Teamwork should no longer be considered a group skill. It’s an individual skill and a responsibility of everyone in the work place.

After already giving you 5 Reasons for Taking Responsibility for Your Team’s Performance, I want to share 9 more with you!

Let’s get right to it:

1. You might be able to avoid special team building sessions where you’ll fill out personality tests to learn that you are different from others, instead of actually working together on your team’s work.

With apologies to my friends who do amazing work with Myers-Briggs, DISC, MMPI, and other instruments, you know that Partnerwerks philosophy is based on the observation that team building begins with definiteness and clarity of team purpose rather than with mutual appreciation.

2. Someone has to take responsibility for team success, and the truth is that the assigned team leader might not know how.

Unfortunately, team leaders are seldom selected for their Leadership Gift. So that creates a niche for you.

3. You’ll save your own derriere.

If for no other reason, you should take responsibility for your team’s success because your success depends on it. Besides, your team might win big and you’ll be their hero and get a plaque with your name on it.

4. You’ll reduce your stress and frustration, quit drinking, and sleep better at night.

Okay, so maybe you won’t quit drinking, but at least you won’t be drinking in order to forget the agonizing day at the office.

5. You won’t have to live at the whims of chance.

Instead of viewing a high performance team experience as something that happens by chance once every career or two, you can move from team to team with great expectations and confidence in your applied Leadership Gift.

6. Make more money by leveraging your technical ability.

With the rapid move to team-based performance appraisals and team-based pay, soon enough your compensation will be based on how many successful teams you’ve served.

7. You’ll no longer have to whine “It’s not my fault” when you don’t deliver at work.

You’ll actually be getting your work done through your team.

8. Transform deadly boring team meetings into inspiring work sessions no matter what your role is in the team.

Just between 1990 and 2000, professionals reported a 250 percent increase in the amount of time spent in team meetings according to research by my friends at the 3M Meeting Network (my guess is another 250% from then until now at least). Isn’t it time for a 250-500 percent increase in your Leadership Gift self-leadership?

9. You’ll be learning and demonstrating how to play win/win in a seeming win/lose world.

A highly networked world means that the opportunity for the Age of Integrity is at hand. In the Age of Integrity everyone wins — all people at all levels. You can help it arrive or deny it.

Get Started With This 5-Minute Stretch

What good reason do you have for demonstrating more of your Leadership Gift in the teams you serve?

Take that reason and make it bigger, brighter, stronger, and more colorful until it compels you to take action.

Leaders and coaches: Get Christopher’s best team building and leadership strategies collected over two-plus decades of solving teamwork problems for smart people. Attend the acclaimed Creating Results-Based Teams workshop, or get this FREE Special Report while it lasts: The Five Flawless Steps to Building a Strong Executive Leadership Team.

Christopher Avery, PhD, is a recognized authority on how individual and shared responsibility works in the mind and an advisor to leaders worldwide.