Watching FIFA World Cup matches, I realize that national lineups seemingly vary in terms of team spirit. You might wonder why this is important. Why is team spirit important? What causes it? And what prevents it?
Sweden’s team spirit
After knocking out very good teams the Netherlands and Italy in qualifying, Sweden did their part by sending defending champions Germany home early by topping Group F. They lack individually talented players, but as a team with a collective spirit have heart and rise to the challenge. They do well through determination and organization.
“Alone we can do so little; together we can do a lot.(Helen Keller, deaf/blind political activist)
In keeping with his simple team, the manager had not picked Sweden’s all-time top scorer, Zlatan Ibrahimovic. The player had angered many of his former fans with what were considered characteristically self-obsessed comments.
“As a team, we play as a collective, all the players together. With Zlatan, as a person, as a player, he is an individualist, and the game revolves around him. Instead, now, we play more as a team all together.” “ (goalkeeper, Karl-Johan Johnsson).
All the players have embraced the idea of working hard for each other and having fun together as a larger group off the pitch.
Leicester City team spirit
Winner of the English Premier League, Leicester City is another football team whose performance has exceeded what one would expect from the sum of its parts.
Leicester had some good players, but looking at the whole squad and comparing it to the so-called “top” clubs, it’s easy to see why they had such a long shot of lifting the title.
“You may have the best group of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime.– (Babe Ruth, baseball player)
The experts saw the players’ sense of team identity as a crucial factor in their success. The squad knew that the coach would be there the following season. He persisted with most of the first team players he inherited. This continuity was based on the club’s legacy, another cornerstone of a strong team identity.
Team spirit was also fostered by players who saw the club’s goal (ie avoiding relegation) as one they were capable of achieving. So there was no fear of failure.
Many coaching teams defend with a lot of safe passes and don’t let the opponent have the ball. However, possession is a poor predictor of team performance. City were not afraid to play three passes offside if the fourth move led to a goal. Team members felt positive and proud to be part of a group playing a successful brand of fast-breaking football.
Other soccer teams
Children who play soccer need to learn to pass the ball selflessly instead of dribbling the opponent until the opponent loses the ball. They need to be a team player and not purely an individualist. Some adult Flair players have been encouraged to succeed at the expense of collaboration when necessary.
Professional soccer teams in England include highly-skilled players from other countries. They tend to have different languages, cultures, values, and problem-solving approaches to difficulties. This can hinder the growth of team spirit.
Most soccer coaches realize that criticizing players in public can affect team spirit. However, leaders vary in their team building skills.
unions
Without any emerging team spirit within a union, labor disputes would fail. Union make force. Members must identify with the cause and trust each other to sacrifice income in the short term. So they have a chance to bargain hard and get better working conditions and wages in the future.
Personal services
Worker morale is important in all walks of life. For example, in many organizations dealing with human problems and personal change, such as education, health and social services, or those dealing with spirituality, team spirit can be fragile when faced with challenges. the difficulty of being successful with customers.
Many of these organizations use teams of workers with different types of professional backgrounds who may not agree. Dealing with complex and highly personal issues raises questions of deep principle. This can mean that people may not be willing to change the way they approach things, leading to a degree of inflexibility. Leaders can help by building teams by encouraging support, communication, and sharing. Without this, mixed groups tend to show disharmony as more collaboration.
“Teamwork starts with building trust. And the only way to do that is by overcoming our need for invulnerability.” (Patrick Lencioni, business management writer)
Unpaid volunteers tend to want to carry out their responsibilities on their own terms. By volunteering in a few hours, team spirit suffers if members have few opportunities to come together to resolve differing points of view.
heavenly community spirit
When we make friends, we tend to do so with people who share our interests and values. With them we often feel at home and free to be ourselves. It can be hard to imagine a sphere where community spirit prevails. Emanuel Swedenborg painted such a picture of heavenly community. In such a scenario there are no rows on how things are done. There are no egos that want to get away with it. People coming together in the right spirit. Just wanting the best for others and for the team and community as a whole.
“None of us, including me, do big things. But we can all do small things, with great love, and together we can do something wonderful.” (Mother Teresa, Roman Catholic nun)