Set Your Team Ground Rules

team leader

The team leader has the greatest influence on a team’s behavioural norms, their collaboration with each other, their desire to excel and their ability to collaborate successfully.

It is the leader’s job to set the ground rules for their team. Like a parent makes a child feel safe by setting boundaries for them, a leader must enable their team by setting ground rules which let them know what the expectations of them are.

Ground rules make the team players feel safe, as there is no question what is expected of them.

Leaders can model behaviour through their own actions and they can also praise team members who do things which build the team up – tangible skills, physical actions or emotional empowerment.

To effectively set ground rules the leader needs to use keen emotional intelligence to make the right judgement calls in the right way.

Leisl Klaebe is facilitator of the Group Fitness Managers Roundtable. If you’re interested in more information about the roundtable click here.