3 Leaders No Team Should Be Without
Ever watch talented teams talk but do little else? Or have you seen original ideas wilt away for lack of sustenance when people meet? Winning teams cultivate whole brain leaders who unlock three linchpin skills in order to co-lead innovative outcomes.
Go for ASK, STEP and SEE Leaders
Co-led teams pull together to strengthen, support, and sustain talent. But how?
Long before science revealed how synapses fire whole brain thinking, successful innovators used good questions to map new cognitive landscapes. From talented questioning abilities, to Steve Jobs’ knack for big-picture thinking, teams crave innovation in return for their talent.
Successful innovators used good questions to map new cognitive landscapes
Check out below, what ASK STEP and SEE leaders could add to your next meeting.
ASK Leaders Question Possibilities
Team differences create gridlock until its ASK leaders listen with their brains, to help resolve disagreements. ASK leaders move the team along with questions that elicit original offerings. They ask:
- What if you added…?
- Did you know that similar ideas succeeded in past because…?
- Have you considered the possibility of…?
- Have you considered how your ideas may work better if…?
- What if you show how your innovation is new and different because…?
- Did you know that this goes against broken approaches now because…?
- How will this add more success to…?
- What benefits will come and last because…?
- How will you lead this innovation when…?
STEP Leaders Guide Action
Teams stagnate until STEP leaders motivate and guide visible action. STEP leaders simply facilitate meaningful opportunities to apply what is brainstormed. After hearing from many ideas, they suggest the next doable action step. With a STEP leader’s guidance, teams pound dynamic paths forward – by applying one small action step at a time.
STEP leaders simply facilitate meaningful opportunities
When stops and bumps disrupt the way – STEP leaders encourage teams to sidestep glitches in favor of applying and tweaking possibilities.
Have you ever seen a team lose its way before members act? STEP leaders clarify solutions that drive the next doable step. How so?
Perhaps a cynic dwells on problems – adding fog and distractions. Cynicism causes entire teams to lose sight of the target. STEP leaders convert “I can’t” into “what if you…” or “have you considered…?”; change “I’m confused” into “how can we clarify it together?”; refine “The problem is…” into “what possibilities do you see?”; redirect “don’t know how to” into “how can we all help you?”
STEP leaders convert “I can’t” into “what if you…”
SEE Leaders Spot and Navigate Big Pictures
Teams can swirl in circles, until SEE leaders collaborate and illustrate the overall team vision.
With whole-brain-visualizing, team members’ individual strengths make sense to teams. The SEE leader consults with others to list and sequence details that improve big picture targets.
SEE leader consults with others to list and sequence details
Team members might move from big picture illustrations of a group innovation to:
- Research answers obtained, and displayed. Perhaps a video will be completed to compare expert responses.
- Narrow the improvement being built to highlight one main problem or barrier that challenged team outcomes.
- Survey multiple intelligences to see people’s strengths so that projects include several intelligences across diverse departments at work.
- Reflect in ways that lead to “where to from here” steps and move the innovation design into its next iteration.
Most would agree that too many innovations fizzle and die before inception. ASK, STEP and SEE leaders together flip on that molecular switch and light up original ideas that teams crave.
Dr. Ellen Weber
Dr. Ellen Weber, is recognized globally for brain-compatible tools that build personal and organizational wellbeing. She gets game-changing results with large and small groups who look to people as capital and expect profit to result. Dr. Weber contributed to ASTD’s annual Leadership Manuel and addresses global leadership summits where the Mita Leadership approach helps to shape a new kind of leader. She also develops secondary and college whole-brain learning tools that transform lectures into award winning brain based tasks. Director of Innovative Change at the Mita International Brain Center. Weber also teaches leadership renewal at The Bittner School of Business. Her well respected workplace improvement program includes ground-breaking brainpowered tone tools to lead innovation and renewal. Her MBA Leadership course, Lead Innovation with the Brain in Mind currently impacts both online and real time leader development.