In the world of corporate training and motivational courses, leadership and team skills are frequently treated like separate things. After all , they apparently involve different groups of women and men in different places on your ordered ladder. But I’d like to share a story with you about an elderly couple I know. Hopefully it will help you to understand the real relationship between what leaders and team members bring to a job and the connection between leadership and team skills.

Leadership and team skills are co-dependant

When Richard and Anne met, they were deeply in love. Richard was the sporty type, while Anne could’ve been a MENSA member if she’d ever felt the need to try. They are a wonderful couple, committed and caring, and have grown old together reasonably gracefully.

But with age comes change. Richard and Anne realize that better than most. Rheumatism has taken much of Richard’s manual capacity – I saw him try and make a cup of a tea a number of years ago, using an out of date kettle that you put on the stove. Needless to say that this was unsafe and I stepped in to help. In the meantime Anne finds herself sometimes forgetful – physically in good health, but with a memory that sometimes appears to lose information. I asked Richard how they got by.

He told me that Anne makes him a cup of tea. He reminds her to turn the gas off when she's finished.

I often think it was a beautiful sentiment, and it’s something that has stuck with me because it genuinely does sum up the link between the abilities of a leader and the skills of a team. The team members count on powerful leadership to outline a direction and keep things arranged, while a leader is dependent upon the talents that their team members bring to the task. This is what leadership and team skills is all about.

Leadership and team skills combine for productiveness

However, although training consultancies would have you believe that you can train your top people and your other team members separately, the truth of the matter is that a leader is nevertheless another member of the team. While they might have their own unique skills that need bespoke support and training, leaders and their groups should come together from time to time for teaching that helps them to talk and work as a cohesive whole.

Richard and Anne continue to combine their strengths every single day. Leadership and team skills should always follow their example.

Motivational Speaker Richard Tyler leads Buildingateam which offer organisations extraordinary team building, leadership training and culture change events using art and performance.