It’s remarkable the incredible things you can and have accomplished all by yourself. Bravo! But do you do well as a team player? 

So last year, my team lost a very invaluable Android Developer. You are probably wondering why this is relevant. Well, he was awesome at what he did, with great UI/UX experience, but he had to go because he was a terrible team player, despite.

It can not be overemphasized the need for associates to comprehend how to tap resources and work uniformly towards achieving a common goal. Though your coding skills may be exceptional, team playing, however, as a skill, can singularly determine the degree of your success in projects.  

Who is a Team Player?

A team player is an individual who understands the team objectives, shares its visions, and with the available skill, contributes to the progress of the group, notwithstanding personal goals.

However, this is considering the idea that an efficient team is one made up of people with complementary skills, who, through coordinated efforts, generate synergy and not merely a group. let’s explore some points on how to be a great team player.

1. Explore Your Strength

As a unique individual, you find your strengths and explore them. So, when you know what you are good at, it is easier to use that strength and provide value to the team. The selection of team members often goes beyond the complementarity of hard skills. It also extends to individual strength. 

2. Have Good Communication Skill

Communication is essential when working with others and a great recipe for building solid connections. Communication gaps are a thing and exist in groups when there is no effective communication and an open flow of information.

To be an excellent team player, you must be able to communicate your ideas, your values, and information strongly. 

3. Be Honest and Straightforward

You would not trust someone dishonest. So why do you think you would be trusted being dishonest? However, I would keep this as concise as possible; Honesty is a virtue. To be that team player that you would admire and love to work with, be straightforward.

4. Be Collaborative

Team playing requires a lot of collaboration, without which I would not be sure what the idea of a team would be in the first place. With that in mind, being an exceptional team player involves you finding and creating synergy with other members of your team. 

5. Understand Team Objective

The beginning of wisdom for every good team player is understanding the team objectives. 

Knowing the team objectives suggests that you would have a working knowledge of the team goals, timing, budget, roles and responsibilities, and execution plans. Then, as a team player, you are inclined to contribute to the achievement of those objectives.

6. Be Flexible

Naturally, when change happens, you break if you can’t bend. Similarly, flexibility is intended to keep you from breaking as a team player. For an agile team, changes can happen more often than not, because an agile team works with active feedback. To be able to work effectively in such a team, you need to be flexible enough not to abandon team responsibilities or get side-lined.  

7. Share Information

So, I once was in a team with an individual who hoards information for some reason, if any, that I didn’t know and would probably never understand. Still, it didn’t feel good most especially, because it slowed the teamwork, and poked holes in the integrity of our synergy. 

Sharing the information available to you with other people in your team creates a better and seamless performance of the team. Who wouldn’t want that?

8. Be Committed

Get involved! To be an excellent team player, be committed. Be willing and opt to help your team achieve its objectives using your skills. A team player wants to see the magic and beauty of team success and would want to see it happening through their contribution.

9. Be Reliable

An unkept promise is one of the most frustrating things you would ever experience working in a team. Having someone promise to deliver on something, a task or of a sort, and not come through reduces your dependence on them. 

Similarly, teammates would feel frustrated when you don’t keep to your words or do all you have agreed to do. That said, be trustworthy, and you could as well be on your way.

10. Be Fair and Respectful

I would be very plain about this. Let your teammates get the credits they deserve for tasks well done. Similarly, don’t deprive yourself of the credits you deserve. It is good for morale. 

Additionally, show your teammates the same amount of respect you desire.

11. Have a Positive Attitude

Optimism is king, they say. With a positive attitude, as a team player, it could be easy to work with you. Ultimately, being positive could make you the anchor of the team when it gets rough. Stay positive! 

Summary

As much as being a great team player is easier said, it is not entirely impossible. Paying close attention, you would find that some people you know, who are good in teams, possess some of these characteristics.

Finally, developing your team playing skills would require working on these characteristics, maybe not all at once. Start somewhere anyways, and you could be on your way to becoming an irresistible programmerUntil next time, stay productive.