You‘ve seen it, those teams that are engaged, excited, and proud to represent their company. What all of these teams have in common is a strong leader which can be you! In this BBTV tip, co-founder Franziska Iseli shares the five things you can be doing to create a thriving business wolfpack that you are proud of!

(2:02) Leader at the end

(2:15) Well-being

(2:22) Take responsibility

(2:30) Share your direction

(2:46) Let your team shine


Franziska: Hi and welcome back. My name is Franziska Iseli and I‘m one of the founders here at Basic Bananas.

I quickly wanted to share something with you because last week I was working with a team of amazing leaders on a brand strategy, also on a customer happiness strategy for their company and something that struck me working with this group of people, there was about 7 of them, was that their company leader was an incredible leader. So everyone was super engaged and excited and just really proud to be representing her company. So it made me think of something to share with you that I actually received from another friend of mine, another brilliant business woman, Kim, who shared this with me and a few other people a week or so ago. Now, I want to read it. It‘s actually something about how wolf packs are being organized and where the leader, the alpha male or alpha female, it‘s usually alpha male with these groups, is position. It applies to businesses also, I thought it was really beautiful

So I‘m just going to read it to you and you can see the picture here, also, of the wolf pack.

“A wolf pack; the first 3 are the old or sick, they give the pace to the entire pack. If it was the other way around, they would be left behind, losing contact with the pack. In case of an ambush, they would be the first to be sacrificed. Then come 5 strong ones, the front line. In the center are the rest of the pack members, then the 5 strongest following. Last is alone, the alpha. He controls everything from the rear. In that position, he can see everything, decide the direction. He sees all of the pack. The pack moves according to the elders‘ pace and help each other, watch each other.”

I thought that it‘s such a great way to also see how the best companies are being run with actually the leader at the end of the pack. So leading from behind.

A few things that I wanted to quickly share, really 5 things in terms of leadership. One is lead from behind so that you can see what‘s going on and secondly, also, make sure that you look after the well-being of your team. So make sure everyone is engaged and looked after. Number 3, take responsibility. Take responsibility for the results that your company is getting, take responsibility for what‘s going on because you are the alpha leader. Number 4, share your direction. So even though this alpha leader here in the wolf pack is leading from behind, he‘s always constantly sharing which direction they‘re going because he can see the whole overview of where they need to move. Number 5, let your team members shine. So this guy is not taking all the credit for everything that‘s happening, he‘s leading from behind, he‘s letting everyone else shine in the wolf pack.

So I just wanted to share this with you. I thought this was a really good metaphor to also use in business. Really, if you can run a pack of wolves in this way, if you can do this in your company, I think you will be an incredible leader.

And also you get to create ripple effects around you. And that‘s really what we‘re all about here to do in businesses. So thanks again for watching. Thank you for creating ripple effects and I‘ll catch you next time.