal weight to both intellectual leadership and collaborative leadership. Individuals must demonstrate these skills as a case team leader in order to qualify to be promoted to the position of case team manager. This approach has helped the company develop a core of managers who are generally highly effective at leading productive teams right from the start.

The Changing Roles of Team Leadership

Most managers and supervisors have worked with their subordinates primarily in boss–subordinate relationships. Such relationships typically are based on the assumption that the boss sets the direction and leads, and the subordinate's role is to carry out the directives of the supervisor. From this view of team leadership, team leaders set team goals, make key decisions by themselves, determine team members' assignments, keep information to themselves, and, in general, create a climate within the team that encourages team members to “follow the leader.” This leadership style may be appropriate in certain situations where: (1) the task requires little input from team members; (2) the skill level of team members need not be very high to accomplish the task; (3) there is high turnover in the team, requiring managers to provide direction to new team members; and (4) little innovation is needed for the team to be successful. Teams in fast-food restaurants, for example, may need more direction from the leader due to the nature of the work and the high turnover experienced in that industry.

However, we have found that in most situations developing effective teams requires team leaders to think of their subordinates as teammates rather than merely individuals designated to carry out their orders. In such teams, goals are jointly set by team members with team leaders. Decisions are team decisions and assignments are made after consultation between the team leader and team members. While team members support the team leader, feedback—sometimes negative—is shared about the team and the team leader and communications are open and honest. Team leaders also share all relevant information with the team so that the team can make well-informed decisions. Finally, the team as a whole, not just the team leader, feels responsible for the conduct and the performance of the team.

When a team is just forming or when team members are relatively inexperienced or do not have the requisite skills yet to function effectively in the team, the team leader may need to be more directive. However, over time, as the team matures, the team leader's role needs to change from a more directive role to one that is more participative and collaborative. The following discussion outlines how these roles change over time as a team matures.

The Shift from Individual to Team Leadership

If team leaders see their role as one of dominating the team, there will be little, if any, synergy among team members or empowerment of team members. Effective teams are successful because they take advantage of the complementary knowledge and skills of team members: everyone on the team contributes something different to team performance. The team still has a recognized leader, but that person's use of power and definition of the role are very different from an authoritarian leader. The team's leader tends to give more responsibility to the team, opens up lines of communication, encourages collaboration and mutual helping among members, and allows—even encourages—differences of opinion and helps the team work through those differences. At Bain, everyone is taught to follow the mantra: “Listen, Execute, Add Value.” Team members should certainly listen and execute on the directions of the leader. But they are encouraged to “add value,” meaning that they should provide valued input to the direction of the team and its work product. This is expected if a consultant hopes to be promoted to the next level of responsibility. Thus, effective leaders spend time encouraging the input and ideas from team members so that team members feel responsible for working together to accomplish common goals.

To achieve this shift in leadership style, over time team leaders need to move more power and responsibility to team members and redefine their leadership role. Figure 6.1 shows how power and roles need to shift to change an immature team into an effective team.

In the beginning of team development, the team leader is usually in a traditional leadership role, with a minimal amount of power or authority delegated to subordinates. But to be effective over time, the leader must be helped to see the leadership role as being more collaborative in nature, both with team members and those stakeholders outside of the team. This transition is often very difficult for a team leader who feels more comfortable making the decisions and being in control of the team. Sharing authority and responsibility with the team can create uncertainty and anxiety for the team leader, and thus resistance to this change in role is not uncommon. However, an effective team leader generally sees his or her role changing from initially being an educator, to becoming a coach, and eventually moving into the role of a facilitator. We'll discuss each of these roles in turn.

Team Leader as Educator

Assuming that the leader is committed to leading a high-performing team, the first task for the leader in the team development model in Figure 6.1 is to understand how the other 4Cs of team performance are affecting the team and develop a plan to align team context, composition, competencies, and plans for change. This generally requires the team leader to educate the team regarding the 5C model and in particular to help train team members in those competencies that will be needed for the team to function effectively.

While the team needs to be aware of the context and composition issues that may affect the team and be willing to work with the team leader to make needed changes in those areas, most team education programs begin with a focus on team competencies. The team leader should review the ten team competencies we described in Chapter 4 along with the competency of “change management” presented in Chapter 5 and identify with the team those areas where the team needs to improve.

Having team members fill out the team competencies survey in Chapter 4 and sharing the results with the team will help identify those competencies that need attention. For example, if, after taking the survey, meeting management is seen as a problem for the team, then the team could review the best practices related to meeting management outlined in Chapter 4 and then implement those practices in the team. Ideally, the team leader should educate the team members about the key competencies. However, if the leader feels inadequate to conduct these education sessions, an outside facilitator or consultant might be called in to provide assistance. In most companies, the human resources department is a good training resource that team leaders can use to help facilitate training sessions.

