Leadership – Weekly Analysis

MGMT331 | LESSON 3

Leader as a Team Builder

· LESSON TOPICS

· Stages of team Development

· Motivation

· Conflict Resolution

· Leadership Skills

· KEY TERMS

· Adjourning

· Assertiveness

· Conceptual Skills

· Conflict

· Cooperativeness

· Dysfunctional Conflict

· Forming

· Functional Conflict

· Human Skills

· Norming

· Performing

· Storming

· Technical Skills

INTRODUCTION

In this lesson, we will discuss the valuable skills that leaders must utilize to effectively build, develop, and manage teams. To understand how leaders can foster team development, we will explore the stages of team development. Additionally, we will consider how an important model for team leadership can shed light on some crucial leadership skills and actions to aid in decision-making, resulting in overall team effectiveness. Clearly, we need leaders of teams who can quickly and productively resolve conflict as well as utilize motivational techniques to ensure team success, so we will discuss relevant concepts and strategies for conflict resolution and motivation. Finally, we will discuss leadership skills approaches which outline the importance of human, technical and conceptual abilities in addition to the leadership competencies of knowledge, social judgment skills, and problem-solving.

Team Development

Have you ever had the opportunity to lead a team? What about being a part of the team? How was your experience? Today, more than ever before, organizations are increasingly using teams to accomplish goals because the collaboration of individuals can produce outstanding results. The increasing popularity of teams requires leaders to be effective team builders and team developers. Therefore, they must understand the challenges facing teams today and tomorrow.

It is quite clear that leaders need to be able to influence and motivate others to work together to accomplish goals. Organizations are increasingly employing work teams as an effective means of utilizing employee talents and increasing employee motivation (Robbins & Judge, 2014). However, organizations still have a long way to come in terms of fostering the effectiveness of teams to achieve their strategic objectives. Therefore, it will be important that organizational leaders have a thorough understanding of the developmental stages and challenges that teams experience.

Leaders must be aware of the stages of development that groups experience on their way to becoming high-performing teams. Therefore, it would serve them well to reference research by Bruce Tuckman (1965), which was later elaborated upon through his collaboration with Mary Ann Jensen in 1977. Tuckman and Jensen’s (1977) research described five stages of group development.

5 STAGES OF GROUP DEVELOPMENT

FORMING

Forming is when the team has been established and team members may not be clear on their roles and responsibilities. When the team is in its earliest stages and has just formed, you can imagine the importance of a leader who clearly communicates the team’s purpose and strategic goals. It would also be great if the leader could also clearly define the roles and responsibilities of team members. This definition would not have to be member-specific in formation but, at least a guide for the players needed would certainly give the team context they need to fulfill those roles based on member expertise.

STORMING

Storming is when the team experiences conflict over issues such as decision-making processes, workload, or team member roles and responsibilities. A strong leader who can quickly and effectively resolve conflict will also be pertinent as the team enters its storming phase of development. This leader can also communicate any organizational policies, processes, and procedures that may be relevant to the team’s effective operation.

NORMING

Norming is when the team members are starting to agree upon roles, processes, and previously disagreed-upon issues so that they may work collectively. As the team enters the norming stage, the leader’s role could shape into more of a consultant role as they can be called upon as needed if the team continues to have questions about specific tasks or processes.

PERFORMING

Performing is when the team has resolved any interpersonal conflicts and becomes focused on goals, which facilitates effective task completion. Once the team is performing well, the team almost becomes self-managed so the leader can step back and let the high-functioning team work on its own. Team members take pride in collaborating and evaluating performance internally because they have established effective communication methods and processes.

ADJOURNING

Adjourning is when the team dissolves following the goal completion. When adjourning, or departing, the leader can offer additional reflections on team performance and ensure the individual team member’s transition smoothly to new teams.

Team Development

QUALITIES OF HIGH PERFORMING TEAMS

Not only is it important for leaders to understand these stages of development, it is also important that they can guide teams through the stages successfully. To foster the team’s growth through its development, Brian Tracy asserted that there are five qualities of high performing teams that leaders can actively foster (Tracy, 2008):

As you think about the stages of team development within the leadership context, can you imagine how a leader would have the ability to impact progression through the team’s development? Can you reflect upon any experiences you’ve had with teams where you have experienced these stages? In those experiences, can you think of a leader (maybe you, personally) who guided the team through defining roles, clarifying goals, or resolving conflicts?

SHARED VALUES

Leaders should take an active role in fostering values that the team considers most important, such as quality and integrity.

SHARED OBJECTIVES

Leaders should clearly communicate their vision for the teams along with the team’s goals and, specific, agreed-upon objectives.

