Do you struggle with building the right team? What does it take to build a great team? These are perfect questions that leaders should ask themselves to ensure that they create teams that are working effectively for them.

Teams come in all shapes, sizes, and personalities. However, when looking at building a team, before you look outward at what talent is available, and try to capture who is the best, you may need to look at yourself first. It might seem odd to reflect on yourself as a leader, however I truly believe this is where it starts. Taking a look at who you are as a leader, and how you lead, can help point you in the direction to what types of team members to add to your team.

In addition, understanding how you work as a leader, can help you figure out what types of people you work best with. After all, you want your team to be productive, and a key to a productive team is having team members that you can get along with and that they can get you and understand your working style as a leader.

Your Team Members Matter

Understanding the strengths of each of your team members that will be a valuable asset to building your team. Each team member can bring dynamic strengths that can be leveraged in many ways and can be extremely beneficial.
I was recently listening to a podcast by Amber Porterfield, and on this particular episode she had a guest, Tarzan Kay that spoke about the different types of people. It helped Tarzan to break it down into four different types. As I was thinking about her explanations of the particular types, it dawned on me, that these are also different types of people teams are made of. She puts people into color categories of red, blue, yellow, and green. Each color code corresponds to their specific characteristics.

Team Red – Quick Hitters

The first category is red. The red team members are the fast decision makers, quick hitters, and they like their information short and sweet. Decisions are made on only the essential details. Most leaders naturally fall into this area. If you have a red team member, you might have someone that is able to get things done without much detail or hand holding. These team members do not need a lot to take action on the areas you want them to focus on.

Team Blue – Fuzzy Pandas

The second team is blue. Blues are emotionally driven. They make you feel good, like pandas. They like powerful stories and feel their way through scenarios. Blues also really enjoy belonging, patriotism and nostalgia. Make them cry. The people that have these characteristics on the team will be those that are driven by inclusion. They will love the connectedness that you as a leader will bring to tho the team. When launching projects make sure to focus on the team and have intention to ensure everyone has a important role in supporting your team.

Team Yellow – Party People

Yellow are typically the fun people and life of the party! As the third member of your team, yellow’s love adventure, they are super interesting people and they are entertaining as well. Since yellow’s love to take life by the reins, help them by making their experience on your team a good time. Integrate fun activities and outings. Make what you do on your team exciting. Use GIFs once and a while to communicate. Any of these ideas will help your yellow team member shine bright and feel welcome and appreciated on the team.

Team Green – Analysts

Lastly, the last category are the green people. Green people aren’t alien to your team, but much needed! Your green team members really love the details and are supreme analysts. They enjoy reading, are studious, and love to get useful tips and strategies. Green team members are very warm individuals. They love to be accommodating. If they are sending emails, their emails are full of useful tips and strategies. Since they enjoy giving information in this manner, they also appreciate being communicated with in this manner too. So if you would like to communicate to your green team members, be assured that they will read every single word, and pay attention to every single word too. So be precise, and accurate, as you may find that they will point inconsistencies that they see. That is how they can help your team.

A Well-Rounded Team

Whether you fall into in any of these categories, it becomes evident that all teams need these characteristics. Having elements of these team members on your team somehow helps you to have a well-rounded team that can make sound decisions together. I can say that my current team does highlight all of these areas, and because of that we are able to excel with what we set out to do. Your unique managerial style won’t please everyone, however if you can make sure that when you lead, you lead understanding the different types of personalities on your team, it will make the difference.

Summary

It is important for leaders to have a diverse team that can see different situations through their specific perspective. This can help you as a leader be able to ensure that you have all basis covered when communicating to the larger team or to the client. Leveraging your teams insights will be able to help you bring a diverse set of ideas to the table to accomplish any objective that you are looking for

Hopefully this helps you to understand the characteristics of building a healthy team. Finding the right team players are the initial step to having a sound, foundational, productive team. Do you currently have a team that works for you? What aspects of the team stand out that make it a great team? Let’s keep the conversation going!

Cheers!

P.S. For more helpful insights into how to build the right team, check out this post.