Servant Leadership and Keeping Your Team Secure
Building and growing a secure team plays a vital role in fostering a result-driven culture in an organization. With large teams, being in-tune with the organization’s purpose and values, and striving for continuous improvement, can result in exponential growth and results. Today’s guest, Phil Sponsler, has spent the past 22 years at Orbitform building teams as the driving force for continuous improvement. On this episode of The Clarity Advisors Show, Ken and Phil talk about effective team building and cultivating leadership.
Rather than approaching team building from a top-down perspective, Phil advocates for servant leadership, encouraging leadership on all levels within the organization. To that end, Phil discusses how he affected change within Orbitform, the importance of alignment and engagement across the team, and he gives his advice to younger leaders who are looking to grow their own teams.
Episode Highlights:
- Servant leadership is the greatest form of leadership.
- One of the biggest attributes of a great leader is courage.
- Alignment and engagement is critical for creating stratospheric results.
Timestamps:
[02:44] Some of the lessons, good or bad, from Phil’s 22 years at Orbitform.
[04:24] Do’s and Don’ts about having people feel safe.
[06:34] 18 years of improvements to make Orbitform a secure place to work.
[08:14] How to cascade processes down through an entire organization.
[12:02] Creating and selecting mid-level leaders – leaders with high levels of courage to do the right things.
[15:10] Stratospheric results come from having leaders, mentors, and mentees aligned with the organization’s purpose and values.
[16:36] Pivoting the organization, introducing new products, and thriving during the pandemic.
[25:00] Phil’s best advice to young leaders on how to think about, build, and grow their team.
[26:29] There are some fundamental books that people need to read if they want to become a leader.
Episode Quotes:
“Leadership is something that has to be cultivated and grown, and great leaders end up providing safety and security for their folks.” (Phil)
“We are all human beings, so the team is built of human beings, not robots.” (Phil)
“Being a leader, you have to have a high level of courage to do the right things.” (Phil)
“You have to grow your mind.” (Phil)
“Everybody talks about having a networking process. Be somebody that people want to network with you.” (Phil)
Episode Resources:
- Extreme Ownership, by Jocko Willink.
- We Were Soldiers Once… and Young, by Harold Moore and Joseph Galloway.
- The Go-Giver, by Bob Burg and John David Mann.
- The Culture Code, by Daniel Coyle.
- Leading Jesus’ Way, by Mark Deterding.
- Atomic Habits, by James Clear.
- Grit, by Angela Duckworth.
Follow/Connect with Phil Sponsler:
517-206-8217
