Leaders have a responsibility to promote trust and collaboration within their teams, clarify the roles of each team member, and strengthen their capacity for improvisation. Teams that work well together understand that they can build their own resilience and that of others by creating a psychologically safe environment. This means an environment in which people feel comfortable being themselves and talking openly about their feelings without fear of judgement or negativity. Coaches play an integral role in helping teams become more resilient and confident.
To gain insight into how coaches can help, we surveyed nearly 2000 NCAA coaches and worked with hundreds of team leaders and members from a wide variety of industries. Coaches should provide teams with as much relevant information as possible, help them establish direction, empower members, and increase their confidence as they move forward with a strategy. They should also reframe challenges as opportunities for learning and reflection. The coach should analyze the elements at least three times during the first few weeks of creating the teams and perhaps even periodically after this time.
But how do teams develop resilience? All the essentials (included in last month's article) are necessary to encourage team building and teamwork; however, the coach must always remember that these elements will not be effective without an underlying environment of trust. Coaches are an essential part of the success of high-performance teams (HPTs) and must work with the team sponsor to develop a team charter. It's part of the coach's role to help the team build trust in each other and, just as important, in themselves.
