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We start with Execute because most of my clients at their level (with already existing leadership teams) will likely already have some form of vision, mission, and strategic plan in mind. However, the biggest problem is putting it into action daily and from week to week. Vision without execution is just dreaming. A high-performing team a) knows their roles and responsibilities clearly, b) sets challenging and clear goals, and c) has a culture of built-in accountability and feedback. A well-functioning team is a vital part of achieving these goals and ensuring success.
Your leadership team members must be clear on what they do (and what everyone else does). There are many reasons for this, from reducing redundancy to increased communication. Still, most importantly, when a role is clearly defined, it allows for ownership of the role. Teams are made more effective when responsibilities are clearly defined, enabling individuals to take full ownership of their tasks.
There are a few outcomes that research pays special attention to because of all the good they do for a company. One of those is called organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), a fancy way to say that someone who performs better is likely to go above and beyond their job duties, such as helping other team members and taking the initiative. And that is exactly what psychological ownership does. On top of increasing the OCB, it also contributes to motivation, innovation, and the willingness to share knowledge with other team members for their joint success (Chen, Lien, Lo, & Tsay, 2021; Dai, Altinay, Zhuang, & Chen, 2021).
To cultivate psychological ownership, it is essential to define roles and responsibilities. Here’s how you can achieve this:
By defining roles and responsibilities clearly and fostering psychological ownership, you can transform your leadership team into a high-performing unit. When team members feel a sense of ownership over their roles, they are more motivated, innovative, and committed to achieving the organization’s goals.
Nowadays, when I am scrolling through LinkedIn, I see so many hate posts on SMART goals, which I understand because it’s a catchy way to get someone’s attention by throwing stones at something popularly held. There’s a good reason why SMART goals are so big, though, because they work! However, what most people are missing is that SMART goals are only one of five elements of what makes goals work. Take it from someone who’s extensively studied motivation: goal-setting theory is THE motivational theory, with countless studies showing how powerful it is to have clear and challenging goals. I understand there are countless motivational theories, but none come close to how well-studied and understood goal-setting theory is. It has existed for 50 years and is still going strong in the field of psychology (Locke and Latham).
Here are the five elements of a goal and how you use them in a high-performing team:
So the haters are part right. If you and your team have ever rolled your eyes when told to do another SMART goal, consider that you are only getting part of it. Still, when you purposefully add all five elements of goal-setting theory, you will start to see the team coming together with purpose and passion, and their performance is high, which is what you need when leading a team.
Think of a Dragon Boat. The drummer is drumming a beat. Every member is rowing, giving their all, and following the rhythm. They are all heading in the right direction and moving as if the team is one. This is what it is like to have an executing team. A lot of studies in the past have shown that employee engagement leads to job performance. However, recent studies also theorize that job performance can lead to engagement (Kim et al., 2019). This highlights again why we start with Execute in the E5 framework, but next up is Engage.
This was called a definitive guide, and it can be overwhelming. So, how do you make E5 a reality for your team? I have a diagnostic that has 25 items, 5 for each of the E foundations. I suggest getting an overall score from the diagnostic and seeing how you scored in each of the foundations. When I work with my clients, we start at the beginning and work our way down until each section can be scored at least 80% or above. So the first step is to diagnose, and you can do that right here.
Need help implementing this framework into your team? We have a program just for that, called the Empowered Leadership Intensive.
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