SHARED ACTIVITIES

Leaders should establish clear roles and responsibilities among the team members so they know what is expected of them in terms of tasks and workload.

TEAM LEADER

Leaders must lead by example, prioritize tasks for the team, give team members the tools they need to succeed, and accept full responsibility for the team’s performance.

TEAM MEMBERS FOCUSED ON IMPROVEMENT

The leader must set a standard for excellence, resolve any conflicts as they arise, create an environment conducive to success, and ensure team members are focused on continuous improvement.

Team Challenges

Leaders of organizations are facing challenges today, and tomorrow, in their efforts to build effective teams and create an organizational environment conducive to high-performing teams. Dyer (2007) outlined three key challenges.

KEY CHALLENGES

Deficiencies in Teamwork Skills

Workers are not trained or prepared with the skills necessary to be part of a team.

Virtual Team Issues

Workers are not co-located in one physical space and collaborating virtually presents many challenges for individuals, such as unclear expectations, ineffective communication, conflict, and technological challenges.

Team Diversity

Workers are not prepared to work together despite the diversity of the team members due to increasing globalization of businesses.

RESPONDING TO CHALLENGES

It is critical that leaders recognize these challenges so they can effectively remove some of these barriers for teams. Many of these issues can be resolved by leaders who foster training and development of team members to ensure they have the necessary skills to succeed as part of a team. For example, leaders can implement training programs to promote cultural awareness and educate employees about diversity. If team members are aware of the differences in norms, values, and standards of other cultures, they are likely to be more successful in their interactions with those individuals.

VIRTUAL TEAMS

Additionally, some of the challenges faced by virtual teams arise out of a lack of clear expectations, team member roles, and adequate technology. Therefore, leaders can take steps to ensure members are trained on how to communicate and utilize the technology or system that the organization has implemented. Leaders can also clearly establish roles and responsibilities while communicating clear expectations of the team members. As a future leader, can you take proactive steps in ensuring your team members have the skills and training necessary to succeed?

Motivation

 

What drives you to achieve your goals? It’s obvious that leaders are tasked with motivating team members to accomplish tasks or goals, but how do they inspire individuals to act? Great leaders must have a thorough understanding of the role that motivation plays to inspire employees to accomplish organizational objectives, whether they are working individually or as part of a team.

 MOTIVATION AND LEADERSHIP

MOTIVATION

Foundationally, there are two kinds of motivation. The first is intrinsic motivation or the factors that are appealing to the internal needs and desires of the individual. Intrinsic motivators may be the achievement of personal goals or attainment of recognition at work. On the other hand, extrinsic motivation can be expressed as the external motivating factors within the individual’s environment, such as monetary incentives like rewards or promotions or even competition within the workplace. There are varying motivational theories that discuss the perceived importance of both intrinsic and extrinsic factors.

MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs asserted that individuals were not motivated by extrinsic factors at all but, rather, were driven by psychological needs. The basis of those needs was for basic physiological and safety needs to be met. In other words, people need to be healthy and safe before they can move on to greater needs. Then, the social needs such as belonging and acceptance become important to them as well as esteem needs, such being recognized in the workplace with status and achievement becoming prominent. Finally, at the top of the hierarchy, individuals need to reach self-actualization, which is a sense of real personal development and accomplishment (Cutler, 2014).

LEADERSHIP IMPLICATIONS

Although leadership implications may be difficult to derive from the model, as few reach true self-actualization status, try to think of ways you could meet some of these needs for your employees. What about the creation of a safe physical environment? You could also develop social activities such as department or team events. Additionally, you could recognize accomplishments of individuals in addition to offering professional development opportunities.

McGregor’s X-Y Theory

Another motivational theory, McGregor’s X-Y Theory, suggested that leaders should avoid what was, then, commonplace thinking that individuals inherently disliked working hard. Managers under that assumption, theory X, thought that employees required constant supervision or punishment to ensure completion of work tasks due to a lack of motivation. Theory X managers utilized an authoritarian management style. Douglas McGregor suggested an alternative school of thought, theory Y, which was that individuals inherently enjoyed work and enjoyed being rewarded for achievements (Cutler, 2014). Managers who agreed with the theory Y philosophy typically utilized a participative style of management. The leadership implications are similar to those of the high-level hierarchy of needs that Maslow established. Excellent leaders will do everything they can to provide opportunities for employees to accomplish their goals and provide rewards to employees who reach those goals.

Herzberg’s Research

Frederick Herzberg also contributed to motivational research with his emphasis on factors that motivated and increased happiness of individuals at work. He found the highest motivational event that occurred at work was an achievement, followed by recognition and then the work itself. Individuals were most happy when they could successfully complete their jobs and when they were recognized for those achievements by colleagues (Cutler, 2014). They also deemed the work itself resulted in job satisfaction as well, which could be due to the nature of the work or opportunities for challenges or creative efforts.

