Condoleezza Rice on How to Lead a Team

Throughout her illustrious career, Secretary Condoleezza Rice has served as a special assistant to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a member of the National Security Council, and a special assistant to the president for national security affairs. She was the first Black American woman to serve as a national security advisor and secretary of state.

During her time in the George W. Bush administration, Rice oversaw foreign policy in the Middle East, particularly for the war in Iraq. She also aimed to curtail the continued rise of nuclear programs in North Korea and Iran. After her time in the White House, she split her time primarily between academic work and continued public advocacy.

Secretary Rice has led teams in both the public and private sectors on matters of tremendous importance. Keep these seven tips from her in mind as you strive to be the most effective team leader possible:

1. 1. Build trust. As you step into a leadership role, make sure you help your team build confidence in your abilities and personal character. “I do think it's helpful with organizations to build trust,” Secretary Rice suggests, “by caring about people and spending some time thinking about your people and what they need.” Focus on employee engagement that leaves your team members certain you care about both their personal and professional well-being.
2. 2. Create an empowering company culture. Do your due diligence to ensure you cultivate a work environment in which people feel safe and able to do their best work. “If your people are being disrespected in an organization,” Secretary Rice says, “that's on you to make sure that they are respected.” Encourage everyone in your organization to develop effective communication skills and practice them yourself, too. Foster an environment in which you can meet all team needs promptly.
3. 3. Develop a sense of vision. New leaders must establish a personal sense of vision to effectively guide their organizations. “Have a vision of the world as it should be, not the world as it is,” she says. “And that can mean anything from being the leader of a country or movement to being the leader of a company that is trying to make it back from a difficult quarter or possibly losing market share.” By looking at the big picture, you’ll be better able to figure out how to best meet your organizational or company goals.
4. 4. Foster leadership qualities in your team. Every great leader needs a great team. In Secretary Rice’s view, empowering your team and developing their competencies for leadership is essential. “If you're delegating but constantly taking things back,” she says, “people are not going to discover their own leadership characteristics and their own leadership capabilities.” When each team member possesses a leadership skill set of their own, you can more effectively entrust projects to them.
5. 5. Lead collaboratively. Effective leaders know how to make their team feel like collaborators rather than cogs in a machine. “I think we all have to try to be collaborative in our leadership,” Secretary Rice says. “So, in other words, you don't just say, ‘Just do it because I said do it.’ You have to try to bring people around.” Hear out your team when it comes to their own business ideas. Treat each person as a valuable contributor. View team building as an endeavor to bring together a band of equals rather than enlist a crew of subordinates.
6. 6. Provide guidance. Entrepreneurs and leaders can help power team performance with a little hands-on help from time to time. “If you are a great leader with vision but you don't know what's going on in your organization,” Secretary Rice says, “you're not gonna get very far.” Identify basic milestones for team performance. Allow wiggle room for the specifics of project management, but step in to guide your team more directly when it’s necessary.
7. 7. Seek out balance. The best leaders know how to strike a balance between undermanagement and overmanagement. “Leaders have to get to the right level of detail,” Secretary Rice says. “They have to know enough to see why a problem has emerged and they can't get something done, but not so into the weeds that they're judging every move that the people that work for them are doing.” In your team management, opt toward delegating problem-solving to others unless you think your team absolutely needs hands-on help.

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