3 Steps to Developing Extraordinary Team Results and Happiness

Executive Summary

5,300+ Studies: 3 Leadership Steps, Extraordinary Results and Happiness

Science shows how any leader can become a Best Leader, building continually extraordinary team results and happiness. We have synthesized more than 5,300 studies of what drives great results and happiness to develop a 3-Step System that any leader can apply to not only transform the results of their teams, but also to transform their work happiness.

See a 9-minute video of how one leader used the 3 Steps to transform their team's energy, results and happiness.

The 3 Leadership Steps

The 3 Steps System provides leaders with a blueprint for generating consistently great team results and happiness. The steps are about leaders who continually build up 3 types of energy for themselves and their teams – Joyful Energy, Confident Energy, Focused Energy.

Step 1 is to Spread Energizing Joy. This requires leaders who have the commitment and skills to regularly spread great positivity and joy to their teams.

This starts with leaders who have great joy within themselves. They have an energizing ‘joy of joy’ - their joy is not dependent on results. The ‘paradox of joy’ is that as we make our joy not dependent on results, we achieve substantially better results.

Building on this ‘joy of joy’, Best Leaders know what brings them joy at work and they spread this joy to their teams.

At the macro level, a key joy driver is working with their teams to develop inspirational team purposes and destinations – with this, Best Leaders help their teams create strong meaning in what they do. At the micro level, Best Leaders are mindful of the impact their emotional energy has on their teams in every interaction – they consistently spread highly positive energy.

Step 2 is to Elevate Team Confidence. This is about having great self-belief as a leader and helping teams continually build up their confidence in their capabilities and actions.

Again, the starting point is self-leadership. Best Leaders are highly confident in what they control – they have great self-belief about the quality of their future actions.

These Best Leaders know what makes them confident and are able to help their teams elevate their confidence.

Working with their teams, they develop exciting quarterly goals and energizing weekly goals that go beyond basic ‘trains running on time’ objectives. They are also great 1-on-1 confidence builders. They develop deep understanding of their team members’ perspectives and emotions and use this information to then help each team member become more confident in themselves – ‘what I will do’, ‘how I will do it’, ‘I will do it’.

Step 3 is to be Energetically Focused. This requires leaders who are laser focused on their best actions, and who pursue excellence in every moment and model this to their teams.

Developing highly engaged teams requires highly engaged leaders. Best leaders set high standards for themselves and model this to their teams.

They have a rational instinctiveness in making optimal decisions about how their time is blocked each day - allocating time for building 1-on-1 relationships and generating personal growth is especially important.

With these, Best Leaders are passionately engaged, pursuing excellence in every moment. A culture of excellence isn’t developed through grand pronouncements, but through Best Leaders’ engagement and excellence in their moment-by-moment actions.

Extraordinary Results and Happiness

Each of the steps represents big differences from existing practices - together, they lead to extraordinary team results and happiness:

• Extraordinary Team Results: Team members work together with great productivity to systematically pursue and attain objectives that are greatly beyond what the team had achieved in the past.
• Extraordinary Team Happiness: Team members feel highly fulfilled in their day-to-day work in a way that is significantly above what they enjoyed in the past.

Leaders can sustain and build on these outcomes by turning the 3 Steps into habits.

Regular measurements are especially impactful. As a leader, here is a powerful way to jump start your new practice: Take a minute each day to score yourself on metrics relating to each step – Joyful Energy, Confident Energy, Focused Energy. This will ensure that you not only generate extraordinary team results and happiness, but also continuously build on these going forward.

This paper provides an overview of The 3 Steps and shows how any organization can apply The 3 Steps to generate continuous improvements in their teams’ results and happiness. 

The 3 Leadership Steps

Step 1: Spread Energizing Joy

Step 1 is to Spread Energizing Joy, in every team interaction. Every interaction is an opportunity to build up the team’s energy within themselves.

Studies show that joy not only makes people feel better about themselves, but also leads to consistently great performance. While concentrating on just productivity can lift results temporarily, sustained excellence requires consistently positive and joyful energy.

The idea of joy at work isn’t new. W. Edwards Deming, the founder of modern management theory, said that “people are entitled to joy at work.” He also pointed to the benefits of joy: “Innovation comes from people who take joy in their work.”

Joy isn’t something new businesses need to put in place to avoid things like ‘quiet quitting’ – it is foundational to how an organization drives success. The role of each leader is integral in this. Best Leaders use every team interaction to elevate joy.

A ‘joy of joy’ attitude is a key success driver. ‘Joy of joy’ states that we are joyful on its terms – our joy isn’t dependent on results. The paradox of joy is that as we decouple our joy from results-dependence, it frees us to achieve much bigger results. A key mindset development for leaders is to consistently evaluate the past, present and future in ways that are most empowering for them and their teams.

