Avoid blaming or shaming the team.

Many leaders think that blaming and shaming employees for mistakes or failed projects is the way to make them work harder and avoid future errors. However, this approach is not only wrong but also harmful. It doesn't lead to improvement.

Leaders who constantly point out faults often lead their teams toward destructive behaviors. It's important to realize that when mistakes occur or deadlines are missed, there could be various factors at play. Rather than blaming the team, it's crucial to understand that they might have been dealing with challenging situations.

When bosses point fingers and embarrass their team members, it makes them scared to try new things. This fear stops them from taking risks and trying fresh ideas, which can cause problems later on. When managers accuse or shame their employees, they try hard to avoid making any more mistakes. This means they're not willing to take chances or explore new solutions.

Blaming and shaming demotivates workers, promoting apathy.

Leaders and team members must agree on a joint approach that prohibits blaming or shaming. Both of these behaviors only worsen tough situations and magnify existing team issues. In practical terms, avoiding blaming and shaming means leaders wouldn't constantly criticize their teams, which can bring them down. This kind of behavior makes people feel bad, kills their motivation, and might even make some quit. Team leaders can focus solely on problem-solving without assigning blame when their teams encounter obstacles. By eliminating blame, fairness becomes paramount, allowing teams to effectively address challenges.

Leaders using blame and shame employ faulty reasoning.

The blame and shame cycle in leadership is common in many organizations, often originating from widely held fallacies.

• Fallacy 1, Chasing Efficiency Everywhere: The belief that everything must be endlessly efficient is flawed. While the Industrial Revolution taught us to streamline repetitive tasks for consistent results, some managers try to apply this approach to knowledge work. However, it's impossible to standardize the output of knowledge workers. They engage in various intellectual activities on the job, which can't be controlled or systematized by insisting on measurable outcomes.
• Fallacy 2,  Balancing Shareholder and Stakeholder Needs: When this mindset takes over, shareholders reap the rewards while workers, clients, suppliers, and community members are left with crumbs. This narrow focus prioritizes short-term gains over building lasting value. It often leads to cutting corners instead of investing in long-term growth. Consequently, production suffers, costs skyrocket, and everyone ends up pointing fingers. It's a recipe for discontent and chaos.
• Fallacy 3, Everything is a “project”: Many organizations mistakenly treat everything as a "project," prioritizing internal goals over-delivering real value to customers. However, true success lies in focusing on what matters most to clients delivering value. 
• Fallacy 4, Insisting Leaders Must Know Everything: Traditional top-down leadership expects bosses to have all the answers. While this might work for straightforward tasks, it falls short for more complex challenges. In such scenarios, employees understand their roles well, and managers supervise to ensure tasks are completed as required. However, this approach doesn't apply to knowledge-based work where tasks aren't set in stone. These workers need the freedom to achieve their objectives creatively. A manager imposing strict guidelines on them appears out of touch. In knowledge work, there are no guarantees.

“Purpose, autonomy, and co-intelligence”.

The key to highly successful teams lies in three main drivers: purpose, autonomy, and co-intelligence, which means the combined skills, knowledge, and experience of everyone in the team. To achieve maximum results, you must have a balance of purpose, autonomy, and co-intelligence. Here's why

• If you have a purpose and freedom but don't work together well, the quality suffers.
• If you have a purpose and teamwork but no freedom, you hit roadblocks.
• If you work well together and have freedom but lack a clear purpose, you might end up doing things that don't really matter.

Teams that master the blend of purpose, autonomy, and co-intelligence are strongly driven to succeed.

“Learning leaders”

Great leaders are always learning and encouraging their team members to do the same. According to Chip Bell, author and consultant, effective leaders have four key traits for learning:

• Courage: Leaders who embrace learning openly demonstrate their desire to improve. They're not afraid to admit when they don't know something and are willing to work on their weaknesses.
• Compassion: Great leaders understand that learning can be challenging for everyone. They show kindness and understanding to those who struggle with new concepts.
• Confidence: Effective leaders have faith in their team's ability to learn and grow. They trust that their team members can grasp the information they need to succeed.
• Complexity: Smart leaders know that business can be tricky. They encourage flexible thinking and value solutions that require careful thought.

Strong teams build resilience.

Today's leaders stress the importance of forming tough teams, but toughness hinges on trust among team members. Collaborating, sharing positive experiences, and reaching common goals can forge strong, enduring bonds. To boost team resilience, leaders should avoid rushing team members during collaboration. Team bonding requires ample time for engagement, especially as the team grows larger. More collaboration time is essential for the thorough consideration of ideas and for crafting effective action plans. To ensure productive discussions, limit in-person interactions to eight people and virtual interactions to six.

Resilient teams welcome conflict.

Conflict is often viewed negatively and avoided by many. However, it can be a catalyst for positive outcomes. Within teams, conflict is essential for unlocking “collective wisdom”. It's through these clashes of ideas that the best ones rise to the surface.

When team members trust each other, it paves the way for smoother collaboration and minimizes the chances of harmful conflicts. This trust is built on three key pillars: credibility, support, and consistency. Credibility comes from being recognized as competent in what you do. Support is fostered by sharing responsibilities, accepting help when needed, and assisting your colleagues. Consistency, on the other hand, is earned by being dependable over time.

When conflicts turn destructive, they can spiral out of control. But when conflicts are approached positively, they become opportunities to solve problems, this can only happen if team members know how to work together effectively, a skill they might need to develop. Until they can resolve conflicts and collaborate well, they'll miss out on good ideas and struggle to solve problems.

Resilient teams are inclusive. 

Workplaces thrive when everyone feels valued and respected for who they are. It's not just about acknowledging differences, but about celebrating them. That means recognizing and appreciating all aspects of a person's identity: their race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, nationality, socioeconomic status, language, abilities, age, beliefs, and political views. Fairness and justice should be the norm in any workplace. Leaders need to be fair and unbiased in their decisions. Teams should be inclusive, welcoming people from all walks of life and backgrounds.

“Power dynamics”

Power can be dangerous when it's misused. Those in charge at work often have loud voices that get heard. But for those without power, it's like they don't even have a say. When a boss uses their power too much, it can mess up how a team works together. They might make decisions without letting the team have a say, causing problems. This kind of boss can make people scared and make the team less productive.

Instead of bossing around, great leaders work together with their team. They don't act all high and mighty but instead, they're down-to-earth, listening to their team before they speak up. These leaders actively seek out their team's ideas. When it's decision time, they're the last to vote, not the first.