Why Should We Learn Leadership Skills?

I am going to tell you a story about the value of Leadership and Communication when you're building and sustaining a team (as told to me by a friend). The team he's helping out with is struggling--they don't seem to have a clear mission. The staff, he says, is dysfunctional, and the players are confused about their roles. As a result, team morale has dropped to a dangerous low.

My friend was asked to attend a meeting to discuss these issues and to help come up with some solutions to their problems. Though my friend was an assistant on the team, and technically part of the staff, he was rarely asked to be part of these meetings. But yet these meetings typically involved discussing the performance of the group of players that my friend was charged with helping. He often wonders why his opinion doesn't seem to have much value to the rest of the staff. Especially when part of their meetings were directly related to the players he worked with.

I told my friend that Leadership is practiced from two perspective: from a power of authority (position power) and from the power of a "touch" (personal power), and that he was entangled in the former. Some think that, by virtue of their title, they have to be right, and the opinions of others are inconsequential. This type of leadership damages the team because leadership cannot be asserted under such circumstances. Personal power, on the other hand, is built on trust and credibility. This type of leader is perceptive, and both appreciates and values the input of those around him.

Through bad leadership comes bad communication. As my friend mentioned earlier, the staff, in the eyes of the team, has become dysfunctional. There are no clear lines of communication, and the team is confused about their roles and unclear about what it is they're trying to accomplish.

Now, lest you think that this story has no value beyond a field or court, I should tell you that this is not a youth sports story. My friend is an adult, and the situation he described to me came from an experience he had in his workplace. The staff are his supervisors and the players are a group of people he manages. Leadership, Communication and Teambuilding--these concepts have value and can help us succeed in all stages of our lives.