People who are pessimistic see failure as final. They put failure down to an obstacle that is impossible to move or change. People who have optimism see failure as an opportunity to change, or remove an obstacle so they can turn the failure into a success.

People who have optimism know that it’s important to have a vision. They have an optimistic view and a belief for the future. A view that the future is bright. A view that the organisation they work for is going to get better.

A view that their department is going to get better. A view that the team they are part of is going to get better. A view that their teammates as individuals are going to get better. Most of all, they have a vision that they as an individual is going to work every day to get better.

1. Taking Action

Highly effective team players know that to make their vision a reality, then they need to take action. But, what exactly do they take action on, and how do they take action? Highly effective team players take action on their team.

They lead from the front, and firstly show their team the vision, then take them on the journey to turn that vision into a reality.

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Highly effective team players have optimism, and before you can have a vision, you must first have optimism. When you have optimism, it will help you to raise yours and your team’s level. However, you cannot get to the next level on optimism alone.

You must take action to bring your vision to life, and make it a reality. By focussing on your vision, and taking action, you will become a highly effective team player. You will also be on the right path to building a highly effective team.

As competency and character work in harmony, so too does optimism and vision. To have optimism, you must first have a vision. To have a vision, you must first have optimism. When your vision becomes 100% clear and complete, your optimism will increase.

As your optimism increases, the urge to take action grows. As you continue to take action, the more your vision will become reality.

2. Making Sacrifices

To make your vision a reality, you will be required to make sacrifices for the sake of that vision. When you have optimism for your vision, you will realise that making sacrifices is necessary.

However, to begin making sacrifices and then continue making them, you must become disciplined. By having the discipline to sacrifice, your vision will become the priority until it becomes your reality.

Will sharing this article, or sharing what you are learning from this article help your teammates? If the answer is yes, then that is because the vision you have for your team is to help them become highly effective team players just like you.

So, the first sacrifice you are making is reading this article, which takes u your time. Then the second sacrifice will be sharing what you are learning, which again takes up your time. But these sacrifices are necessary for you to help turn your vision into a reality.

The action you would be taking is reading the article, and then sharing it. Hopefully you are starting to see the correlation between sacrifice and taking action, and how important it is for both to happen.

Every vision has a price, and that price is sacrifice. If you have a vision to become a highly effective team player, then you must make the sacrifices necessary, and the discipline required to work on yourself every day and make that vision a reality.

If you have a vision to help your teammates become highly effective team players, and build a highly effective team, then you must make the sacrifice of your time, and the discipline to meet with your line manager if he/she has final say on what happens with the team.

If you have the autonomy to make things happen, then you must make the sacrifice of your time and the discipline to meet with your team. During these meetings you must lay out your vision so everybody can see it with you.

Then map out the action steps to turn your vision into a reality for you and your team. Those steps could be taking your team through this article so you can share what you have learned to become a highly effective team player.

If you have other action steps in mind, then they must be mapped out and acted upon. The price must be paid to make your vision a reality for both you and your team.

3. Continuously Improving

Highly effective team players are ambitious and they want to continuously improve. They also want to help others to improve too. To accomplish these things, you must be able to see what it looks like when it is accomplished (your vision).

Your vision will create an emotion inside you that will not let you detour away from your vision (optimism).

Your optimism will give you the strength to pay the price to turn your vision into a reality (sacrifice).

Your sacrifice will give you the courage to not give up on your vision (discipline). Your discipline will enable you to accomplish what you saw in the beginning (result).

It is not easy to put into place everything that is required to make a vision a reality. As you climb the leadership ladder and take up higher positions throughout your career, more people will begin to rely on you. You may at times want to give up on your vision, but I am here to tell you, DON’T GIVE UP.

Your vision will benefit so many people, including yourself. The higher you climb, your influence will increase across so many more teams. If you continue to have optimism, your vision will become a reality and a benefit for everyone.

4. Responsibility

As I climbed higher up the leadership ladder, my level of vision raised higher too. I always saw a vision of creating highly effective team players, and highly effective team’s. But, as I started to take on more responsibility and more people, the harder it became to get the buy-in from everyone.

Especially when these people were low performing team players. I had the optimism that I could influence these people, but on some occasions I had to leave them behind.

I left them because I couldn’t have them dragging me, or the other optimistic team members who saw the same vision behind with them. We had to continue to move forward.

I got help from my team of optimistic team players who were on the journey to becoming highly effective. They tried to sell my vision to the low performing team players, but because of how stubborn they were, and the values they had, no matter what we tried they would not buy-in.

I know for a fact that they could see the team changing. We were disciplined to persevere with making the sacrifices and taking the action required to make our vision a reality.

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It gives me hope that some of the low performing team players did eventually change their ways, and came around to the vision we had. Some of them even helped us in putting things in place and took the same actions that we did.

It goes to show that with optimism, vision, sacrifice, discipline, perseverance, and hope, you can make things happen and bring people along with you. For the sake of yourself, your vision, and your team, just DON’T GIVE UP.

Your vision must become a commitment, if you commit then you are more likely to not give up on it. If you think you can turn your vision into a reality, then you will.

You are reading this article, so I believe that you have a vision, and I believe you have what it takes to make your vision a reality.

Successful people see failures as a stepping stone to ultimately achieve their greatest victories.

I welcome hearing how this post has influenced the way you think, the way you lead, or the results you have achieved because of what you’ve learned in it. Please feel free to share your thoughts with me by commenting below.

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All the best,

Tom (Lead, Grow, Influence)