Are you a soldier or a general?

Want to know a really quick way to demoralize your team members? Ask them if they're a soldier or a general. That's guaranteed to make them hate you and question their own abilities.

Team leadership is not about moulding your team into what you think they'll be good as… Good team leadership is to help the team mould themselves into what they see themselves. You can nudge them, provide them support, tools and your experience, but asking questions like,"Are you a soldier or a general?"is bound to cause confusion and immediate drop in performance.

Why? Simple - people scale up on their own. There are enough forces outside of the team to push an individual to do more than they're currently doing. I mean, no one wants to be a petty officer in an army for the rest of their lives.

If there are confused souls out there, give them options and space to explore.

If there are people trying to go down a path you feel is wrong, let them. You are not their maker - your job is to get the best out of your team for the duration of their role in the organization. Don't go beyond that.

At the end of the day, remember, you too were once a soldier - no matter how great or fast your rise might have been.