This post is about team-building skill. Right now, the proper ideas are not in mind. Will write this post in good details when the mind is sufficiently clear and inspired about all ideas on team-building skill.

As usual, you, the reader, is indispensable part of improving this post through intelligent feedback.

Reflection done so far:

What is a team?

1. When the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, it is a team. When the whole is equal to the sum of its parts, it is a crowd. And when the whole is less than the sum of its parts, it is a mob.

We will develop our core ideas on leadership, team-building and intelligent communication skills – as usual, please feel free to share your insights, anecdotes as well books on this, because this is something which require too many qualities in too much intensity.

This post is about leadership skill, in general, and organizational leadership skill, in particular. Organizational leadership means leadership at both individual as well as organizational levels and not just at individual level. It is the leadership, which can inspire others as an individual as well as create and sustain an organization around a cause to do public service effectively.

I will start with talk about one test which was mandatory for new employee in my company, which defined 16 types of personality. it is the most popular personality map used in Western world -
ref:http://www.e-mbti.com/

It is said to be fairly consistent test, in the sense, it gives almost same result despite taking many tests.
They don’t mean, one is better than another in absolute sense, but that one is often better than other in performing some kind of actions. One can manage to develop any quality one needs to do a task provided he/she is fully devoted to it.

I got ENTJ – The Executives/”Field Marshall” grade in test, meaning that ENTJs are ‘natural corporate leader”, a good inducement for staying in corporate world .
Among all the 16 categories, ENTJ is more or less about being an effective organizational leader. That’s the reason, why this blog will mention the details on ENTJ here. This doesn’t means, other types can’t be great leaders, but only that they will also need to develop those qualities which are put in category of ENTJ. After all, anyone can develop any quality, including the quality of being an effective leader, through steadfast devotion.

Having said so, if we want to build a great organization, we will need to develop qualities of an Executive/”Field Marshall” – this country needs real leaders , not those whose words portray strength, but deeds portray weakness, but those who words and deeds both portray strength .

let me enlist pros and cons of ENTJ with explanation of how they suit our Mission, so that we all can develop these pros and eliminate cons -
ref: http://www.e-mbti.com/entj.php
pros:

1. This “big picture” type rises naturally to conspicuous positions of power and responsibility in all organizational settings (business, military, educational, governmental.) - in SM’s mission of socio-political reforms, we must not just talk of ‘if everyone does his/her duty, rest will take care of itself‘, but also focus on finding out how much these collective efforts are leading to our larger, over-arching goals of the cause.
2. Disorganization, confusion, emotion, inefficiency and illogic drive ENTJs to take charge of situations and institutions. – this means, a leader is one who is most brave in situations when an average man behaves like a coward. When an average man makes plan to flee, a leader makes plan to fight and win. This is how we should be.
3. They deal with the world boldly, in an assertive, analytical, objective and organized way which inspires others to salute them and do whatever the ENTJ needs done–including all the detail work! - we must be bold when dealing with world, be organized, assertive, well-planned and highly analytical. These qualities inspire confidence and loyalty in others and bring a big team of supporters.
4. ENTJs are natural born leaders. They live in a world of possibilities where they see all sorts of challenges to be surmounted, and they want to be the ones responsible for surmounting them. – natural born does not been ‘by birth’ or genetically-wired, it simply means, one whose leadership is driven by the calling of one’s inner voice, an innate drive to change the things and lead the cause of noble change at all perils.
   
5. They generally see things from a long-range perspective, and are usually successful at identifying plans to turn problems around – especially problems of a corporate nature. They’re tireless in their efforts on the job, and driven to visualize where an organization is headed. – having both a long-term perspective as well as a detailed and steadily evolving road-map constitute the foundation of effective organizational leadership.
6. There is not much room for error in the world of the ENTJ. They dislike to see mistakes repeated, and have no patience with inefficiency. – having a thirst for perfection is very important for excellent execution, because one can catch excellence only by chasing perfection.
7. ENTJs are decisive. They see what needs to be done, and frequently assign roles to their fellows. Few other types can equal their ability to remain resolute in conflict, sending the valiant (and often leading the charge) into the mouth of hell. – in our cause, we must have tremendous force of self-discipline and moral firmness, only then we can become the agents of socio-political transformation. Remaining resolute both within and without, even when the outside world seems to crumble into pieces, is indispensable for leaders.
   
8. ENTJs love to interact with people. – this is very important. Most of our sages avoided interaction with the world, both before and after achieving spiritual greatness. They could not do much for society due to this reason. Only by interacting with people, we will be able to develop our communication skill and ability to maintain a peaceful and positive mind even when there is every possible external reason to loose our peace of mind and positive outlook.
   
9. Conclusion: They are assertive, innovative, long-range thinkers with an excellent ability to translate theories and possibilities into solid plans of action. They are usually tremendously forceful personalities, and have the tools to accomplish whatever goals they set out for.
   

