Leadership and Team in Action - Assignment Example

TOPIC: LEADERSHIP AND TEAM IN ACTION (NAME) (COURSE NAME) (INSTITUTIONS NAME) 17th DECEMBER 2008 TABLE OF CONTENTS pg 1.0 Abstract………………………………………………………………………..3 1.1 Introduction………………………………………………………..3-4 1.2 Discussion…………………………………………………………5 1.21 Types of leadership…………………………………………………………5-7 1.3 Team Development………………………………………………...8 1.31 Forming…………………………………………………………………...8-9 1.32 Storming…………………………………………………………………..9 1.33 Norming…………………………………………………………………..9-10 1.34 Performing………………………………………………………………..10-11 1.4 Leadership skills, strategies and approaches…………………………..11-12 1.5 Dealing with different perspectives………………………………..........12 1.6 The role of communication in leadership………………………………12-13 1.7 Developing leadership skills……………………………………………...13 1.8 Conclusion………………………………………………………..................14 1.9 Recommendations…………………………………………………………14 2.0 References…………………………………………………………………..15 Abstract The purpose of the report is to clearly and concisely highlight the need for leadership in an organization. In addition, the report further seeks to address the importance of team work in an organization basing on real life experiences. In this respect, the various types of leadership will be covered in the report and their contribution towards organizational success or failure. Furthermore, the report will also address various forms or stages of team development and how every stage helps in achieving the anticipated goal of enabling the workers in a particular organizational develop team work abilities. The report will also address the skills, strategies and approaches that organizational leaders are supposed to have in order to be effective leaders. Since, different perspectives arise in an organization, the report will address how leaders are supposed to deal with differing perspectives in the organisation so as to capitalize on the differences to achieve a benefit. Communication being one of the most powerful tools in the organization, the report will address the role of communication in leadership and the interconnectivity between effective leadership that results from effective communication. (Adair, 1997) Introduction Leadership is one of the most outstanding features in an organization. It has been described as a social influence process where one person is able to enlist the support and aid of others in order to accomplish a common task. Every organization’s survival depends upon good leadership and team work in action. This is because leadership functions as the steering wheel that drives the organization into the required direction. The importance of team work in an organization can not be overemphasized because of the saying that goes “united we stand and divided we fall”. In an organization where the employees work individually it is highly likely that such an organization is doomed to fail since activities in an organization are intertwined and one process leads to the other. Combining leadership and team work thus makes an organization successful. This is because leadership determines the organizational culture which is one of the most fundamental pillars of an organization that depicts how things are done in the organization. In this respect, good leadership leads to effective organizational culture and the opposite is true. Leadership also sets the organizational vision without which the organization would just be Mac timing in the same position without forging ahead. (Peters,1989) The leadership vision helps in setting organizational goals and objectives which forms the backbone of the organizational activities. It has been suggested by many scholars that if a leader in an organization is “a team person”, that is, he loves working with teams and in a team, then it is highly likely that he will be able to manage the organization using team work. If however, the leader is not a “team person”, that is, he does not like working in a team and with teams then it is highly likely that he might not want work with teams in an organization because he does not perceive any need for such teams, after all, he has come thus far individually. Thus leadership can simply be defined as creating a path or a way for the people to participate in making something astonishing happen. As a management skill, leadership has also been defined as the ability to gear motivation in people towards achieving a common goal. This report will therefore help those that aspire to develop their skills as leaders as well as instilling the importance of team work in such people in order to enable them embrace the elements of working with teams and in teams. Discussion Types of leaders There are various types of leaders that are found in different organizations. We have the bureaucratic leaders, charismatic leaders, autocratic leaders, democratic leaders, the laissez-faire leaders, people oriented leaders, task oriented leaders, servant leaders, transactional leaders, transformational leaders and the environmental leaders. Bureaucratic type of leadership follows the procedures laid down in the organization without altering any one of them. It is a very structured type of leadership. It lacks flexibility to explore new ways of carrying out activities or solving problems because leaders ensure that all procedures are followed to the latter. (Syrett and Hogg, 1991) This type of leadership style is mostly applicable in banks, hospitals, governments and institutions of learning in order to ensure quality and alleviate any cases of corruption as well as increasing security. Charismatic leaders infuses eagerness and energy in their members because it takes hard work and time to gain back the confidence of the employees after they have committed themselves to the charismatic leader’s magnetism. Charismatic leaders may turn out to be a big risk for the organization especially when a project or a division is attributed to the leader and not to the team. According to Adair 1983, autocratic leader has total authority to make decision alone and as such the need for team work is outlawed. However this type of leadership