Management in Practice
Week 4: Working in Teams
Dr. Carol Bond
Management in Practice (Singapore)
RMIT Classification: Trusted
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Overview of today’s topics
Team Leadership Perspective
Team Leadership Model
Team Effectiveness
Leadership Decisions
Leadership Actions
How Does the Team Leadership Model Work?
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RMIT Classification: Trusted
Descriptions & Perspectives
Team
Group of organisational members who are interdependent, share common goals, and coordinate activities to accomplish those goals
Can meet face-to-face or be virtual
“Team-based and technology enabled” = newer organisational structures such as virtual teams
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Why are teams important?
RMIT Classification: Trusted
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Descriptions & Perspectives
Outcomes of Effective Teams
Greater productivity
More effective use of resources
Better decisions and problem solving
Better-quality products and services
Greater innovation and creativity (Parker, 1990)
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How to create effective teams?
RMIT Classification: Trusted
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Descriptions & Perspectives
Organizational structure and culture need to support employee involvement
Participation in DM vs. vertical DM
Collaborative work
Heterarchy: fluid power shifting in teams
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjERHJUTLh4
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Organizational Structure
Leadership
Organizational Culture
RMIT Classification: Trusted
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A really impressive demonstration of teamwork
RMIT Classification: Trusted
Team Leadership
Team leadership is process-oriented
How do teams develop critical capabilities?
How do team leaders adjust to contingencies as they arise?
How do leader actions promote task and interpersonal development?
Shared or Distributed Leadership
When members of the team take on leadership behaviors to influence the team and maximize team effectiveness
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RMIT Classification: Trusted
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Team Leadership Model
Shared or Distributed Leadership
Willingness to act
While very important, does involve risk
Takes some courage for the member who steps forward to provide leadership outside the formal role of team leader
Teams with shared leadership have less conflict, more trust, and more cohesion than teams that do not have shared leadership
Shared leadership is very important for virtual teams
Especially when the task is complex
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How can leaders and members share the leadership?
RMIT Classification: Trusted
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Team Leadership Model
Model provides leader or designated team member with a mental model to help
Diagnose team problems, and
Take appropriate action to correct team problems
Effective team performance begins with leader’s mental model of the situation
Mental model reflects
Components of the problem
Environmental & organizational contingencies
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RMIT Classification: Trusted
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Team Leadership Model
The Hill Model for Team Leadership
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Team maintenance
Task Accomplishment
RMIT Classification: Trusted
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What conditions do you think lead to
team effectiveness/excellence?
RMIT Classification: Trusted
Team Leadership Model
Team Effectiveness
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RMIT Classification: Trusted
Team Leadership Model
1. Clear, Elevating Goal
Clear so that one can tell whether performance objective has been met
Motivating or involving so that members believe it is worthwhile and important
2. Results-Driven Structure
Need to find the best structure to achieve goals
Clear team member roles
Good communication system
Methods to assess individual performance
An emphasis on fact-based judgments
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Team Effectiveness
RMIT Classification: Trusted
Team Leadership Model
3. Competent Team Members
Components
Right number and mix of members
Members must be provided
Sufficient information
Education and training
Requisite technical skills
Interpersonal & teamwork skills
Team Factors
Openness
Supportiveness
Action orientation
Positive personal style
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Team Effectiveness
Core competencies:
Ability to do the job
Problem-solving ability
RMIT Classification: Trusted
Team Leadership Model
4. Unified Commitment
Teams need a carefully designed and developed sense of unity or identification (team spirit)
5. Collaborative Climate
Trust based on openness, honesty, consistency, and respect
Integration of individual actions
Teams contribute to collective success by
Coordinating individual contributions
Team leaders making communication safe
Team leaders demanding and rewarding collaborative behavior
Team leaders guiding the team’s problem-solving efforts
Team leaders managing their own control needs
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Team Effectiveness
RMIT Classification: Trusted
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Team Leadership Model
6. Standards of Excellence
Regulated Performance
Facilitates task completion and coordinated action
Stimulates a positive pressure for members to perform at highest levels
How Accomplished
Requiring results (clear expectations)
Reviewing results (feedback/resolve issues)
Rewarding results (acknowledge superior performance)
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Team Effectiveness
RMIT Classification: Trusted
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Team Leadership Model
7. External Support and Recognition
Teams supported by external resources are
Given the material resources needed to do their jobs
Training
Information
Recognized for team accomplishments
Rewarded by tying those rewards to team members’ performance, not individual achievement
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Team Effectiveness
RMIT Classification: Trusted
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Team Leadership Model
8. Principled Leadership
influences team effectiveness through four sets of processes (Zaccaro et al., 2001)
Cognitive - Facilitates team’s understanding of problems confronting them
Motivational - Helps team become cohesive & capable by setting high performance standards & helping team to achieve them
Affective - Assists team in handling stressful circumstances by providing clear goals, assignments, & strategies
Integrative - Helps coordinate team’s activities through matching member roles, clear performance strategies, feedback, & adapting to environmental changes
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Team Effectiveness
RMIT Classification: Trusted
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Leadership Decisions
Leadership Decision 1:
Should I Monitor the Team or Take Action?