In this education phase, the leader:

• Demonstrates a willingness to share power and responsibility with team members
• Encourages team members to become more active in sharing leadership responsibilities
• Develops team performance metrics and guidelines on how the team will function in the future to achieve those performance goals
• Develops with team members the basic competencies of an effective team
• Presents and practices the key competencies that the team needs: being trusting and trustworthy, fostering open communications (sharing all relevant data), giving and receiving feedback, making decisions that have the commitment of all, and observing and critiquing group processes, etc.

Team Leader as Coach

As the team matures and the leader shifts more power and responsibility for team functioning from his or her shoulders to the team, the leader's role begins to change from educator to coach. This should not occur until team members understand the team leader's leadership role and have developed some competence in their own leadership skills. Team members also should have experienced the willingness of the team leader to share responsibility and authority with them.

Coaching involves identifying problems facing the team and then helping the team or team member take actions to address that problem and improve performance. It is also a way to reinforce and encourage positive behaviors that the team or an individual exhibits. Coaches must observe and have regular contact with members of their team. Hence, they must be “out with the troops,” watching how they perform, critiquing their performance, and providing specific, helpful feedback.

Effective coaches tend to ask questions more than give answers. Certainly coaches may have their own views about what the team should be doing, but they encourage team members to develop their own insights regarding what to do and how to do it. This Socratic method of asking questions helps team members discover what they need to do to help the team succeed and gain insights about how to improve themselves personally. This coaching process helps team members feel empowered and consequently they develop a deeper understanding of the competencies necessary to achieve team excellence. Most important, team members must recognize that the coach's role is to help them succeed—not merely to be a critic or a purveyor of advice. People generally are willing to listen, take advice, and make needed changes if they see the source of such advice as being both authoritative and caring. Thus, the team leader needs to be seen as a knowledgeable helper or mentor in order to function effectively.

One of the mistakes a leader can make is to move too quickly and start to coach when the team has not been adequately educated. If the leader starts to make decisions by consensus and the team members do not understand what consensus is, they could be confused by and suspicious of the leader's behavior. But if they understand the role of the leader as coach, the team generally comes to accept and welcome this leadership style. Sometimes coaching is best done with the whole team present, reviewing again the guidelines for consensus or for critiquing group processes. But sometimes coaching is most appropriate for a particular team member in a private session.

Team Leader as Facilitator

In this final phase in making the transition to a high-performing team, the leader functions as a facilitator. The leader's primary role is to intervene in the team's actions only when attention needs to be focused on a matter the team is having a problem with. Like coaches, facilitators often get more mileage out of asking questions than giving answers. Thus, the leader as facilitator might say, “It seems to me that a vote is being taken before everyone has been able to speak. Do you see the same things I do?” Or the leader might intervene by saying, “If we move ahead in this direction, will this really get us to the overall mission or goals we have set? Have we reached a real or a false consensus? Does everyone feel satisfied with the way we have been functioning at this meeting?”

At this stage in the team's maturity, the intervention of the leader at certain points is enough to get the team back on track, for members are now used to handling team actions themselves. However, the role of the team leader is never fixed. Just because he or she has been able to move from educator to coach doesn't mean that there won't be a need for the leader to fill the educator role again. It is quite possible that when new ideas, concepts, or skills are identified, the leader may need to shift back to the educator role or perhaps to the coaching role until the team is comfortable with the new situation.

Leadership Roles in Self-directed Teams

Some organizations create a context for their teams based on the idea that teams need to have more authority to deal with the issues they face. Such teams, often called self-directed work teams, are also called autonomous or semiautonomous work teams. In these types of teams the leader, if one is designated, will typically act in the role of a coach or a facilitator. An autonomous team, however, does not have a formally designated leader. It can select its own leader, rotate leadership among members, or operate without a leader—a kind of “leadership by committee” process during which leadership functions are assigned to different members of the team. A semiautonomous team, by contrast, does have a designated leader with a formal title and position, but the leader's role is defined in such a way that the team makes its own decisions and takes actions independent of the leader. This has led to one of the dilemmas of the semiautonomous team: determining the role of the leader if the team has the right to function without the direct influence and control of that formal leader.

Organizations that have successfully adopted semiautonomous teams have begun to redefine the role of the formal leader in some combination of the following:

• The leader functions primarily as a training resource or facilitator to help the team examine how it is working and give the team the needed training, coaching, or facilitation.
• The leader spends most of his or her time dealing with issues with other units or with upper management. Or the leader may increase the interaction and relationships with customers.
• The leader acts as a consultant to the team and can be asked to help deal with team problems, conflicts, problem members, or other concerns.
• The leader may attend all team meetings or attend only when invited. The leader may formally open the meeting but then turn the activities of the meeting over to team members.

It is apparent that some teams are autonomous or semiautonomous in name only; that is, the formal leader is not willing to relinquish power and continues to function in the traditional leader role of having all activities flow from and through the leader. It should also be apparent that the team can find itself beset with a multitude of problems if team members have never had training or experience in how to work together as a team. Sometimes teams are asked not only to plan, schedule, and coordinate work but also to make decisions about hiring, terminations, allocation of pay raises or bonuses, vacation schedules, training needs, or awarding time off to attend meetings or other activities. These issues, which are central to a number of personal concerns of team members, have proved difficult even for experienced teams, and an untrained autonomous or semiautonomous work team can get buried under a load of activities it is not prepared to handle.

