If you want to cultivate a FAST team, you must first become a FAST Leader, as the team’s attitudes mirror those of their leaders.
Leadership begins with you; leaders must lead themselves first and be the role models for the behaviours they wish to see in their teams.
Leaders can’t set big, bold goals for their teams if they don’t set big goals for themselves. You can’t inspire others if you can’t inspire yourself to aim high.
So everything starts with you, and it has to be in everything you do—in business, in life, and online. We are leaders 24 hours a day; it’s not something that we can just turn on and turn off; it’s not a job; it’s more than that; it’s who we are, and people want to see our leadership in everything we do.
When I ran my first marathon at 52, one of the benefits was that it showed my teams, my colleagues, that not only do I want to push them to achieve big things, but that I also want to do that for myself. This turned out to be a great example, because there was no hiding place, and there was no one to delegate this too. I had to show them that I was prepared to dig deep in order to hit a big, bold, beautiful goal.
By pushing myself, it allowed me to push my team even further.
In the Bible, it says, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” As a leader, you should only do unto others what you are prepared to do to yourself. The higher the standard you hold yourself to, the higher the standard you can hold your team to.
If you want to have a FAST team, then you need to be FAST: you need to be Focused, keep your eyes on the prize; you need to be Accountable, you need to walk your talk and keep the commitments you make, you need to keep things Simple, eliminate any tasks or meetings that add no value; and lastly, you need to be transparent, you need to be open, clear, and honest in everything you do.
When you do that, then your team will follow your lead, and they too will be FAST, they will become inspired and engaged, and it’s inspired and engaged teams that achieve astounding results.
