What is your relationSHIP with your team?

Leaders need one thing from their teams…productivity. There’s not much debate about that. How leaders accomplish that is very different. Two teams can match levels of productivity but have vastly different cultures and markedly different relationships with their leaders. And that, to me, is the point: a leader’s relationship with their team impacts the team’s productivity. It also influences how long the team (or any one team member) can sustain their level of productivity. I put these relationships on a spectrum and the easiest way to think about these relationships is to imagine the leader as the captain of his or her actual ship. So test yourself and see where you fall on the spectrum of relationSHIPs!

The Cruise Ship:

At one end of the spectrum is the cruise ship. Do you remember the Love Boat from the 80s? The captain’s role was to ensure that passengers (aka team members) had a memorable and stress free experience. I see leaders with this same goal, of keeping their teams happy in order to create harmony and clear the way for productivity. This is prevalent thinking today, with hundreds of LinkedIn posts noting that the employee experience and satisfaction is the #1 driver of productivity. But is this actually effective? 

Sometimes I think we take the notion of employee engagement too far. Some leaders translate this to keeping our team members happy and that this is mandatory in building an engaged, and therefore productive workforce. 

I fully support the idea that a happy workforce is more productive and focused without a doubt. There is a clear linkage between employee satisfaction, engagement levels and productivity for sure. But leaders fall into a trap of measuring, monitoring and reacting to the ever changing wishes of the team. This can become a distraction for the leader and will level the playing field between teams, that the only thing that keeps someone on your team is if they FEEL that they won’t be happier anywhere else. If you, as a leader, feel a morbid sense of mutiny coming on or feel disproportionately concerned with your engagement scores you might be falling into the trap of becoming the captain of a cruise ship.

The Warship:

At the other end of the relationSHIP spectrum is the warship. Think, ancient viking ship, team members below deck, chained to the oars and rowing just a bit harder than the weakest person on the boat so as to avoid the scourge and anger of the captain. This seems harsh, but this exists today as a prevalent, albeit better disguised, style of management. We’ve likely all worked for the tyrant that demanded progress, called all the shots and publicly rewarded the hardest worker. Time, effort and visibility are often the characteristics of good employees. 

The captain of this ship can get results and fast. But are they sustainable? When the team member, if not morally defeated, has a chance to jump ship, they will. But curiously, I see these uber-demanding leaders actually attracting people to their teams, because they show quick results that are getting noticed. The lure here is to unwittingly join a team that’s getting praise and recognition despite the fact that the executive team doesn’t really know what’s going on below deck. 

Now let me describe a place in the middle of the spectrum, a different kind of ship. I’d hardly call it a ship, more of a boat. Think of it more like a rowing scull. Here, each position in the boat is important, although each person is often doing exactly the same work. Each person’s effort matters and they know it. The coxswain keeps the stroke count from the front of the boat and continually eyes the finish line and the competition. The team labours at their peak capacity for two reasons: one to win, the other to not let down their team. The recognition and revelry in the win will come soon enough, now is the time to strain at the oars, not sip pina coladas. 

I think you get the picture. Which captain are you? Are you pandering to the whims of your team to keep them happy so they stay? Do you believe you need to squeeze out every drop of effort? Or have you formed a team who understand the sport you’re in and are committed to do what it takes to win? There’s a big difference…for you…the leader. 

Think about it.