Article by Kok Hwee

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. John 13:34-35 (NIV)

Bud Wilkinson states, "If a team is to reach its potential, each player must be willing to subordinate his personal goals to the good of the team."

Some sports teams seem to embrace an everyone-for-themselves mindset. Others weave the attitude of subordination and teamwork into the fabric of everything they do. Notre Dame and Penn State don't put the names of the players on their jerseys. Lou Holtz once said, "At Notre Dame, we believed the interlocking ND was all the identification you needed . . . If your priority is the team rather than yourself, what else do you need?" Winning teams have players who put the good of the team ahead of themselves. They want to play in their area of strength, but they're willing to do what it takes to take care of the team. They are willing to sacrifice their role for the greater goal

Speak Up to Your Leader
Good leaders cultivate honest speech; they love advisors who tell them the truth.Proverbs 16:13 (The Message) Good team leaders never want yes-men. They need direct and honest communication from their people. I have always encouraged people on my team to speak openly and directly with me. Our meetings are often brainstorming sessions where the best idea wins. Often, a team member's remarks or observations really help the team. Sometimes we disagree. That's okay, because we've developed strong enough relationships that we can survive conflict. Getting everything out on the table always improves the team. The one thing I never want to hear from a teammate is, "I could have told you that wouldn't work." If you know it beforehand, that's the time to say it. Besides directness, the other quality team members need to display when communicating with their leaders is respect. Leading a team isn't easy. It takes hard work. It demands personal sacrifice. It requires making tough and sometimes unpopular decisions. We should respect the people who take on leadership roles and show them loyalty.

Consider Their Dream

Then He bought [Abram] outside and said, "Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them." And He said to him, "So shall your descendants be." Genesis 15:5 Most people who are dissatisfied and discouraged feel that way because they haven't grasped a vision for themselves. As a leader, you can help others discover their dreams and then get moving. You may already recognize much of the potential of the people you're leading, but you need to know more about them. To help them recognize the destination they will be striving for, you need to know what really matters to them. To do that, find out these things:

1. What do they cry about? To know where people truly want to go, you've got to know what touches their hearts.
2. What do they sing about? In the long run, people need to focus a lot of energy on what gives them joy.
3. What do they dream about? If you can help people discover their dreams and truly believe in them, you can help them become who they were designed to be.

As Nobel Prize winning author Alexander Solzhenitsyn said, "The meaning of earthly existence lies, not as we have grown used to thinking, in prospering, but in the development of the soul." The development of character is at the heart of our development, not just as leaders, but as human beings.