What Makes a Good Team?

This article about Bob Bradley, the head coach of the US National Men's Soccer Team, appeared on ESPN.com prior to the US’s first match against England. Within, Bradley speaks about the elements of a good team:

The essence of this whole thing is trying to become a good team, and becoming a good team is hard work. That's the reason most teams don't become good. It requires the ability to have tough conversations, real communication. It requires an honest sense of roles and the ability for a team to come together, grow and see what's important. 

I love that Bradley brought up "tough conversations, real communications."  These two concepts assume that team members are exposed, or willing to expose themselves. For anyone to consistently have tough conversations, and for real communication to take place, there's an inherent risk that the person receiving information may hear a difficult "truth" about him/herself; there’s also a risk that the person sending the message may have to speak a difficult "truth" about somebody else. In order to consistently send or receive difficult messages within a group, team members must trust one another. They must trust that the message isn’t personal, that it is for the welfare of the entire team, that there are no ulterior motives.

In order for this climate to exist, the leader also must be exposed. When the leader – or in this case, the coach – is exposed, when their motives are out in the open, when their behavior consistently matches their words, the rest of the team is able to slowly let their guard down.

When that dynamic is not in place, when a leader continually has his/her own guard up, the rest of the team will follow suit. After all, no sane person exposes his/her true thoughts and feeling to a group that’s lead by someone whose motives are unknown.

And that’s why becoming a good team is hard, and great teams are incredibly rare. Both require a leader to strip down his own guard before moving forward. And that’s never comfortable.