Three Critical Leadership and Functional Team Components
- John Foley
- Jul 10, 2016
- 2 min read
Elevated choices create elevated results. The logic is simple. But how do we get there? Making better choices isn’t about knowing the future, it’s about setting yourself up for success, every single day. Here are three things that I encourage my team and our clients to pursue. Taking an action on any of these will have you making better decisions tomorrow.
#1 Debrief
Hindsight is everything. That’s an adage usually reserved for people who complain about the present. But I’d argue, hindsight is everything because learning from the past is the key to plotting the future. There’s no better way to examine the past than through a debrief. It can happen independently—either in your head or on paper in a journal—or it can happen in a team meeting. I recommend employing both, but a team debrief is the differentiator that separates good from great. Unified vision provides a deeper analysis more than any single person’s experience. By having an open discussion, your choices will be informed by collective wisdom.
If you don’t have time to debrief, you’re not understanding its potential. Whatever time it takes is more than saved when you avoid the same mistakes, spot problems—both made and unmade—and discover the opportunity for better choices in the future.
#2 Gratitude
This is how we view the world and the choices that we make. Research has shown time and time again the effects of a positive mindset. And gratitude is a positive emotion that rises above all others. When our mind is grateful, it actually changes the way we see the world. It re-centers our priorities, it activates emotions that lead to happiness and it leaves us in a more open state, willing to embrace otherwise unforeseen opportunities. With a grateful mindset, we can see our options and their outcomes more clearly. A choice made in gratitude is one that will lead to success.
Choose to be Glad To Be Here every single morning with a simple exercise I call, The Glad To Be Here® Wakeup. It’s about training our mind to walk the grateful path every morning before we go anywhere else.
#3 Trust
Trust is not just something you do, it’s something you have. Getting it is never easy or immediate, but having it will create a speed and an efficiency that is unlike any other. I can speak from experience: when you’re in a high-stakes environment that demands it, you will not be able to perform without trust. When I was flying with the Blues, trust is the thing that allowed us to make split-second decisions that held life or death in the balance. Trust in my teammates and trust in myself kept me performing at the necessary level.
Trust is something that builds over time, but it begins with a single stone. Start giving and receiving contracts with your team. Externalizing and delivering on our promises sets a baseline expectation. With each pass and each task you execute, you increase the level of trust. When it grows, it affects the performance of the team. When it is understood, the team enters a whole new dimension of decision making and execution.
Glad To Be Here!
~Gucci
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