I was at a women’s VFL football match a few weeks ago – the last round of the year.  The Team I was following had no chance of making the top 4 for a finals berth – their season was all but over.  My daughter has played with her team for nearly 10 years, having chosen the team based on how she felt when she first trained with them (i.e. team culture).  When she was looking at which team to join, there were 2 geographically close teams – she trained with one for 2 weeks but did not feel included…she chose the other and joined them, 120 games or so ago now.

I had an energising mentoring session this week with a CEO with whom I have worked for a number of years.  It was an intense hour and a half, during which we shone light on 2 or 3 key issues to be addressed and worked out a way forwards.

Out on my early morning walk recently, I was fascinated to discover a small army of green ants dragging their dinner, a piece of a large dead earth worm, up a tree – straight up, vertically – no mean effort.

Most of us work in teams, sometimes multiple teams, both within our workplace and across other organisations.  When things go smoothly, we tend not to notice – but when the team is not working well, it causes all sorts of problems.

This is a question that I frequently ask leadership training participants and those I mentor.  The responses are always geared towards people spending a much higher percentage of their time in management rather than leadership – this includes CEOs and very senior leaders.  There is no ideal formula, rather I suggest knowing how you are spending your time and making sure that, the more senior you are, the more time you are spending in leadership activities.