Herzberg recognized that a multitude of the motivational factors had to do with the job itself, achievement, and recognition, which were all intrinsic to the job. Additionally, he recognized medical hygiene factors that were important to employee satisfaction as well. Herzberg also noted that salary was more likely to affect or result in negative attitudes, such as employees being unhappy because they are not paid enough, over job satisfaction. Therefore, salary alone is more of a hygiene factor as it satisfies basic needs for employees (for example, to feed themselves or their families).

Leaders can take many implications away from Herzberg’s research. For example, leaders have the ability, by job design, to impact the work itself. They also have the power within the organization to cultivate developmental opportunities for the employees. Leaders are also able to ensure basic hygiene factors, such as adequate and equitable salaries and health insurance, are also provided to individuals within the organization. Additionally, leaders can create systems to recognize employees for achievements at work and, when possible, promote from within the organization (Cutler, 2014).

 Effective Recognition

According to Meghan Biro (2013), for recognition to be effective, it must be:

· In the moment

· Recognition should be as immediate in timing as possible.

· In context

· Recognition efforts should be clearly linked to the larger goals of the department or organization – they should not be completely random.

· In appropriatevolume or scale

· Recognition is not as effective unless it'sproportionate to the amount of time and effort the individual put intothe achievement.

· Authentic, not automatic

· Recognition must be genuine and sincere.

· Tide to the employee’s perception of value

· Recognition should match the individual’s perception of value. Sometimes, monetary rewards work best but, other times, saying thank you forproviding the employee with flex time or a letter of recommendation would be great too.

It’s not always crucial that recognition involves monetary rewards. However, recognition and rewards complement each other quite nicely and, together, can motivate employees both intrinsically and extrinsically at the same time. As a leader, it will be important to understand what your employees value the most. As long as your rewards and recognition systems are planned, consistent, and aligned with employees’ needs and expectations, they can go a long way towards motivating your employees.

Conflict Resolution

It seems that some form or type of conflict is almost inevitable within organizations today as stakes can be high and confusion or disagreement may be present. Conflict may arise from competing interests, different points of view, or negative perceptions surrounding a specific person or situation.

Conflict has been defined as, “a process that begins when one party perceives another party has or is about to negatively affect something the first party cares about” (Robbins & Judge, 2014). It’s important to realize that not all conflict is bad. For example, if team members have a disagreement about the interpretation of an organizational process due to lack of clarity or inconsistent performance, each person may have validity in their perspective. However, when the team members escalate this issue to their leader, that escalation allows for an opportunity for clarification. Clarification of the process may result in information that other team members were seeking as well and, in turn, result in higher overall team performance and efficiency.

FUNCTIONAL AND DYSFUNCTIONAL CONFLICTS

Functional conflicts, such as the one just discussed surrounding a process conflict, or even conflicts about tasks as well, can be beneficial as they can improve individual or team performance. These conflicts can offer clarification on how goals are accomplished or tasks are completed.

Task conflicts and process conflicts can result in overall improved performance if they are effectively resolved by the leader. However, sometimes relationship conflicts that involve interpersonal relations of team members may arise. These types of conflicts can often be dysfunctional conflicts because they are destructive and don’t really contribute to the performance or goals of the team. Leaders must quickly resolve these types of conflicts too as they can be highly detrimental.

POSITIVE WORK ENVIRONMENT

Leaders also have a real opportunity to be proactive in creating a positive work environment built on trust and open communications, where employees feel safe to voice concerns. It can be quite common for employees to have misperceptions about their roles and responsibilities, the goals of the team or even the scarcity of resources they feel are necessary to complete tasks. Leaders can proactively make efforts to remove some of these potential barriers, to clarify some of these important goals, and to set clear team member roles. These proactive actions may reduce the likelihood of conflict even occurring.

 

As you can imagine, a leader’s ability to effectively and quickly resolve conflict is very important to the success of the team and to the organization. According to the American Management Association (2017), there are five steps to resolving workplace conflicts.

FIVE STEPS TO RESOLVING WORKPLACE CONFLICTS

Identify the source of conflict.

Look beyond the incident.

Request solutions from both parties.

Identify solutions both parties support.

Facilitate an agreement.

Example of Process Conflict

One example of a leader navigating the steps is one who is resolving the process conflict example we referred to earlier where team members have a disagreement about the interpretation of an organizational process. The leader’s first step would be to identify the source of conflict. In this example, the two team members completed work tasks in a different way because of their interpretation of the process. Then, other team members could not complete their subsequent tasks due to inconsistencies with document templates. At the following team meeting, all members were confused and frustrated because work was now at a standstill.

