Leadership and An Engaged Team

As leadership struggles to create growth and implement strategy, one critical component to the success of these initiatives is an engaged employee team. Without a fully engaged, employee team most initiatives, programs and projects stall, slow, or die. The key to business transformation and growth is a fully engaged and empowered team.

There are four simple steps to engaging a team around a project, an initiative, or a program:

1. Defined purpose: A defined purpose provides the team a sense of vision and intent. A clearly defined purpose enables the team to focus on the mission and leaves little to the imagination or the interpreters.
2. Defined outcome: Any and all goals must be measurable. If not, they are left to the subjective nature of the participants. A defined outcome is objective. With it progress is effectively tracked and success is easily measured.
3. Defined timeline: It is hard to work toward something with any level of urgency if there is an implication that it could go on for a while. A specific time line provides a defined end to the program and priorities are assigned accordingly.
4. Defined authority: This can be tricky in some organizations. However, in order for any initiative or program to be embraced by the team, the power to get it done is critical. If authority is unequally distributed across the organization, so too will be the results. To make this work, everyone is empowered.