3 essential qualities of a good team player

Table of contents

• Video
• Introduction
• Quality #1: Humility
• Quality #2: A thirst for success
• Quality #3: Social intelligence
• "The accidental clumsy
• "The lovable slacker
• "The talented politician
• Team activity
• Conclusion

Here's the interactive workshop for this article:

Introduction

Whether you're a leader striving to create a team-oriented culture, a human resources professional looking to hire true teammates, or an employee looking to stand out on your team, you're probably wondering, "What are these 3 must-have qualities?"

Here we share the 3 indispensable qualities that make some people better team players than others. From the book "Le Coéquipier idéal" by Patrick LencioniHere, we share with you a method for identifying and hiring ideal team players, as well as how to help current team members become aware of areas for improvement.

Quality #1: Humility

The first quality of a good team player is humility. We have to make sure we don't hire people who are selfish and arrogant. Simply put, humility means being curious and knowing how to look at others.

Humility isn't:

• Lack of self-confidence

• Never having a debate with others

• Never sticking to your guns in a project

• Never recognizing good work

• To be self-focused

• To be interesting

Humility is:

• Not to get caught up in your own ego

• To recognize the facts and the truth, even if you're wrong

• Putting others in the spotlight

• Be interested

In his style, author C.S. Lewis expresses humility very well when he says:

"Humility is not thinking less of oneself, but thinking less of oneself."

Quality #2: A thirst for success

The second quality of a good team player is a thirst for success. This type of person shows initiative and can often be very productive. They are therefore a major asset to the team.

The thirst for success is not:

• To do the minimum

• Do just enough for the evaluation

• Procrastinating and waiting until the last minute

• To be easily satisfied with a project

• To work more hours to work more hours

The thirst for success is:

• Take responsibility

• To be reliable

• Always wanting to help "what else can I do?

• Always wanting to learn more

• Wanting to do more, knowing your own limits

Don't confuse a thirst for success with the term "workaholic". A workaholic is someone whose identity does not come solely from their work. A thirst for success is simply someone who wants to do their job well and gets the job done.

Quality #3: Social intelligence

The third quality of a good team player is social intelligence, or savoir-être. Social intelligence means using judgment and intuition to deal with the subtleties of human relations.

Social intelligence is not:

• A person's intellectual faculties

• The ability to convince or influence

• Talking to reassure others

Social intelligence is:

• To be able to read the space and see "this person is not in his right frame of mind".

• Knowing that you always have an impact on others

• Use judgment and intuition to deal with the subtleties of human relations

• Knowing when to speak and when to shut up

In conclusion, the effectiveness of the concept of humility, acquisitiveness and social intelligence lies not in any one of these qualities, but rather in their combination. If you can have colleagues on your team who have these 3 indispensable qualities, managing your team will be child's play. If you have players on your team who possess 2 out of 3 qualities, it will be more difficult to make teamwork happen.

To demonstrate this, here are the results of the various combinations. For the purposes of this example, we'll use labels to describe these situations.

Humility + thirst for success = the accidental bungler

The strengths of the accidentally clumsy:

• Well-intentioned

• Good team player

• Reliable and powerful

The problems of the accidentally clumsy:

• Is not always aware of his impact and can hurt team members

• It can become a source of distraction for the team

• We have to pick up the pieces

The accidental klutz is like a puppy in the house: he can knock over pots, make messes and do his business in the house. You may have to pick up the broken pots of the accidental klutz.

Humility + social intelligence = the lovable slacker

The strengths of the lovable slacker:

• Everyone loves them, because they're fun.

• They're not caught up in their own egos

• They know how to deal with people

The problems of the lovable slacker:

• No work ethic (they're passionate about everything except their work)

• Leave things to chance

• Creates frustration within the team

Thirst for success + social intelligence = the talented politician

The strengths of the talented politician:

• Good with people (e.g. job interviews)

• Delivering results, working

The problems of the talented politician:

• Worries about himself first (individualistic)

• They're often hired because they're good talkers and have delivered good results, but eventually their egos get in the way and they don't like working together.

• They can hurt people around them to feed their egos.

Team activity

To put this concept into practice, here's an activity you can do with your team to help them become aware of areas for improvement.

1. Step 1: Rank the 3 qualities from 1 to 3. Example:

1. Social intelligence

2. Thirst for success

3. Humility

2. Step 2: Share your individual ranking as a team. The team leader shares first.

3. Step 3: Form teams and divide into sub-groups according to quality grading.

4. Step 4: Discuss as a team: "How can we improve this aspect of ourselves?

5. Step 5: As a team, discuss what came out of each of the sub-groups and draw the necessary conclusions.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the effectiveness of the concept lies not in any one of these qualities, but rather in their combination.

As a team leader, the concluding question you can ask yourself is: "How can I ensure that my team members possess the three indispensable traits of a good team player?"

Is it reviewing your hiring and retention process? Is it doing more team activities like the one suggested above?