Leadership Decision 2:
Should I intervene to meet task or relational needs?
Leadership Decision 3:
Should I intervene internally or externally?
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RMIT Classification: Trusted
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Leadership Decisions
Leadership Decision 1: Should I Monitor the Team or Take Action?
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SOURCE: McGrath’s critical leadership functions as cited in “Leading Groups in Organizations,” by J. R. Hackman and R. E. Walton, 1986, in P. S. Goodman & Associates (Eds.), Designing Effective Work Groups (p. 76). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
RMIT Classification: Trusted
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Leadership Decisions
Leaders can
Diagnose, analyse, or forecast problems (monitoring) or take immediate action to solve a problem
Focus on problems within the group (internal) or which problems need intervention
Make choices about which solutions are the most appropriate
Effective leaders have the ability to determine what interventions are needed, if any, to solve team problems
All members of the team can engage in monitoring
Leaders differ in timing of taking action
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RMIT Classification: Trusted
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Leadership Decisions
Leadership Decision 2: Should I intervene to meet task or relational needs?
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Task
Getting job done
Making decisions
Solving problems
Adapting to change
Making plans
Achieving goals
Maintenance Functions
Developing positive climate
Solving interpersonal problems
Satisfying members’ needs
Developing cohesion
RMIT Classification: Trusted
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Leadership Decisions
Leadership Decision 3: Should I intervene internally or externally?
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Leader must
Determine what level of team process needs leadership attention:
Use internal task or relational team dynamics, if
Conflict between group members
Team goals unclear
Use external environmental dynamics, if
Organization not providing proper support to team
Effective team leaders analyse and balance the internal and external demands of the team and react appropriately.
RMIT Classification: Trusted
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Leadership Actions
Leadership Functions – performed internally or externally
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Task
Goal focusing
Structuring for results
Facilitating decision making
Training
Maintaining standards
Relational
Coaching
Collaborating
Managing conflict
Building commitment
Satisfying needs
Modeling principles
Environmental
Networking
Advocating
Negotiating support
Buffering
Assessing
Sharing information
Internal Leadership Actions
External Leadership Actions
RMIT Classification: Trusted
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Leadership Actions
Set of skills or actions leader might perform to improve task performance:
Goal focusing (clarifying, gaining agreement)
Structuring for results (planning, visioning, organizing, clarifying roles, delegating)
Facilitating decision making (informing, controlling, coordinating, mediating, synthesizing, issue focusing)
Training team members in task skills (educating, developing)
Maintaining standards of excellence (assessing team and individual performance, confronting inadequate performance)
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Internal Task Leadership Actions
RMIT Classification: Trusted
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Leadership Actions
Set of actions leader needs to implement to improve team relationships:
Coaching team members in interpersonal skills
Collaborating (including, involving)
Managing conflict and power issues (avoiding confrontation, questioning ideas)
Building commitment and esprit de corps (being optimistic, innovating, envisioning, socializing, rewarding, recognizing)
Satisfying individual member needs (trusting, supporting, advocating)
Modelling ethical and principled practices (fair, consistent, normative)
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Internal Relational Leadership Actions
RMIT Classification: Trusted
Leadership Actions
Set of skills or behaviours leader needs to implement to improve environmental interface with team:
Networking and forming alliances in environment (gather information, increase influence)
Advocating and representing team to environment
Negotiating upward to secure necessary resources, support, and recognition for team
Buffering team members from environmental distractions
Assessing environmental indicators of team’s effectiveness (surveys, evaluations, performance indicators)
Sharing relevant environmental information with team
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External Environmental Leadership Actions
RMIT Classification: Trusted
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How Does the Team Leadership Approach Work?
Model provides a cognitive map to identify group needs and offers suggestions on appropriate corrective actions
Model assists leader in making sense of the complexity of groups and provides suggested actions to improve group effectiveness
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RMIT Classification: Trusted
Strengths
Focus on real-life organizational group work; model is useful for teaching
Provides a cognitive guide that assists leaders in designing and maintaining effective teams
Recognizes the changing role of leaders and followers in organizations
Can be used as a tool in group leader selection
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RMIT Classification: Trusted
Criticisms
Model is incomplete. Additional skills might be needed
May not be practical as the model is complex and doesn’t provide easy answers for difficult leader decisions
Fails to consider teams that have distributed leadership, where team members have a range of skills, and where roles may change
More focus required on how to teach and provide skill development in areas of diagnosis and action taking
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RMIT Classification: Trusted
Application
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The Hill Model for Team Leadership
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Team maintenance
Task Accomplishment
Useful in leader decision making
Can be used as a team
diagnostic tool
RMIT Classification: Trusted
Open Forum
Questions?
Comments?
Discussion?
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RMIT Classification: Trusted
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