ADMINISTRATIVE PROFESSIONALS DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE
June 2014
Volume 1, Issue 4
Book Review
The 17 Essential Qualities of a Team Player
By John C. Maxwell
Improving yourself will add value to your team. But if you have a leadership role on your team, it’s especially vital. Why? Because you can effectively teach only what you consistently model. It takes one to know one, show one, and grow one. The 17 Essential Qualities of a Team Player offers specific actions to take to improve the value of every team player. 1. Adaptable: Team players who are adaptable are highly teachable; emotion‐
ally secure; creative; and, service‐minded. To in‐
crease your adaptability: get into the habit of learn‐
ing; reevaluate your role on the team; and think outside the lines. 2. Collaborative: Every team player must bring something more to the table and not just put in his minimum required work. To improve in this area: see team members as collabo‐
rators, not competitors; be supportive, not suspicious; concentrate on the team , not yourself; create victo‐
ries through multiplica‐
tion. “Results: Create Victories Through Multiplication. When you work together with your teammates, you can do re‐
markable things. If you work alone, you leave a lot of victo‐
ries on the table.” John C. Maxwell 3. Committed: Commitment does not depend on gifts or abilities. Rather, it is the result of choice. Commit‐
ment lasts when it's based on values. If it's something you believe in, it's easier to keep. To improve your level of commitment: tie com‐
mitments to values; take a risk; evaluate teammates' commitment. 4. Communicative: Commu‐
nicative team players do not isolate themselves from others; make it easy for teammates to communicate with them; follow the twenty‐four hour rule; give attention to potentially diffi‐
cult relationships; and, fol‐
low up important commu‐
nication in writing. To im‐
prove communication: be candid; be quick; and be inclusive. 5. Competent: Competent does not mean having ade‐
quate skills to perform a job. It means the individual must be highly qualified to do the job well. To improve the level of competence: focus yourself profession‐
ally; sweat the small stuff; give more attention to im‐
plementation. 6. Dependable: The es‐
sence of dependability: pure motives; the ability to take on responsibility; sound thinking and good judg‐
ment; consistent contribu‐
tion, no matter how tired, overwhelmed or dis‐
tracted, you must be able to deliver. To improve de‐
pendability: check your motives; discover what your word is worth; and, find someone to hold you accountable. 7. Disciplined: Discipline is paying the price so you can have the reward later. To become the kind of players teams want, people must develop discipline in three areas: disciplined thinking; disciplined emotions; disci‐
plined actions. Action sepa‐
rates the winners from the losers. 8. Enlarging : Team mem‐
bers love a player who is able to inspire them. Team players who enlarge their teammates share common characteristics: enlargers value their teammates; enlargers value what their teammate’s value; enlarg‐
ADMINISTRATIVE PROFESSIONALS DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE
June 2014
Volume 1, Issue 4, Page 2
Becoming the kind of person every team wants
How do we become Enlargers? Believe in others before
they believe in you; serve
others before they serve you;
add value to others before
they add value to you; point
out your teammates'
strengths; encourage and
motivate them out of their
comfort zone; but within
their gift zone.
the team lead; they place
te a m a c c o m p l i sh m e n t
ahead of their own; they do
whatever is necessary to
achieve the mission. To improve mission consciousness: check to see if your
team focuses on its mission;
find ways to keep the mission in mind; contribute your
best as a team member.
9. Enthusiastic: Your heart is
the source of energy for the
team. People who bring an
enthusiastic attitude to
teamwork often take responsibility for their own enthusiasm; act their way into feeling; believe the only way to
begin is simply to begin; believe in what they are doing;
spend time with enthusiastic
people. Enthusiasm is contagious. To improve enthusiasm: show a sense of urgency; be willing to do more;
strive for excellence.
12. Prepared: Preparation
can mean the difference
between winning and losing.
To improve preparedness:
become a process thinker;
do more research; and learn
from your mistakes.
10. Intentional: Being intentional means working with a
strong sense of purpose. To
improve intentionality: explore your strengths and
weaknesses; specialize in
your specialty; plan your calendar with a purpose.
11. Mission conscious: The
four qualities of missionconscious team players are:
they know where the team is
going; they let the leader of
13. Relational: Teams want
people who are relational. To
better relate to your teammates: focus on others instead of yourself; ask the
right questions; share common experiences; and make
others feel special.
14. Self-improving: People
who are constantly improving themselves make three
processes an ongoing cycle
in their lives: preparation,
contemplation, and application. To become selfimproving: become highly
teachable; plan your progress;
value
selfimprovement above selfpromotion.
15. Selfless: As a team
member, how do you cultivate an attitude of selflessness? Be generous; avoid
internal politics; display
loyalty; value interdependence over independence. To
become more selfless: promote someone other than
yourself; take a subordinate
role; give secretly, without
the other team members
knowing.
16. Solution-oriented: Anyone can become solutionoriented. Solution oriented
people recognize these
truths: problems are a matter of perspective; all problems are solvable; problems
either stop us or stretch us.
To make yourself a solutionoriented team player: refuse to give up; refocus your
thinking; rethink your strategy; and repeat the process.
17. Tenacious: Being tenacious means giving all that
you've got, not more than
you have; working with determination, not waiting on
destiny; quitting when the
job is done, not when you're
tired, pushing yourself beyond what you think you are
capable of. To improve your
tenacity: work harder and
smarter; stand for something; make your work a
game.
“Growth is the great
separator between
those who succeed
and those who do not.
When I see a person
beginning to separate themselves from
the pack, it's almost
always due to personal growth.”
John C. Maxwell
“Look at our society.
Everyone wants to be
thin, but nobody
wants to diet. Everyone wants to live long,
but few will exercise.
Everybody wants
money, yet seldom
will anyone budget or
control their
spending.”
John C. Maxwell
“Growth demands a
temporary surrender of
security. It may mean
giving up familiar but
limiting patterns, safe
but unrewarding work,
values no longer
believed in, and
relationships that have
lost their meaning.”
John C. Maxwell