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Bob Sutton's latest post ties in nicely with my previous post regarding good leaders and great leaders. In it, he highlights 2 indicators that you may be a bad boss (as first put forth by Leigh Buchanan). Of the 2, I was especially struck by this one:

Employees do not volunteer for the boss’s pet projects. It could be because the idea is bad, and they are afraid to say that. Or the idea may be good, but they are petrified of what will happen if they let the boss down. Or since it is the boss’s pet project, he will probably work on it as well. “Which means more time spent ...gulp ...with you.”

How many teams have you been a member of that suffered from that very issue? And the more important question - are you the person that causes that reaction? If your answer to the second question is yes it is well past time that you work on your "plays well with others" skills.

Leadership and team building are, before anything else, about relationships. If you can't build and maintain positive relationships with those you work with you will ultimately fail as a leader and your team will fail as well. That's not to say that you have a BFF* relationship with your teammates. But at a minimum you do have to develop a trusting and professional relationship that will allow you to work together on a regular basis.

Good bosses know and practice this simple fact. Bad bosses, not so much.

* For those of you who have managed to avoid the affliction known as text messaging, BFF = Best Friend Forever