“If you build an army of 100 lions and their leader is a sheep, in any fight, the lions will die like a sheep, but if you build an army of 100 sheep and their leader is a lion, all sheep will fight like a lion.”

This quote by Napoleon Bonaparte might be excruciating but it is one of the most sensible quotes I have ever came across. It clearly states that building a winning team requires strong leadership capabilities and these are some of the areas to start with; self-development, influence and charisma.

Firstly, to understand leadership, imagine an empty container and its size which determines the amount of water that can be contained, in which the water will overflow beyond this limit. Using this analogy, imagine a leader as the container and water as his or her team, the team can only grow to the level of their leader’s capacity and capability. In any situation, if the team outgrows their leader, unnecessary conflicts and misunderstandings will keep arising, which will then lead to a loss of trust on his or her leadership capability. Therefore, the number one priority of a leader is self-development to keep up with the changes in the industry.

Secondly, leaders must influence their teams towards achieving certain goals. To do this, a leader needs to get the team to focus on certain key behaviours that will lead them to success. For example, if the goal is to increase monthly sales by 20%, the key behaviours to focus on should drive the team to increase daily productivity. Therefore, identifying the key behaviours is important so that the leader can use various techniques of influence such as incentives, rewards and recognition to drive his or her team members further.

Thirdly, charisma is the key that binds the team and leads to successful execution of any plan. This is the part where leaders must be able to communicate their strategies in a manner that will inspire the team and point out what is the win for everyone so that the team will act and strive to achieve the goals.

In conclusion, the success of a team largely depends on an individual’s leadership strength. Therefore, it is important for leaders to keep developing themselves, so that they can lead their teams to win like a lion in every battle!