Team Leader Skills.....

There is a saying in business...either lead, follow or get out of the way !

And there is a lot of wisdom and truth to this saying. As it relates to you getting promotions, raises and advancing in your career, when you are on the job your boss or your manager will be constantly evaluating you in two different areas :

                   1) how well you can lead others

                   2) how well you follow others, when others are suppose to be leading you

The first one is about "leadership potential" but no boss will ever consider you for a leadership role if you can't follow instructions, if you can't be teachable, and if you are not a team player. And even if you don't ever want to advance "up the ladder" and don't ever want to have an leadership position, your boss will still be evaluating you on how well you follow instructions, how teachable you are, and whether or not you are a team player.

So truly, either you are leading or you are following. There is nothing in between. There is a harsh reality that comes into play if you don't know exactly how to be seen as a "team player". If the boss notice's that you are not following instructions, are not teachable, and are not a team player - then the boss will make sure you are not leading or following, that you will "get out of the way".   It's called being fired.

REPORT CARDS IN THE REAL WORLD

Does being fired sound harsh?

It might.

But it shouldn't.

It's what happens all the time out in "real world". Think of being constantly evaluated on-the-job just as if you were still in school. Your job evaluations are the same thing as a REPORT CARD. Learning to work as a team player is like working on a school project. Your teacher puts you and the rest of the class into groups of 4 and tells you that you have to divide up the duties for the project, and each student is assigned certain things to do. Three of you all get your duties done, but the fourth member of your "team" decides that they don't want to do the project the way its suppose to be done, or that they don't want to work together with the rest of you, or maybe even that they don't want to do the work at all. So the rest of you can't complete the project because you are missing the work that was suppose to be done by the fourth student who most definitely is not a "team player".

Problem - the teacher says that unless ALL FOUR students contribute and ALL FOUR parts of the project are done, then everybody fails. So you and your two "faithful co-workers" who have done an  A+ effort, are now going to get a failing grade because of your fourth team member.

Let's change this story from a school setting to a work setting.  What happens in the "real world" is that the teacher is now your boss or your supervisor, and they will want an explanation as to why your project isn't completed. When the boss sees that one member of the team isn't a team player, then that employee gets a grade of "F" where "F" stands for ...fired. But where does that leave the rest of you? Unfortunately, it leaves you holding on to the short end of a raw deal. Where you should have received an "A" where "A" stands for advancement, you are now lumped in with some loser who is blowing your reputation with the boss.

But it doesn't have to be that way.

You can learn how to "shine" so that if others slack off, you won't be painted with the same brush as them. When you are expected to work together with other people on any type of work related task or project, what you want to have happen is that you are recognized for being a "team player".  It's the team players who advance in their careers.

This conference will team you about team skills, and for those who desire to lead one day, this conference will show you how to become a leader.