Developing Team Members With a Proactive Attitude

Every leader wants a team of proactive colleagues who anticipate needs, issues, and opportunities and step up to address them without being asked.

By anticipating problems, roadblocks, and opportunities and acting on them before they arise, proactive team members make life easier for leaders and for each other.

Proactive team members develop an eye for situations and consider how they might unfold. They constantly scan what is planned or coming up and begin preparing now for what might occur.

As part of their planning process, they think through the best-case and worst-case possibilities of situations and then decide what actions they might take to get ahead of the negatives and take advantage of the positives.

In other words, they solve problems before they happen and pursue opportunities before they materialize.

Being proactive isn’t innate or personality-driven. Everyone has the capacity to think ahead and prepare for problems and opportunities before they occur. However, some team members are much more proactive than others.

Why do some team members take the initiative over situations rather than waiting for things to happen? Unbeknownst to many leaders, it is the leader’s own actions that produce or discourage proactivity.

People anticipate and take the initiative when two things exist: an expectation that they should do so, and recognition for being proactive even when the outcome of their effort is less than desired.

The best leaders emphasize the importance of anticipating and behaving proactively. They make it a point to state that taking the initiative is expected and makes everyone and everything more effective.

Empowering others to act without being asked starts with more than permission. Because many leaders and team environments punish initiative, leaders must highlight how important it is. And that they presume people will act accordingly.

Practicing proactivity in a group setting is the next step. Brainstorming about upcoming events and the possible problems and opportunities they afford is a great way to set the stage for more proactive behavior.

Talking through what actions can be taken now before the event or episode occurs can be a lightbulb for some and illustrate the power of anticipation and action.

But now the real discipline begins.

Team members won’t take the chance to engage proactively if they think it can get them in trouble. Anytime they see initiative, good leaders underline and thank team members for anticipating issues and opportunities and acting on them without being asked.

Good leaders reward the initiative, not the outcome. Sure, it’s essential to highlight how much easier, better, or more effective a given project turned out because of a team member’s proactive choices. But even more important is focusing on a team member’s tremendous initiative despite a lousy outcome.

This tells everyone that proactive behavior is what matters most, not the result.

When leaders expect people to take the initiative and give them the room to do so, they are often rewarded with innovative and energetic actions that help them and the team.

Nothing is more rewarding for a leader than a team full of colleagues who bring a proactive attitude to everything they do. They prepare more than they repair, and that is a boon to leaders.