There are no problems we cannot solve together, and very few that we can solve by ourselves. Lyndon Johnson

As we begin our first few September meetings, we may experience two feelings. On the one hand there is the joy and privilege of leading the individuals who make up our uniquely-shaped team. But on the other hand, we wonder whether, this year, we will better manage the quirky personalities, and occasional resistance to our ideas.

We all yearn for the connection and energy of being part of a successful team that learns together and sharpens each other. So how might I refresh my approach, so that the team makes better progress, my colleagues thrive and we all feel less alone?

Here are 10 principles for how we can build a more cohesive team:

1/Who before what
Chances are that not every member of the team you’ve inherited would have been your first choice. Jim Collin’s much quoted mantra (getting the right people on the bus, and the wrong ones off) is a helpful start especially where rapid change is required, but he also said get the right people in the right seats. When I look at my key challenges of the performance of disadvantage pupils, or better provision for high needs children, then who in our team is best at this? Have I really got the right people doing the right things?

Sometimes we are less bold than we might be. How might I be more adaptable this year – change the rules, take a risk, to think differently? There are times when it helps to think more about the people and their potential, than the seat and its role.

2/ Get to know your team
I’ve always invested time in building strong inter-personal relationships, and I love the energy and focus of the team that I care about. Somehow this energy seems to compound what we are able achieve together. But it doesn’t just happen automatically – it takes the commitment of time. When team leaders live at the heart of our teams and spend time with colleagues, they ask questions, dig deeper, discover what they have in common. They hear the exciting classroom aha moments, share funny pupil stories, but also sense what people are hoping for this year, and what they are anxious about. Meanwhile, colleagues watch the way you interact, how you behave as a leader, and from such apparently insignificant beginnings a sense of cohesion and unity can emerge.

I remember a head of department who was brilliant as an individual but struggled as a team leader. His teaching flair and creative thinking could not outweigh his poor communication, and as a result the team were unhappy and could not align with his ideas. Whereas I think of the brilliant ethos created by another school leader who, though less self-assured, invested so much time in her team that everyone loved working with her. This elevated her impact across the whole organisation. It’s not about you. Your team are your hands and feet. Through them you can achieve so much more together than you will ever achieve alone.

I used to believe, along the lines of Pareto’s principle, that 80% of the overall team impact came from the leader’s own ability, and only 20% from the team. Whereas the truth is probably the other way round. Some team leaders might wonder, how do I galvanise that extra 60% from my team? But the best leaders aren’t thinking about getting more out of them, they’re asking how to put more in. How do I support, empower, challenge, know my team and show them I’m serious about their success.

3/ Make your meetings work
So many meetings don’t work. They are not the best forum for your diverse team to share Rebel Ideas, as Matthew Syed describes in his book of the same name. When one or two people dominate, this suppresses the insights and contributions of others. In a typical six-person group, three people do 70% of the talking. The remarkable thing is that the people doing all the talking don’t realise they are doing it. At most meetings then, communication is dysfunctional. People don’t say what they think but what they think their leader wants to hear. And they fail to share crucial information because they don’t realise that other people need it.

This describes the situation facing most teams. Each person has something useful to contribute but instead of this being harnessed as part of the group decision, one person acting upon limited information, expresses a preference and skews the entire team dynamic. Others then share only the information that confirms that view, and withhold information that might challenge it. The result is an information cascade. So, to run an effective meeting, the team leader has to decide on the rules of engagement, to prevent the team being dominated by a vocal minority and losing the team’s powerfully rich diversity of thought.

4/ Being uncomfortable
A certain level of discomfort is essential for the leader. It is discomfort that creates the leverage that makes leadership worthwhile. Leadership is scarce, says Seth Godin, because few people are prepared to go through the discomfort required to lead. It is uncomfortable to propose an idea that might fail, to challenge the status quo, to resist the urge to settle, to provide honest feedback. If there isn’t a certain level of discomfort, then probably you are not reaching your potential as a leader.