Cultivating ‘joy of joy’ is a key leadership skill. It builds preternatural calm, combined with highly positive energy – people want to follow leaders with these traits.

Best Leaders build on their ‘joy of joy’ by ensuring that their teams take great meaning in their work. They work with their teams to develop inspiring purposes and destinations. Reflecting on positive impact, 1-on-1 relationships and personal growth is key here. Aligning on highly ambitious impact-driven purposes and destinations helps generate the sense that work is highly meaningful. It kindles great team fire and passion for what they do and what they will do.

With these, best leaders spread great positivity in every interaction. Best Leaders know what brings them joy and carry themselves with contagiously great joyful energy. This often requires mindset shifts. A leader can’t be up one day and down on another. This can be learned – any leader, regardless of personality, can learn to develop and regularly spread great positivity. Both words and physical state can be used to communicate consistently great joy and optimism.

Step 1 leads to teams that have great positivity. Leaders and team members find great joy in their day-to-day work. Leaders have great ‘joy of joy’, which they spread to others – team members, on their side, want to follow these types of leaders.

These teams have vision of work in which organizations and teams systematically generate great positive impact, foster highly fulfilling 1-on-1 relationships and enable powerful personal growth. Team members feel emotionally connected to this type of vision and are energized about playing their part in pursuing them.

With these, team members not only raise their happiness, but also achieve significantly better results.

Step 2: Elevate Team Confidence

Step 2 is to Elevate Team Confidence, the team’s beliefs in their capabilities and actions.

Studies show that confidence can be developed. A key driver is clarity about our goals and how we will achieve them. Best leaders help their teams build this confidence – “what I will do”, “how I will do it” – and then most importantly, turn it into certainty that they will follow through – “I will do it”.

To generate confidence, leaders must first have confidence in themselves. What then is critical is to use this to instill confidence in their teams.

Eleanor Roosevelt made the point this way, “Good leaders inspire people to have confidence in their leader. Great leaders inspire people to have confidence in themselves.”

A key to doing this is for leaders to systematically work with their teams to generate great excitement about their goals for the quarter. Research on goal-setting shows it isn’t enough to set objectives and plans – nearly everyone does that. The key ‘difference-maker’ is to ensure there is great energy about both longer-term and shorter-term objectives.

To develop this, leaders must work with their teams to go beyond ‘trains running on time’ goals to set objectives that help team members build great 1-on-1 relationships and generate continual personal growth.

They can then drive execution by setting exciting objectives for the week, collaboratively with the team – the team is clear about how to win the week and feels energized about doing what it takes to win. Keys are to ensure that weekly goal-setting processes are in place that help each team member drive positive impact, build better 1-on1- relationships, and grow personally. With these, team members have great enthusiasm about each week and doing what it takes to win.

Building on this energizing future, Best Leaders project exceptional clarity and confidence in communicating their views. They are highly confident in themselves and in the potential of each team member. They show this confidence in how they set objectives, delegate, and provide feedback. This confidence enables team members to continually generate positive impact, build 1-on-1 relationships, and grow personally.

To achieve these, Best Leaders supplement the great confidence they have within themselves with excellent listening skills. They learn from team members not only key facts but also perspectives and emotions. Listening Skills Training can help any leader transform the way they learn from their teams.

Step 2 leads to team members who are highly confident in their capabilities and actions. They continually create great energy about the future, especially relating to what they control. They are highly inspired about not only what they want to achieve, but also about the week-by-week actions that will get them there – the process is as energizing as the action. This leads to team members who not only achieve consistently great results, but also enjoy consistently great happiness.

Step 3: Be Energetically Focused

Step 3 is to Be Energetically Focused, being laser focused and fully engaged in the present moment, pursuing excellence in decisions and actions. Best Leaders model great energy in their moment-by-moment actions.

There are many studies that show how ‘focus’ not only generates productivity, but also leads to great happiness. Multi-tasking simply doesn’t work.

Energetic focus means you have great passion for what you’re doing in every moment, and then with this great energy, get fully engaged in it.

Energetic focus is especially important though for leaders given the value of their time and the impact of their behaviors on their teams. Peter Drucker stated, “if there is any one secret to effectiveness, it is concentration. Effective executives do first things first and they do one thing at a time.”

Ultimately, a leader must set to divide each day into ‘time blocks’ that are optimal, and then seek to ‘win the time block’ with energetic focus. These are learned skills – Energetic Focus Training enables big improvements in results and happiness.

