Strong leadership is a crucial ingredient for a successful company. With highly qualified people at the top, the entire organization is more likely to outperform the competition and hold on to their most talented employees. Yet, many organizations lack a tried-and-true method for identifying and developing those employees who show leadership potential.
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The Rocket Model: Team Goals
Perhaps one of the most overlooked yet most important actions of team functioning is setting team goals. Far too many teams have poorly defined goals or none at all. The goals of a group or team should determine:
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Status Update: Your Social Networking Personality and Employability
Gone are the days when all job seekers had to worry about were their résumés and cover letters. Today, those documents still remain a staple of the job search process, but they are joined by a significant and growing pre-screening phenomenon: reviewing an applicant’s social-networking websites (SNW). Some job seekers are even being asked for their Facebook passwords during or right after an initial interview. Even Terror outfits are using Facebook as a recruitment tool to recruit loners from Western nations to their cause, claims a leading counter-terrorism expert.
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Thinking Outside the Boss
Meet the Sweet Talker
The Rocket Model: Teams at the Top
Most organizations have something called an executive or senior leadership team that typically ranges in size from 6-15 people. It consists of the CEO, COO, and functional and business unit heads. General responsibilities for top teams include setting strategy, defining organizational structure, determining key roles staffing , setting performance targets, making policy, and managing the business. Because of their unique membership and responsibilities there are some interesting observations about teams at the top that are worthy of additional discussion.
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The Rocket Model: Context
Every group and team operates in a specific context. The situation faced by a U.S. Navy SEAL team in Afghanistan is different from that faced by a team drilling for gas in North Dakota. Context is interesting because (a) it is very complicated and (b) existing research is not very helpful in telling us how context affects team success. Yet, contextual factors critically impact the success or failure of a team. The extent to which leaders can control situational factors affecting their teams and groups varies greatly. Some situational factors can be directly influenced, others can be influenced only indirectly, and many cannot be controlled at all. Because contextual factors have a profound impact on group dynamics, getting team member alignment on these factors is a critical responsibility for leaders. All too often team members have different assumptions about customers, suppliers, or competitors. Their well-intended, but misaligned, actions can inadvertently destroy team morale and sub-optimize team efficiency and effectiveness.
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Four Models of Team Performance
There are four more common models used to improve team performance. Find out what they are!