How do I make people comfortable with the idea of change? This is one of the most difficult skills for a team leader. We have an idea of what to do. We communicate it. We plan what needs to happen. We are frustrated when not all the team follow through. It’s worth asking why it went wrong? Have you: 

– Been clear about the priorities, putting pupils at the heart of the plan?
– Listened to the team’s concerns by asking open-ended questions rather than defending your logic?
– Spelt out the changes that following your plan will actually involve?
– Had pre-conversations with the members of your team who will be most resistant / hardest to persuade?

It’s important that the team leader is clear about what they are trying to achieve in the short term (alignment of routines, curriculum sequencing, better KS3 teaching), while in the long term they may be asking deeper questions – how can I build trust, truly develop my team, deal with difficult people?). While trying to achieve things in the present, you are also thinking how your behind-the-scenes behaviours can change the team’s future.

5/ Loving your colleagues
One of the ways we love our employees is by creating the conditions for them to succeed. In The Six Secrets of Change, Michael Fullan says: Loving and investing in your team in relation to a high-quality purpose is the bedrock of success. We mostly think of leadership as being from above, about status and authority. But in fact, love in action means mostly leading from the bottom, giving time when no one’s looking. Kindness at its simplest means putting others first, and putting our own interests and ambitions second. It means coming alongside people, thinking deeply about what will most help them, then acting on that. It’s when:

– HODs plan the timetable so they pick up the most difficult groups themselves
– In meetings we sit next to the least experienced colleague in the room.
– Making time for the team by asking what else might they need from us right now?

6/ Feedback honestly
Team leaders should invest in their ability to provide accurate and honest feedback. This should be their super-skill.  If there are problems with the work of one of the team, the deep truth is that our colleagues sense that when we catch things early, and talk about the problem quickly, we have our colleagues best interests at heart. They sense we want them to improve. But when we leave it too late, we know the hard work and effort it will take both for our colleague to change and for us to support. They sense we are less committed to helping them improve.

There’s no getting round difficult conversations, so recognise that as a leader you will have them, and they will be part of the culture that you set in your organisation. When you and your team provide constructive feedback and lead difficult conversations with honesty, compassion and kindness, trust will grow.

Some feedback can’t wait and should be delivered straight away. This drive-by feedback might be a corridor conversation and could be an excellent way to offer specific praise for something you just saw, before it is lost in the busyness of the day: I loved the way that you de-escalated that situation – the tone of voice as you spoke to that child on the playground, and how you brought your eye level to theirs to explain and help them to calm down. It can also be a quick reminder, such as a missed assessment deadline, or a do you remember you said you would?

Effective team leaders hunt for feedback from outsiders. What could colleagues in DT possibly have to teach us in English? How can artists help scientists? What can EYFS teach Y6? We frequently buy in consultants’ external eyes to help inform and challenge our thinking, while it might be those just across the corridor who could ask great questions and help us to see our blind-spots. In How to have a good day, Caroline Webb says we should think of someone we respect but who does things differently to us and ask this devil’s advocate, what do you see differently? What are we missing?

7/ Don’t underestimate the power of praise
When we praise our team well, the impact is magical. Really effective team leaders give authentic, specific encouragement, and see it reinforce and multiply the behaviours they want to see. This not only raises the collective mood but also the future actions of our colleagues. Words of praise becomes memorable and exponential, sending ripples through the team and beyond.

Discover in private, what to praise in public. Sometimes it takes real effort to see people at their best. Too often managers focus on the tiny fraction of visible flaws, and ignore the behind-the-scenes successes or kindnesses. There are lots of ways we like to receive praise: in public in front of our peers, in private face-to-face, by a carefully worded email, or through cards or gifts of acknowledgement.