A key skill is effective decision-making. leaders must ensure that their time allocation decisions are aligned with their objectives. When blocking off their days, leaders should ensure they are setting aside sufficient time to generate positive impact, build 1-on-1 relationships, and grow personally (e.g., self-reflection, thinking). With these, leaders can transform the way they think about time.

With this, Best Leaders are passionately engaged in all they do. They have the capabilities to get locked-in on the ‘now’, pursuing excellence in their actions. A culture of excellence doesn’t get built through declarations, but by leaders who pursue and model excellence moment by moment. As part of a culture of excellence, Best Leaders are highly responsive – great time blocking provides them with the nimbleness to quickly and optimally respond and react.

These build on each other to help leaders not only generate greater results, but also better enjoy each moment. Furthermore, the impact will multiply as leaders model great energy in their actions to their teams. The ultimate outcome is significant increases in moment-by-moment enjoyment of work and in day-to-day results.

Generating the Impact

While The 3 Steps require practice, they are not complicated to learn. With the right tools and templates, leaders can quickly learn the fundamentals of The 3-Step System and begin applying them.

With the 3 Steps, leaders create big improvements in their own and their team’s Joyful Energy, Confident Energy and Focused Energy.

One can typically observe ‘improvement stories’ within 30 days, if not sooner, substantial skills enhancements within 60 days and measurable improvements in team results and happiness within the first 90 days. Automated checklists and other supporting tools can be used to sustain and continually build on the habits.

Benchmarks suggest that The 3 Steps can lead to double-digit results improvements. The same for increases in happiness – for these customized measures can be developed.

As they apply The 3 Steps, Best Leaders will change their work worlds. The subsequent impact of these – on nearly every facet of the team, including attraction, retention and development – will be transformational.

How to Implement The 3 Steps with Your Leaders

Any organization can use The 3 Steps to enable their leaders to develop high-energy high-results high-happiness teams. Organizations that implement The 3 Steps can play an important role in changing the work world, one leader at a time.

Depending on the organization size and situation, the starting point can be a pilot group, or a broader implementation across leaders.

Regardless of the approach, leaders can learn to systematically apply The 3 Steps to generate consistently extraordinary joyful, confident and focused energy.

Building a continual improvement process is critical. We want to ensure that not only leaders improve team results and happiness, but also that they sustain and build upon these.

To do this, a key step is to track how well you are doing. As a leader, consider conducting a simple 1-minute daily process of scoring yourself on 3 key metrics – Joyful Energy, Confident Energy, Focused Energy.

For each, reflect on both your own joy, confidence and focus, and to the extent it is applicable, how you built up your team’s joy, confidence and focus.

We recommend a 5-point process:

• 5: Best Version – you would typically not be at this level for an entire day, but it is a great standard to aspire to for ‘quick bursts’ or when you have an especially critical event or action
• 4: Extraordinary – this is a level beyond what would have been good or even great for you in the past.
• 3: Good / Great – this is still very good; in a coloring scheme, a 3 is ‘green’
• 2: Ok / Mixed – this is a day that had a mix of good and bad
• 1: Poor – this is a poor day

Scoring yourself in this way has several major benefits.

First, it reminds you of the keys to being a Best Leader – Joyful Energy, Confident Energy, Focused Energy. Just reflecting on these every day helps you think of ways you can improve.

Secondly, the way the scoring is set up pushes you to improve. A 3 by definition is good or even great. What the scoring does is remind you that you can go beyond what you’ve attained in the past.

Thirdly, the measurements make things into a game. You can be competitive with yourself in seeking to get more 3s and 4s and even periodically get yourself to 5s.

Ultimately, as a leader, you must master a set of specific skills relating to each of The 3 Steps. But you don’t need to wait – you can immediately start reflecting every day on how well you are following through with each.

The science, studies, and case examples are clear. Any leader, by systematically applying The 3 Steps, can substantially lift team results and happiness. And because The 3 Steps comprise a system, organizations and leaders can systematically build on these.

With the 3 Steps, leaders and teams generate consistently extraordinary joyful, confident and focused energy. This represents a changed work model.

As each leader does this and spreads the system to others, they will play their part in changing the work world. They will help make the work world a much bigger source of generating positive impact, fostering great relationships, and enabling continual personal growth. They will help make the work world a much bigger source of generating consistently extraordinary results and happiness.

About the Author

Ron Siahpoosh is the Founder of Jovitude. He has helped leaders in more than 20 industries and 30 countries transform the performance of their teams. At Jovitude, he has developed the 3 Steps System that enables individuals, leaders and teams be the best versions of themselves, generating extraordinary energy, results and happiness every day. Ron has an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a BSFS from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. Ron can be reached at ron@jovitude.com.