Linked Team Building

Leadership is not an isolated role. Instead, leaders need a strong team of players willing to commit to the organization’s vision, empower others to support it, and - most importantly - lead in a fashion that is consistent with the vision.

Orion International specializes in building senior management teams. Linked team building is often recommended to increase the impact of the leader’s growth throughout the organization. After working with each team member individually through the Leadership Effectiveness Process, we bring the team together for a probing analysis of the group’s goals, leadership style, and interpersonal relationships. We explore the differences between managing and leading, and we encourage the team to critique its own process of leadership.

Team development, like individual development, does not occur overnight. The work of creating a vision, developing objectives to support it, and building collective leadership takes place in a series of steps. Orion not only coaches senior management teams through these steps, but also connects the group’s developmental journey with each team member’s own individual Leadership Effectiveness Process, which often occurs simultaneously.

This Linked Team Building is powerful because it connects the growth of individuals with the growth of the team. Each member practices new leadership and risk-taking behaviors that correspond to the organization’s vision. Individuals use the team as a means for obtaining the self-knowledge that is so crucial to leadership strength. The team, in turn, acts as a mirror to each of its members, reflecting their progress toward specific objectives.

During linked team building, the team examines its profile, as represented by the diagnostic instruments used in the Leadership Effectiveness Process. Members use this opportunity to discuss their strengths and weaknesses as a collective, and to share feedback intended to enhance team performance. This is also an excellent time to develop team action plans that will affect organizational outcomes.

Next, the team is challenged to create an organizational vision and a plan to enact that vision. Following input and suggestions from the next levels of the organization, the vision is reexamined. This process may be repeated as many times as necessary to ensure that the vision is understood and expressed in a way that generates a sense of ownership and commitment among all employees. This vision clarification process helps team members clarify their roles in the organization, work through interpersonal blockages, and negotiate necessary changes in order to capitalize on the strengths of the team.

With this strong upper-level group in place, it then becomes possible to move the team-building process down through the organization level by level. In this way, each tier in the work force comes to understand its vision, mission and role, and the organization is both strengthened and mobilized.

The Orion International team development cycle is designed to lead to a series of positive outcomes:

A strong and supportable vision with related goals.

 

An understanding of each team’s leadership role in driving the vision and needed change in the organization.

 

Plans for empowering the work force and assuring practices and procedures consistent with the organization’s overall vision.

STRENGTHENING LEADERSHIP COLLECTIVELY AND INDIVIDUALLY...