I am Dr. Hassan, a Board-Certified Physiatrist and Independent Practice Owner. I help physiatrists start and grow their own profitable practices so they can achieve financial independence and live without limits.
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When building your profitable practice, it’s important to have qualities of a great team player. People with a team player attitude at work and at home enjoy less stress in their lives. They often develop new skills and abilities readily because they’re open to learning new things. There are a lot of benefits of developing a team first attitude.
Here are three qualities you should embrace if you want to enjoy the many rewards of being a team player:
1. The best team players are effective communicators. Communication is a two-way street. There’s the person talking or otherwise sharing information, then there are those people who are listening. Ask people if they’re good communicators, and many immediately forget the essential part about listening. Communication certainly means
being able to lay out a goal or task in a clear and easy to understand fashion. It also means being able to listen when it’s required. Communication additionally involves asking questions and getting ideas from others. This might be the most important characteristic a team member can develop.
2. Your vision is not confined to your responsibilities. Athletes often need to help each other out. Team sports have a lot of moving parts with individual responsibilities on the field. Just like in the workplace, people blow assignments. It just happens. They forget what they’re supposed to do, or the person they’re competing against puts them at a disadvantage. When this happens in sports, the best team players rush to help. They understand their personal responsibilities but also know that if the team goal is going to be realized winning a game or match, team members have to back each other up. This is the same kind of vision you should have on the job. As a productive team player, your responsibilities come first. Take care of your own business before anything else. That’s smart job security, and you’ll be recognized as someone who’s dependable and productive. Then look outside your cubicle and offer help to your fellow team members when necessary.
3. You tackle problems instead of pointing them out. Every workplace has the finger pointer. It’s that person who’s constantly pointing out problems. If they work in an environment that was 99.9% amazing, all they’d ever talk about is that 0.1% of their job that’s problematic. Team players tackle problems when they see an issue, especially if it’s something that’s easily fixed. They take care of it. They don’t immediately go running off to their boss to report the problem. In many cases, if you don’t take a few minutes to look at a problem up close, you don’t realize it’s not an issue after all. Aside from that, bosses, managers and other leaders have tons to do. The last thing they need is someone pointing out something inconsequential that could have easily been remedied. If there are big issues at your job, report them. Your workplace should be safe and should foster equal opportunities. Those aren’t the types of problems we’re talking about. If you see a minor problem which you can rectify, do it right away. If the problem pops up repeatedly, then it might be worth reporting. Team players understand that putting the team first means sometimes taking the initiative to fix a problem when they’re capable of doing it.
There are dozens of characteristics of great team players. These are three that can help you advance your career and enjoy your time on the job. Your coworkers and bosses come to appreciate your contributions and that can benefit you in many ways.
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Qualities of a team player are also soft skills that employers look for. Check out our blog post here for career tips on developing more soft skills.
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I’m Dr. Hassan, a Board-Certified Physiatrist and Independent Practice Owner. I help physiatrists start and grow their own profitable practices so they can achieve financial independence and live without limits. Please go to businessofrehab.com/contractnegotiations to pick up the free guide to help you negotiate the contract of your dreams.
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Attention, Physiatrists! Stop leaving money on the table. Sign up for the free video series: How To Build A Profitable Practice in 90 Days or Less: http://www.sixtytosuccess.com
