Career Anchors are core values that influence your career decisions and affect how fulfilled you feel in your job.

Your Career Anchors also often influence your perception of the behaviour and choices of others.  Some examples of Career Anchors include security and stability, pure challenge, autonomy and independence, and lifestyle and balance.  Read this week's blog to gain a better understanding of your Career Anchors. 

Once you have the composition of a team figured out, there are key marks of effective teams which can indicate whether the team will actually be successful. Marks of effective teams include having a clear purpose and a truly cohesive team culture. Being able to engage in civilized disagreement in an intellectually compelling atmosphere is also key.

Understanding common hindrances to teamwork and how you can overcome them is vital in building effective teams. Even simply having a process of regular self-assessment can make a significant difference. Other common hindrances include lack of openness and trust, inattention to results and lack of commitment. Each of the hindrances can be overcome.

There are many factors that play into whether a team is effective.  How then can a leader take a team from an initial, forming, stage and turn it into a highly cohesive, effective force to be reckoned with?

One of the keys is understanding different roles common to most teams. Then knowing how to combine the different role types in a way that they complement each other.

Have you experienced a break-down of trust in your environment? Many of us have. We need to remember that there are specific reasons trust is broken, like failure to deliver on promises and lack of communication. There also ingredients that generate and sustain a trust-filled environment like consistency and integrity.