This content is locked. Please login or become a member.
How do you create an environment where you not only have an impact player on your team? How do you create an entire team of impact players?
First of all, you’ve got to be the kind of manager, the kind of leader that impact players would play for. Just like out in the sports world, you know, these superstar athletes, these impact players on teams, they’re not going to go and play for anyone. They want a coach that creates an environment where people can play big, where they can be themselves, but they can be the biggest and the best version of themselves. If you want to recruit impact players, be the kind of leader that other people can play big around, not the kind of leader who has to be so big, so influential, so impactful yourself that everyone else has to play small around you.
And then you want to populate your team with people who already have this natural mindset, people who are comfortable with ambiguity, who believe that they can handle hard problems, and learn and grow capability along the way, people with a growth mindset, and people with maybe a strong sense of agency or control. Not the kind of people who are controlling others, but the kind of people who feel comfortable taking control of messy, ambiguous, chaotic situations, and maybe hire people with a sense of humor, people who know how to be light about themselves, about others, and then build an environment where people can be at their best. What we find is that for impact players to show up and play big, they’re not working harder. They’re working in more courageous ways. Give them permission to work in these ways.
Bring together these two forces. When leaders can create safety on a team, a psychological safety, intellectual safety, safety to step out of your bounds, safety to step up and lead, safety to step back, safety to adapt, adjust, create that safety, but don’t leave it there. Create an environment of stretch, where people are expected to go do what needs to be done, rather than hide out in the comfort of their job description or boundaries. Create the kind of stretch where people feel like they’re obligated to stay with the problem.
Don’t just identify the impact players on your team. Lead your team with the assumption that everyone, at any level, at any position, can play with impact, that everyone can play big, and when you do that, you build a team where everyone’s thinking and operating like an impact player. Everyone’s a difference maker, not a position holder.