The source is a confusing process and the incident was the disagreement in the meeting. It’s important for the leader to evaluate the process in question and request viable solutions from all team members or others in the organization. How do they interpret the process? Maybe the leader can evaluate other departments or teams’ interpretation of the process as well. Once the leader has clarified the process and identified the solution, it’s up to him or her to present that solution to the entire team so that they can agree upon the interpretation. Once the agreement is solidified, the team can continue functioning and can create high-quality, consistent work products together.

Resolution Strategies

So that leaders can effectively navigate the conflict resolution process, it is important that they have a toolbox full of conflict resolution strategies. It’s also important for them to consider how determined each party is to resolve the conflict by meeting their needs, assertiveness, and/or meeting the needs of the other party, and cooperativeness (Robbins & Judge, 2014). Based upon the situation and priorities of the individuals involved, it may be best to utilize one or more of the conflict resolution approaches below, although some individuals may have a default preferred approach (Thomas & Kilmann, 2017):

COMPETING

Assertive and uncooperative. You are trying to win at the expense of the other person’s needs.

ACCOMMODATING

Unassertive and cooperative – the opposite of competing. You lose and let the other person win by meeting their needs even if yours are foregone.

AVOIDING

Unassertive and uncooperative. You do not want to deal with the conflict at all and are willing to forego both your needs and the needs of the other party involved.

COLLABORATING

Assertive and cooperative – the opposite of avoiding. You find a way to meet your needs and the needs of the other person by finding a creative solution to the problem, so it’s a win-win situation for all.

COMPROMISING

Moderately assertive and moderately cooperative. Instead of having a clear winner or loser, both parties’ needs are partially met and both parties give up something.

Leadership Skills

Effective leadership, particularly of teams, requires a specific set of skills and abilities. As briefly discussed in our previous lesson, Mumford’s leadership skills approach asserted that leaders must possess a certain set of competencies (or skills) and attributes (or traits) to succeed (Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, et al., 2000). The competencies required of leaders were the most important element in the model and were outlined:

PROBLEM-SOLVING SKILLS

The best leaders identify important problems and develop unique solutions based on analysis of data.

SOCIAL JUDGMENT SKILLS

Great leaders thoroughly understand the people and systems they work with and effectively navigate that landscape to solve problems or enact changes.

KNOWLEDGE

Excellent leaders gather information and data required to effectively solve problems.

Excellent leaders are also cognizant of the amount of time, resources, and money that each of the potential solutions entails. They take these factors into consideration before implementing the best solution. Additionally, leaders must have excellent social judgment skills and are constantly thinking about others’ perspectives, problems, and objectives.

This perspective, combined with the ability to resolve social conflicts, persuade others, and communicate effectively, is crucial to bring ideas to fruition in collaboration with others. Finally, leaders must have the knowledge of existing organizational systems, historical data, and complex issues before they can effectively solve problems (Murray, 2015).

The Three Skills Approach

In addition to the leadership skills approach we discussed, there’s also an additional approach referred to as The Three-Skills Approach (Katz, 1974). Katz asserted that the importance of certain skills varied according to a leader’s position within the organization. Katz’s research outlined three core skills necessary for effective administration or leadership:

TECHNICAL SKILLS

great leaders have excellent technical knowledge about the organization’s industry, business, products, and organizational processes that comprise part of the leadership context. Technical skills and expertise are most important for the supervisory levels of managers within the organization as they are directly responsible for product or service creation and staff oversight.

HUMAN SKILLS

Excellent leaders have solid interpersonal skills, such as the ability to work well with others, communicate effectively, persuade, and influence those around them to accomplish goals. Human skills are important to leaders at all levels of the organization.

CONCEPTUAL SKILLS

Great leaders can make sense of abstract ideas or concepts and effectively communicate those ideas, or vision, to the rest of the organization. Conceptual skills are most important to the highest-level of leaders within the organization.

Conclusion

Throughout this lesson, you have explored the stages of team development and gained valuable insight into how leaders can address some of the challenges teams face while fostering the qualities of high-performing teams. Additionally, you have considered the role that motivational factors can play in determining employee job satisfaction. As a leader, you can motivate others by creating a safe environment, offering opportunities such as internal promotions and professional development, and implementing consistent recognition and rewards programs for your employees. Furthermore, you explored the impact that conflicts can have upon team functioning while learning some excellent strategies to resolve the conflict and, hopefully, proactively avoid conflicts when possible. Finally, you learned about leadership skills approaches that outlined the importance of skills such as human, technical, and conceptual abilities. Without developing leadership competencies of knowledge, social judgment skills, and problem-solving, it is difficult to accomplish successful outcomes.