I’ve yet to meet a colleague who moans about their boss sending them an email describing what they’d accomplished, and why it was appreciated. But don’t underestimate the power of public praise: Kim Scott, author of Radical Candour, says, when you share specifically what was great and why it was great publicly, not only did it have more meaning for the person being praised, it helps the whole team learn something new.

There are routines which help me improve the particular skill of delivering praise, making it a more regular habit, and lifting what usually sinks to the bottom of my heaving in-tray. The more specific we are, the more authentic the praise, the longer lasting the effect and the better your colleague will feel. Describe exactly what your colleague did that you admired, how it made a difference to others. Spell out why it’s particularly noteworthy, or how their work directly contributed to what we are trying to focus on as a team.

The leaders I’ve admired throughout my career consistently do two things: when things are going well, they credit others, and point toward their actions. But when faced with team problems, they stand up and shoulder them on their own. They share praise and own criticism, and seem to do both quietly and deliberately.

8/ Remember, you are always hiring
People watch team leaders all the time, and they ask: what must it be like working in their team? They see the fluid energy and strong team dynamic, notice when you give your time to support, and spot the way you speak about your team members when they’re not in the room. We forget how transparent our daily behaviours are, and think hiring is all about interviews and job descriptions. But it’s going on all the time. Effective leaders create such a compelling culture that people are simply waiting for an opportunity when they might join their team.

9/ But keep it small
Because we are looking to grow enthusiastic, skilled people and because there are always new initiatives and responsibilities, there is a creeping temptation to over-grow the team. Research suggests that a team’s effectiveness is inversely proportional to size. A small team is stronger: the fewer people the more we communicate, attend to quality, improve our day-to-day effectiveness and check in on each other. All of which leads to better, more responsive decision-making. This is one of the reasons that small schools often accelerate the journey of improvement so quickly. There is something special about a small team ethic which leaders of large teams would do well to study.

10/ Working with difficult people
In his excellent book The Power of Teams, Sam Crome reminds leaders to beware what he calls fault lines, when people splinter off into sub-groups. These start small, but may turn quickly into unhealthy cliques. The best way to combat these, he says, is to focus the team on what it shares – its vision, purpose, experiences and goals, but also to be strong enough to step in and reset cliques where they threaten the team dynamic. We all have to work with difficult people, and it helps to plan how to manage them. 

Understanding the energy levels of the people in our team is crucial in predicting how they will work with others and where you will have to intervene. Some will be energy-sappers, and some energy-givers and this will make a huge difference to the team’s happiness and effectiveness. Protect your own energy levels by knowing who to give a wide berth to first thing in the morning, when they feel the need to download on you. Offer to commit time to a less rushed discussion after the school day. Know also, who are your personal energy-givers. Those who, when the chips are down, you know to search out, to lift your spirits.

In Originals, Adam Grant describes the concept of frenemies – people who sometimes support you and sometimes undermine you. These ambivalent relationships are actually unhealthier than negative relationships because we are constantly on guard, wondering if that person can be trusted. It’s much easier when people are straight with us, tell us they disagree and we can have an honest conversation.

A team leader who is known for being clear, up front and transparent about the reasons for decisions can help to dilute negativity, leaving little room for dissent, but where this doesn’t improve, it’s definitely important to share concerns upwards. That said, in my own career, it was true on more than one occasion that those who at first appeared my toughest critics, became some of most loyal colleagues. I just had to invest time with them to understand where their cynicism was coming from. 

And finally, be patient
Bruce Tuckman’s classic model of Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing shows how teams steadily move through the gears towards real performance. But forming and storming takes time. It’s also worth remembering that adults today are more attuned to their own mental health that was the case when many leaders began their roles. This means you may need to check in more frequently on your newcomers, and they may require more support. And of course, when you lead a larger team, you will be bringing in new staff every year, so the forming stage begins all over again.

Strong teams take time to build, but leading them is a serious privilege. When we do it well, and with patience, then we inspire the team to feel they are much, much more than the sum of their parts.