“Leadership is not a position or a title, it is action and example.” — Donald McGannon

I understood the true meaning of this quote after watching my son’s performance in the annual day of his School. He was one of the base guitarists in the school band.

Being musically inclined, both my husband and I were completely excited when our son started showing interest in music at the age of 5. But our excitement and enthusiasm went slightly overboard when we enrolled him in guitar classes immediately. Fast forward a couple of months, we noticed that his interest was dying down. Hence, change of strategy – we got him a fancy and expensive guitar and chose another tutor! But all was in vain. When we noticed that our frustration was surpassed by his dejection, we decided that we would shelve our expectations. We stopped the classes and the guitar lay catching dust in the corner of a room.

Now aged 13, one day I noticed him leaving for school carrying his guitar. In passing, he informed me that he is part of the school band! I was baffled – so what changed??

The change was caused by his music teacher in school whose inspiration was infectious. I was determined to learn more about his gentle persuasion and the following are my learnings:

• My son’s teacher identified his inherent skill in playing the guitar. His interest then followed.
  • As a leader, how aware are you of the strengths of each of your team members?
• My son’s teacher noticed that he had a high level of compassion and gave him responsibilities like training new members, organising practice sessions, identifying chords for new songs etc. This made him look forward to the practice sessions; thus enhancing his skills.
  • As a leader how intentionally are you delegating responsibilities and tasks to your team members?
• Every student was given individual feedback and coached through any challenges they faced, which instilled confidence in them.
  • As a leader are you building trust within the team by being a coach and a mentor?

Team performance and leadership are inextricably linked. Leaders have a profound impact on harnessing the collective wisdom of the team, so management team building training is very key. Hence, Corporate Leadership Team Building Training programs have an immediate and significant impact on performance.  Only competent leaders can build high-performing teams!