Attributes of a Team Destroyer! 1
Previously, we looked at the attributes of a team player. Just as we have team players, which can invariably be described as team builders, we also have team destroyers.
However, while everyone claims to be a team player, no one openly writes on their CV that they are team destroyers.
But character, they say is like smoke, it can’t be hidden. So I will be taking you through the traits you need to look out for, to help you identify team destroyers anywhere you find them.
The first trait you find in them is *‘Talebearing’!* They are chronic tale bearers!
When they are part of your team, they are champions of *‘side talk’.*
They are those who would not contribute a single idea during an open discussion in the group.
Give them the floor, create a conducive environment for them to air their views, they will give you that deceptive smile claiming they are fully in support of what you have said as the leader.
Then they will turn to the person next to them and say; ‘what does he want me to contribute?
Are they not the leaders?’
Or in our local parlance, they will add, “na my mouth he dey find”.
If peradventure, the decision that was taken by the group did not yield the desired results, they are the first to broadcast the failure of the mission, making you wonder if they were not part of the process.
My friend, the earlier you know that they are not part of the process, the better for you as a leader.
If you try to please them and then assign some strategic assignments to them, they will do two things.
It is either they overdeliver and cut you off from the success story.
This is usually the option if they had access to your superior or the one who assigned the task to the team.
The reason is simply to take you out by showing your incompetence to the team members and your superior.
Or they will deliberately allow the assignment to fail and then slyly find a way to blame you as the leader.
By the time you are to give the team’s report and you are pointing accusing fingers at them, they will then face you too and put the blame right on your doorstep.
If you make the mistake to force him to accept responsibility for the failure in front of your superior, you will be fooling yourself and shooting yourself in the leg by playing into his hands.
If you are unlucky to have a superior who is not discerning, he will come hard on you, with the question, “Is he the leader or you are the leader? If you can’t lead the team then step down and let someone else lead instead of throwing blames around!”
Then the team destroyer would be very satisfied. For him, it is mission accomplished.
I presume you are already having a picture of that team destroyer that acted like this in the last assignment you had as a committee.
Keep following, the deceptive veil under which they have operated in the past would be torn down by the end of the series.
Idede Oseyande
(c)2022
@idede_oses