Cons:

1. There is not much room for error in the world of the ENTJ. They dislike to see mistakes repeated, and have no patience with inefficiency. They may become quite harsh when their patience is tried in these respects, because they are not naturally tuned in to people’s feelings, and more than likely don’t believe that they should tailor their judgments in consideration for people’s feelings. ENTJs, like many types, have difficulty seeing things from outside their own perspective. Unlike other types, ENTJs naturally have little patience with people who do not see things the same way as the ENTJ. The ENTJ needs to consciously work on recognizing the value of other people’s opinions, as well as the value of being sensitive towards people’s feelings. In the absence of this awareness, the ENTJ will be a forceful, intimidating and overbearing individual. This may be a real problem for the ENTJ, who may be deprived of important information and collaboration from others. – The combination of humility and devotion is most needed for public work. Humility without devotion becomes our moral and mental weakness, likewise devotion without humility becomes egoism and drives away people from us and our cause. This is a very, very crucial lesson for us.
   
2. The ENTJ has a tremendous amount of personal power and presence which will work for them as a force towards achieving their goals. However, this personal power is also an agent of alienation and self-aggrandizement, which the ENTJ would do well to avoid. – through resolute practice of self-discipline, one develops a very strong and powerful mind and thus, possess a great level of personal power to influence others. But, unless this mental power is combined with selflessness, one will abuse it for ego-gratification and alienate many supporters eventually failing as a leader. Thus, a combination of selflessness as well as self-discipline is needed for being a leader of a public movement.
   

Some more indispensable qualities of an effective organizational leadership are:

1. practising the 4 habits of (a) positive thinking, (b) good behaviour, (c) good planning and (d) persistence, continuously.
2. developing a clear-cut and unchangeable core ideology with well-defined aims and ideals. Without this, the movement fails miserably. If there are no aims and ideals in a cause, which is beyond possibility of change, then it is not worth calling a cause and it will definitely fail to gather concrete support and loyalty from others
3. developing a core group of people, who are absolutely devoted to the cause whatever hardships and challenges one may face, and making proper rules to ensure that core group always occupies the most powerful decision-making body in the organization. In absence of such a core group or in absence of core group’s dominance in the most powerful decision-making body of an organization, the organization lacks solid foundation and gets destroyed sooner or later. This is too important task – to build a core group requires lots of time, efforts, psychological understanding and keen observation of people’s behaviour and character, but this is a task whose success makes the organization and whose failure destroys the organization. Never fail even a bit in this task, however much time ,efforts and intelligence you need to put into doing it. And yeah be fully careful in choosing people for core group – it is infinitely better to err on the side of being safe rather than sorry.
4. grooming successors so that there is no leadership vacuum and disintegration of organization after present leaders give up leadership roles.
5. having the inclination and ability to create both leaders and supporters in the organization rather than only supporters, because leadership is required in all types of roles in an organization – also, creating competent successors is an indispensable quality of effective organizational leadership.
6. developing one-to-one good relationships with all members in core group and trying to do the same with as many other members in the organization as possible.
7. remembering names and other personal information about as many members of organization as possible so that one can maintain a personal connection with them through more informal relationship and communication.
8. following all rules and policies of the organization in both letter and spirit without even a tiny amount of actual or perceived violation. Only by doing so, other members will have faith in him/her and devotion towards rules and policies of the organization.
9. sincerely praising every good work done by members in the organization both in private as well as in public. Also sincerely avoiding, even mild, public criticism of any member in organization and avoiding harsh criticism of member’s personality/character behind back. One should give constructive feedback in an encouraging tone and cheering words to the person directly when one feels that there are some areas for further improvement in a particular member.
10. taking individual and private feedback on any major (and potentially disagreement-producing) proposal first from each of team-members and fine-tuning the proposal based on feedback through back-and-forth communication with each of team-members and once the proposal becomes more or less acceptable to all team-members, only then putting it formally and publicly before the team. This is important because if this is not done, more serious differences of opinions may arise during public debate and may create ego-problem in reaching any final agreement, which, in turn, will harm unity, mutual trust and goodwill among team-members.
11. acting as a mature and calm-headed peace-maker in times of conflicts and finally rallying the differing parties to convergence, trust and harmony through persuasive communication, so that organizational unity and cohesion remain absolutely unscathed despite occasional tough times. With the help of other members, the leader should also develop proper decision-making and conflict-resolution mechanism in the organization, so that decision-making and conflict-resolution processes are properly streamlined in the organization.
12. developing excellent (and sincerely aiming at exceptional) writing, verbal communication and oratory skills through regular practice and by learning from writings and speeches of famous writers/reformers/leaders so that the leader can effectively communicate organization’s vision and his/her ideas both in his/her writings and talks in a convincing, clear and inspiring manner to build up concrete support for the cause.
13. being quite flexible and open-minded about views and opinions, but fully clear and absolutely firm about core values and moral principles.
14. having an immensely great helping nature and equally great learning spirit. Thus, not only the leader should constantly improve his/her skills and learn new things, he/she should help his/her team-mates in doing the same by sharing his/her knowledge and motivating them for this. The leader should be so knowledgeable and have such a hunger for knowledge and self-improvement that his/her team-mates naturally look towards him/her as a source of guidance and inspiration.
15. with the help of other team members, setting detailed and precise performance benchmarks and accountability for team goals as a whole as well as individual tasks.
16. never expressing ‘potentially harmful’ views/opinions on sensitive matters before public or before anyone outside core group, so that controversies do not hurt the credibility and support for the organization. Core ideology should so clearly explain the core values and moral principles of the organization that every member should be able to realize well the difference between views and core values, between opinions and moral principles. The leaders and other members have to explain the core values and moral principles to the public, even if they are not in tune with currents of time or mass psychology, because the core ideology of organization is all about reform and progress in society and that does require dauntless, persuasive efforts in spite of odds and obstacles.
17. A leader should share his/her disappointment and fear of failure or uncertainty only with core-group members. This is because such phases of disappointment and fear of failure or uncertainty, when conveyed in the public, reduce others’ faith and trust in the organization’s cause and produce a demoralizing effect on them. A leader can always convey the challenges lying ahead honestly in the public to mentally prepare the supporters for future challenges, but that must be done in a fully positive and optimistic tone as well as words. The other reason behind this suggestion is – a leader, though being extremely self-motivated and energetic, is still a human. In face of huge challenges and hardships, he/she may also feel sometimes demoralized or pessimistic about the future of the cause: in such a situation, he/she also needs emotional support temporarily, but for that he/she should talk only to the members of the core-group about his/her fears and anxiety, in order to get emotional support without harming the cause.
18. fostering a culture of team spirit, trust, harmony, creativity, innovation, open-mindedness, learning spirit, helping nature, aspiration for excellence, recognizing and rewarding good performance of members in the organization through appropriate formal as well as informal mechanisms.
19. taking blame for failure and giving credit to team for success. One example: Former President of India APJ Abdul Kalam at Wharton India Economic forum , Philadelphia , March 22,2008) Question: Could you give an example, from your own experience, of how leaders should manage failure?Kalam: Let me tell you about my experience. In 1973 I became the project director of India’s satellite launch vehicle program, commonly called the SLV-3. Our goal was to put India ‘s “Rohini” satellite into orbit by 1980. I was given funds and human resources — but was told clearly that by 1980 we had to launch the satellite into space. Thousands of people
    worked together in scientific and technical teams towards that goal.

