Think for a moment about the most successful teams you’ve ever worked with. It’s likely they had a good leader, someone who helped team members reach their full potential. But according to behavioral scientist Jon Levy, there were one or more team members who were not leaders, yet who served a very important purpose:
They were glue players.
“A glue player is the team member who multiplies everyone else’s results, helping the team win,” Levy told the Wall Street Journal in a recent interview. “They anticipate needs, take actions no one asked them to and help teammates perform at their best, often without seeking recognition.”
Levy calls glue players “quiet leaders” with “unusually high emotional intelligence.” They rarely hold the biggest titles, and prefer to lead from behind, letting stars shine whey they “make sure the loudest voices don’t drown out the smartest ideas.”
Levy’s discovery came after speaking with over 100 C-Suite executives from Fortune 500 companies, along with other leaders like Olympic team captains, astronauts, and others. He shares his findings in a new book: Team Intelligence: How Brilliant Leaders Unlock Collective Genius.
As an emotional intelligence coach and researcher of high-performance teams, I couldn’t agree more with these findings.
But how do you spot the glue players on your team? And how do you reward them? make sure you keep them around? And is it possible to help people become glue players? If so, how? To answer those questions, let’s first take a closer look at Levy’s findings. (Sign up here for my free email course on emotionally intelligent leadership and teams.)
How to spot glue players
If you’re looking for glue players on your own team, says Levy, all you have to do is ask.
Question team members. Ask who helps them, who watches out for them. Who makes sure the team functions smoothly, and creates space for the quiet or hidden voices.
Another way to spot glue players, whether looking on an existing team or even when building a team, is to look for clues. Levy says glue players are often the people who volunteer in the community, or for their kids’ school or sports clubs.
When speaking about accomplishments, they don’t just highlight their own; rather, they tend to speak about the success of the team as a whole or about someone they worked with or mentored. Then, they share the credit.
From my experience, many glue players have high levels of agreeableness. Because they place a high on value social harmony, they notice when there’s friction between teammates and take it upon themselves to help smooth out that friction. That high agreeableness also leads them to draw satisfaction from seeing others succeed.
Not all people with high agreeableness are glue players; it’s more complex than that. And not everyone is motivated to take the extra step to help others.
But glue players can help others become glue players. Because when people see positive results from others taking an interest in them, and from putting the team first,they may be motivated to do the same.
How to reward glue players
The challenge today, says Levy, is glue players often go unnoticed by their leaders. So, how do you reward those “glue-like” behaviors?
You have to make the invisible, visible.
For example, Levy recommends asking questions like “Who helped you succeed this quarter?” or “Whose contribution made the team stronger?” Then, use the answers to help you decide who to reward, through recognition, bonuses, or even a raise.
We often see this with successful sports teams. When their coaches or leaders go on the podium, they don’t just credit the superstars, they also praise their “glue people.” This requires those coaches and leaders to look out for glue-like behaviors, and to appreciate them. And when it times to hand out new contracts, the smart teams are sure to reward their glue people monetarily, too.
When you do the same, it may or may not have a big effect on encouraging glue players to continue doing what they do. After all, they’re hardwired to help others, whether your recognize them or not.
But those rewards will likely help keep them around. And that means great things for your team and your organization.
The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.
Justin Bariso
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