We know of one organization using semiautonomous teams that even made budget cutting and layoff decisions as a team, decisions typically reserved for senior management. When the business experienced a serious downturn, the organization's senior management gave the work teams data on the kinds of budget cuts that were needed to help the business survive, and the teams were then given the autonomy to decide how they would reduce costs, the bulk of which were in payroll. The teams came up with some creative solutions: some team members decided to take unpaid vacations, others decided to job-share or work part time, and still others who wanted to leave the company and had other opportunities were let go. By allowing the team to use its autonomy and creativity in the face of a difficult situation, the company was able to weather the crisis and emerge even stronger.

Identifying Effective Team Leaders

In this chapter we have discussed many of the characteristics of effective team leaders as well as outlined how leadership style needs to change as a team matures and team members are willing and able to accept more responsibility for team performance. Identifying effective team leaders is not an easy task, so we've developed a “Team Leader Survey” which allows an organization's management, team members, and team leaders themselves to determine their strengths and weaknesses as a team leader and hopefully put together a plan for improvement in areas where they are weak.

What If the Team Leader Is the Problem?

Sometimes the team leader's behavior is the cause of problems in the team. When the leader lacks the skills, insight, and motivation to help the team achieve its goals, conflict is the inevitable result. Sometimes the problem is between the leader and the entire team and sometimes between the leader and one or two members. Either way, unless the leader is aware of the situation and is willing to take steps to remedy the problem, it is difficult for team members to discuss the issue openly with the leader. It is also not uncommon for leaders to be totally or partially unaware of the problems they are causing. In power relationships subordinates have learned to become quite skilled at masking negative feelings and pretending everything is going well.

When symptoms of major problems in the team emerge, the team leader should ask, “Is it possible that I am at least partly responsible for these problems?” How does a team leader get an honest answer to this question?

1. Ask the team members. Either in a team meeting or in an interview one-on-one with the team members, the team leader might say something like this: “I want you to level with me. I know that things have not been going well in our team (describe some of the symptoms). I want to know if I am responsible for creating negative reactions in the group. I would appreciate it if you could let me know, either openly now or in an email or memo later, what things I am doing that create problems and any suggestions you have that would improve matters.” In asking for feedback, it is often useful if the leader can identify some things he or she has done that may have caused problems for the team member. For example, the leader might say to the team member: “I think that I sometimes come to meetings with my mind already made up and then put pressure on people to agree with me; do you see this behavior in me? (Wait for the response.) If you do, what suggestions do you have that will help me avoid this kind of problem?” If there is a lack of trust in the group or in certain team members, this direct approach may not work. This means that the leader may then need to resort to other means of getting feedback.
2. Use an outside resource. A common method of getting information to the leader is to find an outside person, either outside the team but in the organization (a human resource specialist) or an external consultant. A skilled outside resource can interview team members and try to elicit data about the involvement of the team leader in team problems. This information can then be fed back to the leader and a strategy devised for using the information with the team.
3. Use instruments. Currently many survey instruments are available for gathering data, anonymously if necessary, from subordinates about their perceptions of the leader. These data would need to be gathered and analyzed by someone other than the team leader to ensure anonymity. A human resource person is useful for handling this task and then seeing that the data are summarized and returned to the team leader. Then a method for using this information with the team needs to be devised. One method is for the manager to present a summary of data to the group, indicate acceptance of the data, announce some preliminary actions that will be taken, and ask the team members to suggest other appropriate changes.
4. Undertake training. Another approach is to have the team leader go to a training program that features giving feedback to all participants on their interpersonal style. The team leader then brings a summary of this feedback to the team, checks with them about its validity, and works out a program of improvement.

If team leaders want to get feedback on their performance, there are several options; a more difficult issue remains if the leader is unaware of his or her impact or does not seem to want to find out. In such a situation there are a few options for team members.

1. Suggest a role-clarification session. Such a session could allow the team members to identify actions they need from the team leader or changes they feel would improve activities in the team. This exercise is described in detail in Chapter 8.
2. Give direct feedback. Obviously one possibility is for team members to find an opportunity to give direct, albeit unsolicited, feedback to the leader. Despite the inherent risks, the team—either altogether or through representatives—could say to the leader, “We have a dilemma. There are problems in the team that we feel involve you. Our dilemma is we think we should share this information with you, but we do not want to disrupt our relationship with you. Do you have any suggestions as to how we might deal with this dilemma?” This approach usually results in the leader's asking for the data in a far different atmosphere than confronting the leader unexpectedly with difficult feedback.
3. Use an outside facilitator. It is also possible for the team to go to an appropriate internal resource person (typically from human resources) and ask for assistance. Often the outside person can then go to the leader and suggest a set of alternatives that might surface the concerns of the team.