    By 1979 — I think the month was August — we thought we were ready.

    As the project director, I went to the control center for the launch. At four minutes before the satellite launch, the computer began to go through the checklist of items that needed to be checked. One minute later, the computer program put the launch on hold; the display showed that some control components were not in order. My experts — I had four or five of them with me — told me not to worry; they had done their calculations and there was enough reserve fuel. So I bypassed the computer, switched to manual mode, and launched the rocket. In the first stage, everything worked fine. In the second stage, a problem developed.
    Instead of the satellite going into orbit, the whole rocket system plunged into the Bay of Bengal. It was a big failure.

    That day, the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization, Prof. Satish Dhawan, had called a press conference. The launch was at 7:00 am, and the press conference — where journalists from around the world were present — was at 7:45 am at ISRO’s satellite launch range in Sriharikota [in Andhra Pradesh in southern India ]. Prof. Dhawan, the leader of the organization, conducted the press conference himself. He took responsibility for the failure — he said that the team had worked very hard, but that it needed more technological support. He assured the media that in another year, the team would definitely succeed. Now, I was the project director, and it was my failure, but instead, he took responsibility for the failure as chairman of the organization.

    The next year, in July 1980, we tried again to launch the satellite — and this time we succeeded. The whole nation was jubilant. Again, there was a press conference. Prof. Dhawan called me aside and told me, “You conduct the press conference today.”

    I learned a very important lesson that day. When failure occurred, the leader of the organization owned that failure. When success came, he gave it to his team. The best management lesson I have learned did not come to me from reading a book; it came from that experience.

20. Being a team-player rather than only individually great (remember, a task which is too important for society, is always too huge for one individual to accomplish all alone.) and having the team-building skill, the skill to build and sustain a team quite effectively around a cause. – We will discuss team-building skill in other post, as this is a huge topic in itself – please read about it here: http://gopal4mission.wordpress.com/2008/10/19/team-building-skill
21. Good communication skills – please read about this in this post – http://gopal4mission.wordpress.com/2008/10/19/communication-skill

Please feel free to give feedback in Comments Section below.
Thanks,

Gopal