4 Overlooked Ways to Build a Rockstar Team

Embrace your team’s perspectives

Your team doesn’t think like you—that’s a good thing! If everyone on my staff thought as I did, my practice would implode. For my practice to run its best, I must embrace the different strengths, abilities, and perspectives that my team members bring to the table.

As a leader, you must respect that your team won’t solve or approach a problem as you would. Before you get frustrated, pay attention to your team member’s different solutions—you may learn something you didn’t know before or gain new insight from their different life experience.

When team members come to you with a puzzle they can’t crack, help them further hone their skills by guiding them to the correct answer instead of just giving them the solution. Doing so will enable them to figure out similar problems on their own in the future instead of always relying on you.

Empower your team

Don’t plant ticking-time bombs for your team to discover while you’re on vacation. Resolve any outstanding issues–if possible, before you leave.

And if you miss something, or there’s an emergency while you’re away, have a plan for extreme scenarios—no matter how unlikely—so that your team has something to fall back on if something were to go horribly wrong.

Establish checklists that everyone can follow, not only through their usual routine but also in an emergency. Think of these checklists as “get out of jail free” cards. Instill in your team that hell won’t rain down upon them as long as they follow these steps.

You can relieve a lot of fear and stress for your team if they know they won’t be in trouble if something goes amiss despite sticking to the process.

If the process fails—you need to reevaluate that process, not chew out your team member.

Have a communication policy so your team knows who they can contact when problems arise—and don’t be an easy button!

Here’s what I mean:

You don’t want to be out of the office and fielding false emergencies all day—you need to be unplugged. If you’re new to being away, someone on your team will break communications protocol and think, “Oh, I’ll just call Micah real quick,” instead of using the process and systems in place.

When that happens, let the phone ring and go to voicemail. I know it can be unsettling at first, but you’ve got to remind yourself that you have processes in place that you need to trust.

If you break that process by answering the phone, your team member won’t develop the problem-solving skills they need to be a rockstar, and you’ll become the “easy button” they can hit every time they start to feel a little uncomfortable.

When you answer your phone for minor problems, you will stunt your team member’s growth and your own.

You’ve got to unplug for everyone’s benefit.

Invest in your team

Don’t hesitate to invest in your team—the ROI is astounding! By genuinely caring about your team as people and professionals, you help them reach the next level.

You can invest in your team in meaningful ways beyond a mug with your logo or a big holiday party. Consider these ideas that will not only help your team develop as professionals but as people:

• Create career paths for everyone on the team and set aside a professional development budget (you should help them pick how and where to spend the money).
• Encourage your team members to get a coach.
• Pay them enough—whatever that might be. You want your people to earn enough so they can grow and flourish.
• Invest in them to be better people: how are you setting them up to be a leader, and what skills do they need to do a great job?
• Help them with their financial planning—you’ve got the skills to help them get ahead, and by planning for them like you would a client, they’ll be able to understand your business from the client’s perspective.
• Let them hear from other Rockstar advisor teams at our Members Only Webinar on September 21, 2022.