Helpful tips on how to utilize military leadership principles to strengthen your team

As a manager, effective team building strategies are key to getting everyone operating at a high level. Although your team won’t start off with the same skill-levels, you can use military leadership principles to strengthen each individual in their roles so that everyone can carry out their jobs with confidence.

Organizations often end up with teams that have a wide range of abilities within the staff. This can be problematic because it means not everyone can be relied upon to the same degree, and thus, the team as a whole is not cohesive.

Military leadership principles are based on the fact that everyone has the capacity to improve and to perform their duties confidently. They employ a variety of effective team building strategies including boot camp, immersion programs, and other bonding exercises in order to elevate the team across the board.

In the military, it’s crucial for everyone to perform their functions effectively because lives depend on the execution of each individual role. In the business world, the stakes may not be as extreme, but those same leadership principles can be used to turn your team into a highly efficient group.

This is especially important when hiring for cultural fit rather than merit alone. You may hire someone that you feel will add to the overall atmosphere of your organization although they lack some of the necessary skills. In this situation, it’s important to use effective team building strategies that help them grow confident in their role so that you don’t have to wonder whether or not they’ll be the “weak link.” By making sure that everyone is highly capable in their respective positions, your team will be strong through and through.

Carrie is a frequent keynote speaker on HR and leadership topics and regularly conducts employee training and leadership development workshops as well. She is the author of the recently published book, Restaurant Operator's HR Playbook: Your Hands-On Playbook for Finding, Hiring, and Developing Leaders and Implementing Organized People Systems and has been featured in Entrepreneur, Restaurant News, Pizza Today and Independent Restaurateur.