There are three things for you to do as a leader of a team. First, you should know the answers to the eight questions for your team, all the time. There are technologies available to help you do this, but the easiest place to start is to ask your team members, one person at a time. Whatever their answers are, you’ll always be smarter because of them, and you’ll always know you’re paying attention to something that matters.

Second, read on to understand more clearly how to build a great team, and how the lies you’ll encounter get in the way of that. Your role as team leader is the most important role in any company. And who your company chooses to make team leader is the most important decision it ever makes. You have by far the greatest influence on the distinctive local experience of your team. This is a weighty responsibility, but at least it’s yours. We want to help you step into it.

And third, when you’re next looking to join a company, don’t bother asking if it has a great culture—no one can tell you that in any real way.

Instead, ask what it does to build great teams.

A useful exercise to go through at the beginning of your transition is to sit down and make a list of all the things that are awesome about the current state of the world. Does everyone get along? Are your processes efficient? Is your team known for rigorous and high-quality work?

Now, next to that, create a list of all the things that could be better. Is your team cagey about deadlines? Does it seem like priorities are always shifting? Is there that one really long weekly meeting nobody wants to attend?

These two lists give you the start of a plan for what you should and shouldn’t change. You don’t need to fix what isn’t broken, but neither should you feel like you’re stuck in a time machine of this is how it was always done. After all, that’s why you got the job! Taking the time to reflect on the biggest opportunities for improvement helps you understand how to best act as a multiplier for your team.

A good question to ask is: If this person were not already at the organization, would I recommend that another team hire him or her knowing what I know? Sarah, the employee who struggled with operating independently, was not somebody who I could see being successful anywhere within the company.

One exercise I do every January is to map out where I hope my team will be by the end of the year. I create a future org chart, analyze gaps in skills, strengths, or experiences, and make a list of open roles to hire for. You can do something similar by asking yourself the following questions:

• How many new people will I add to our team this year (based on company growth, expected attrition, budget, priorities, etc.)?

• For each new hire, what level of experience am I looking for?

• Which specific skills or strengths do we need in our team (for example, creative thinking, operational excellence, expertise in XYZ, etc.)?

• Which skills and strengths does our team already have that new hires can stand to be weaker in?

• What traits, past experiences, or personalities would strengthen the diversity of our team?

Having a thoughtful, one-year-out organizational plan lets you stay ahead of hiring needs and gives you a handy framework for evaluating candidates so that you won’t fall into the trap of saying yes to the next person who comes along.

UNDERSTANDING YOUR CURRENT TEAM

• What are the first three adjectives that come to mind when describing the personality of your team?

• What moments made you feel most proud to be a part of your team? Why?

• What does your team do better than the majority of other teams out there?

• If you picked five random members of your team and individually asked each person, “What does our team value?” what would you hear?

• How similar is your team’s culture to the broader organization’s culture?

• Imagine a journalist scrutinizing your team. What would she say your team does well or not well?

• When people complain about how things work, what are the top three things that they bring up?

UNDERSTANDING YOUR ASPIRATIONS

• Describe the top five adjectives you’d want an external observer to use to describe your team’s culture. Why those?

• Now imagine those five adjectives sitting on a double-edged sword. What do you imagine are the pitfalls that come from ruthless adherence to those qualities? Are those acceptable to you?

• Make a list of the aspects of culture that you admire about other teams or organizations. Why do you admire them? What downsides does that team tolerate as a result?

• Make a list of the aspects of culture that you wouldn’t want to emulate from other teams or companies. Why not?

UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE

• On a scale from one to nine, with nine being “we’re 100 percent there” and one being “this is the opposite of our team,” how close is your current team from your aspirations?

• What shows up as both a strength of your team as well as a quality you value highly?

• Where are the biggest gaps between your current team culture and your aspirations?

• What are the obstacles that might get in the way of reaching your aspirations? How will you address them?

• Imagine how you want your team to work in a year’s time. How would you describe to a report what you hope will be different then compared to now?