‘Top teams eat top talent for breakfast’: What neuroscience can teach us about leadership

To do this, leaders must recognize the limitations of their organizational structures and performance measurements. While changing these structures may be beyond their immediate control, leaders can still shape the culture that exists within their teams. Shifting focus from top talent to fostering collaboration and an ‘above the line’ mindset requires the following intentional leadership behaviors:

1. Get to know your value system and lead by example

Any top team in hierarchical structures starts with a leader who is deeply knowledgeable about their value system. Value-based team cultures that promote well-being do not simply emerge, they require a mold into which they can shape themselves. As leaders, you are that mold. You must be clear and vocal about your values and spend regular time with teams to find common ground.

You also have to make room for the human inside you – one that may need support, has a bad day, and can make mistakes and own them. This will allow your teams to stay true to their humanity, remain above the line, and adopt behaviors such as proactive care for one another, deep listening, respect, a sense of a common destiny, and mutual achievement.

2. Establish absolute operational clarity

The complexities and turbulences inherent to any organizational structure can derail even the most human top team. Lack of clarity around role expectations, growth direction, accountabilities, collaborative structures, and review processes are all recipes for disaster. Employees need to know where and who they are within this structure as well as where they are going and how the success of the team will be measured.

Setting these structures up is easy; staying abreast of them is less so. The key is communication and holding space in team meetings to focus on operational clarity. This allows leaders and their teams to address those misunderstandings that simmer under the surface.

3. Inspire trust above all else

Trust is the indispensable glue that holds a top team together – it is also the most difficult thing to get right. It is challenging enough to build and maintain alliances, friendships, or relationships with one person, never mind a group of people operating in dynamic environments filled with stressors beyond their control.

Yet, if we want innovative thought and creative ideas to flourish and drive our businesses forward, our teams must be able to operate without fear. There can be no retaliation for an idea that eventually does not shape up as expected, nor for honesty and constructive feedback. In the end, trust creates the kind of healthy debate and productivity that we will never see in teams operating in a trust deficit.

In conclusion, leaders have the power to shape the culture within their workplaces. By focusing on top teams rather than top talent, as well as cultivating a shared mindset and implementing key leadership behaviors, leaders can create environments that foster collaboration, innovation, and sustainable success.

For those of you interested in further study as to why your teams may not operate as the cohesive unit you wish for them to be, I highly recommend you read Patrick Lencioni’s classic “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team”, the executive summary for which you can find here.