Pathway to Resilient Teams: An Adaptive Leader’s Toolkit for Supporting Teams through Change

I had the privilege of presenting a session at AFP LEAD in Atlanta last week on my favorite client-tested strategic frameworks and tools that support and energize teams through change. While considering what leaders can do to structurally embrace change and create some controls for their team’s proactive response to change, I realized that a large part of an adaptive leader’s success is their ability to cultivate and support a high-performing and highly motivated team.   

Though there are many characteristics of high-performing and highly motivated teams, five key characteristics emerge: Trust and psychological safety, clear communications, defined roles and responsibilities, high engagement and shared, collective goals. In other words, teams that are high-performing and highly motivated are simply more resilient, centered on a foundation of strong collaboration, adaptability and a positive, growth mind-set. To understand the benefits of an adaptive leader toolkit, it feels paramount to ask ourselves first: What can we do to nurture an environment where these characteristics are not just present, but give room for employees to thrive?  

To get started, here is a quick exercise: 

 Do you have a high-performing and highly motivated team? Yes / No 

• If no, which of the five key characteristics are missing (check all that apply)?  

​​☐​ Trust and psychological safety 

​​☐​ Clear communication 

​​☐​ Defined roles and responsibilities 

​​☐​ Engagement 

​​☐​ Shared, collective goals 

If you checked any of the above, you might consider the following pathways to strengthen and motivate your team: 

• Trust and psychological safety: Focus on building a stronger more inclusive culture. Team members on high performing teams represent diverse experiences, talents and perspectives and they feel comfortable sharing ideas, taking risks and participating collaboratively.  

• Clear communication: Consider if your organization is creating and/or supporting clear channels of communication internally, within and across teams. Consider constructive feedback mechanisms, tools that support issue and conflict resolution and promote clarity when it comes to communicating deadlines, expectations, reporting and importantly, celebrating successes and challenges.  

• Defined roles and responsibilities: Your team may need to evaluate accountabilities and reposition who does what within a team. Beyond having the right people in the right seats, consider activating RACI and DACI frameworks to reduce conflict, duplicative and ineffective work processes and to promote collaboration. RACI assigns roles as Responsible, Accountable, Consulted and Informed and DACI assigns the roles of Driver, Approver, Contributors and Informed.  

• Engagement: Consider asking team members what is preventing higher levels of engagement and participation. A RACI framework might show you where too few are carrying too much. Assessing meetings might affirm if they are strategic and well managed, providing a constructive and collaborative atmosphere. Activating problem solving tools, such as Identify, Discuss, Solve exercises (IDS) may be a way to identify additional issues related to engagement and collectively work to discuss solutions that can be activated and/or more easily addressed.  

• Shared, collective goals: Consider a collaborative goal-setting workshop as a team to identify and/or assign clear and consistent SMARTIE goals aligned to organizational objectives and strategic plan. Perhaps this is an annual discussion that aligns with department planning and with quarterly check-ins to keep engagement and progress toward goals high. Team members who feel a shared responsibility for success and are aligned to goals are more productive, have a stronger sense of purpose and accomplishment and are better equipped to prioritize tasks and allocate resources.  

No matter how well prepared we are to lead through change – no matter how well organized, no matter how clear our communications or strong our toolkit – if our team is not highly motivated and therefore high performing, we will struggle to be adaptive. Building the foundation that supports a high performing and motivated team is one of the best things we can do to ensure resiliency and success.  

• Preparedness and clear planning processes, which creates space for…  
• Agile response to identified opportunities and prioritized need, which requires… 
• Aligned leadership accountabilities and clear roles, which leads to… 
• Clear internal and external communication, which nurtures… 
• Higher levels of trust and engagement and success in meeting shared, collective goals!   

Strong leaders of high performing teams take ownership, break barriers and propel the organization forward with agility. Alford Group built an Adaptive Leaders Toolkit, which includes the following resources: 

When and How to Activate Change Management Frameworks: Embrace change management as a goal-oriented, values driven process that guides individual and organizational change towards achieving a desired future state. Understand the level of impact the desired or necessary change will have on your organization through a change impact assessment.   

Leading Through Scenario Planning: Support your team’s ability to anticipate and prepare organizationally or for key projects, programs and/or department level plans Strong scenario plans will secure your ability to navigate uncertainty and plan multiple future possibilities.  Hear more about scenario planning here.

Building Your Emotional Intelligence as a Superpower: Move from a reactive to proactive leader by building up your EQ to allow you to slow down and lead forward. Being proactive does not mean you should predict everything, but rather that you have built a practice of pause, perspective and preparation.  

Identifying Root Issues and Systems Challenges: Move beyond addressing symptoms and short-term fixes to long-term transformation by learning how to identify critical issues and effectively address them 

Clarifying Roles and Responsibilities: Align team members and create clarity on who does what and who decides what in projects or within organizations. Activate RACI and DACI frameworks to define roles, assign responsibilities and create accountability mechanisms, in turn reducing confusion, conflict and disengagement (these tools work to support alignment on small tasks and activities and large, organizational goals and objectives). 

Communicating Change by Audience: Create a scenario messaging guide designed to transparently and with clarity communicate with stakeholders that invites your staff, board, donors, partners and broader community to be part of the journey. Map key audiences on an axis chart to inform an appropriate communications strategy based on their level of interest and their level of influence.   

High performing teams drive transformation by leading change with trust, accountability, communication and cohesion. Connect with Alexis and jump into your adaptive leadership journey with Alford Group today to drive forward and plan strategically. 

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