Putting the Pieces Together

WE ARE proud to share the fifth issue of In the Lead magazine!

In the Lead launched with the vision of becoming the leadership magazine for current and aspiring leaders. Our mission is to inform future leaders, generate global dialogue on leadership, and build a community of leaders who see more effective leadership as a prerequisite to building a better world. We are at a good point in our journey, and proud of how far we have come. The content we present is world-class, our authors are key thought leaders in their industries, and our design language is engaging.

The reason for our success is a highperforming team that has come together to make the vision a reality. It has included all the authors who have so graciously contributed to the magazine’s content. It has included my former colleagues and co-editors Steven Lorenzet, Ph.D., and Bryan Price, Ph.D., who helped set the standard for the quality of our content. My colleagues Pegeen Hopkins and Eric Marquard have provided the wisdom and the design language to make the magazine a pleasure to read. Copy editors, including Kristina Hummel and Kim de Bourbon, provide multiple reviews. Lorraine Joyce and the team in University Relations have led the effort to market the publication and make the content easily accessible.

The secret to our team’s success?

A shared commitment to producing a high-quality product, transparency, trust, communication, appreciation and pride in what we are doing. As Pegeen says: “Our diverse skillsets and approaches build off one another — and we value that. We also all focus on making In the Lead the best it can be.”

Teams are the basic building block and the primary failure point in any organization. In their book The Wisdom of Teams, Jon R. Katzenbach and Douglas K. Smith define a team as a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.

I have built and led multiple global teams and learned that many factors contribute to a high-performing team: clarity of purpose and objectives, alignment on values, clarity of governance, clarity of performance standards, transparent and constructive feedback, competent team leaders and team members, extreme collaboration, recognition and celebration, as well as a conflict management process. And most importantly, an alignment on incentives (monetary or otherwise).

So, how are high-performing teams created? And how are high-performing teams sustained? These are the questions we tackle in this issue.

We share lessons from the perspective of highly successful entrepreneurs, from the work of highly successful business leaders, and from the ivory tower. The message is consistent: it takes vision, it takes a common purpose, it takes trust and it takes a servant-leader mindset.

I hope you enjoy the issue and share it with your community.

I am also proud to share that we now have a dedicated place for the magazine within the Seton Hall University website: www.shu.edu/InTheLead.

Always grateful for your feedback.

– Ruchin Kansal