‘Teamship’ embraces the proposition that collective effort and collaboration by all members of a team is essential for businesses to achieve a common objective. However, even in some of the most ‘modern’ organisations, traditional leadership models can prevail or creep back in, with senior leadership and older managers managing younger direct reports without sharing much responsibility or autonomy. This is manifestly untenable.
The most significant shift in age-related team composition is the arrival of Gen Z in the workplace (those born c.1995-2010). They have grown up in a digital world and can easily see the world changing and evaluate their own organisation’s response. In their team they are likely to seek out a greater equity of voice, inclusion in decision-making, flexibility in working arrangements, and leadership who live by a set of values with which they can identify.
Team leaders, therefore, can feel a huge pressure both to deliver but also to lead their teams in a very different way. It can be a challenge for some, provoking anxiety or uncertainty.
How Teamship Bridges Generational Gaps
Teamship encourages an inclusive and collaborative environment, bridging generational divides within organisations and traditional hierarchies between managers and employees, in service of both team and business outcomes. This gives individuals the maximum creative space to interpret their roles and deliver their responsibilities, while sustaining full alignment with other colleagues and wider organisational goals.
Key aspects of teamship which underpin this include:
- Regular, open and meaningful conversation, with active participation for all team members, regardless of age and seniority.
- A shared leadership model that sees that leadership is everyone’s gift, and that responsibilities and attributes can be ‘distributed’ among team members at all levels, rather than concentrated in a single individual.
- Mutual respect for and inclusion of each team member’s skills, opinions, and contributions.
- Team alignment that is truly felt by team members, aimed towards achieving shared objectives and common goals.
- Individual and mutual accountability for each team members’ tasks and responsibilities.
- A supportive and open team culture in which team members support and constructively challenge each other in service of learning and performance.
Teamship takes teams as they are, recognising individual and generational differences among team members, but also looking for points of agreement and opportunities for collaboration. This fosters a working environment in which team members can freely share ideas and perspectives, ultimately strengthening team cohesion and productivity.
Listen: Avoiding Stereotypes And Challenging Your Assumptions
When applied to building an intergenerational workforce and maximising opportunities for new recruits, a central element of teamship is avoiding stereotypes and challenging your assumptions about how different generations communicate. Despite the very real change in workforce expectations, blanket categories such as ‘Millennials’ and ‘Gen X’ can assume a uniform set of communication styles and aspirations among a whole generation of people.
The antidote to this is taking each team member as you find them; as always, listening and seeking to understand each other goes a long way to making the best use of the skills and diversities in a modern team.
Business Team Coaching From Centre For Teams
To find out more about teamship and how it can help you increase productivity and cohesion in your intergenerational teams, please contact us today by clicking here or giving us a call on 020 3667 9294.
Image Source: Canva