style is very useful for employees who require close supervision in order to perform their responsibilities. On the other hand, a democratic leader involves the employees in various levels of decision making process in determining what needs to be done and how it should be done. However, the final authority on decision making is retained by the leader and using this type of leadership style is not a sign of weakness rather it is a respectable approach that is mostly liked by many employees as stakeholders in an organization. Democratic leadership style, thus, necessitates the formation of team which allows the leader to make better decision. The lasses-faire leader allows the employees to make decisions but the leader retains the responsibility of the decisions made by the employees. This type of leadership style is mostly used in research organizations where employees analyze and determine results outcome and make recommendations on what should be done. In this respect, the leader delegates certain tasks and responsibilities and does not have to blame any one when things go wrong. A people oriented leader is a rather advanced leader who trains, develops, supports, increases genuine interest and job satisfaction to his employees in order to comply with efficiency and effectiveness in doing a job. This is therefore a type of leadership style that agitates for team work a part from democratic leadership style. As opposed to the servant leader, the focus of the task oriented leader is concentrating on assigned tasks with an aim of reaching and accomplishing a specific objective. This type of leadership style is thus similar to autocratic leadership style which suffers motivation issues showing minimal team involvement in decision making processes. The servant leader also supports the need to have team work in an organization. This is because it facilitates accomplishment of a goal by offering a conducive ground for members of a team to be productive. Rather than a commanding voice that moves change, a servant leader functions as an instrument that employees uses to reach their goals. It therefore results into higher employee engagement although results are achieved at a slower pace than in other leadership styles. A transactional leader is bestowed with powers to reward, punish and perform certain tasks in order to accelerate the performance of a team. The leader has the opportunity to lead a group and in exchange for something else the group agrees to be led by him/her. Thus the leaders are given the power to train, correct and evaluate the productivity of the subordinates and reward or punish effectively. Although this type of leadership style also functions in teams, it is not as team friendly as democratic and servant leadership styles. For a transformational leader communication becomes the basis for achieving the set goals as the leader focuses on goal attainment and final desired outcome. A transformational leader thus motivates his team to be efficient and effective in performance. He uses a chain of command and is highly visible to get the job done. A transformational leader operates and focuses on the broader picture and thus needs people who take care of the details. In this regard, a transformational leader cares less about team work so long as he is surrounded by people who give ideas that can move the organizational vision to greater heights. (Winstanley, 2005) An environmental leader affects the psychological and emotional perception of an individual in a team through nurturing an organizational environment or group. For this style of leadership to be effective the application and understanding of group psychology as well as group dynamics is quite necessary. Inspiration of individuals and organizational culture are the two powerful tools used by this type of a leader to develop the employees at all levels. It therefore relies on developing an education matrix where fundamental psychology culture and dynamics are learnt as groups interact with each other. The leader use complimentary language and psychology to influence direction. The understating of different types of leadership styles is vital as it sheds light on styles of leadership that encompasses team work in action. For example, it has been established that any democratic, servant and environmental leader uses groups or teams to achieve the desired objectives. Hence, the above knowledge takes us to the next level of how different leadership style that encompasses the use of teams develops their teams so as to achieve maximum benefits from the teams. Team development As mentioned above, there are several styles of leadership that functions best when teams are involved in various decision making processes. For example, democratic leadership style requires that team representatives be involved in decision making. The main objectives of team development are to create a high performance team whose members are committed deeply to one another’s personal success and growth. Create a real team that comprises of people with admirable skills who have a common purpose to which they are committed to, approach and goal for which they become accountable for. Create a potential team which tries to achieve and recognise improved performance through clarity about purpose and having a common approach about work as well as clear cut goals. (Belbin, 1996) Create working groups where members interact to practise, share information and explain their different perspectives in order to equip each individual with skills to perform functions amicably in their areas of specialization. Team development is particularly vital where ambiguity in the environment and task needs people to work together in order to realize high performance. Thus team development has various steps that need to be undertaken. The first stage is forming the team. Forming In this stage, team members get to know one another and getting used to one another in order to create a comfortable environment around one another. Naturally, members strive to know their own roles as well as the purpose they are supposed to play in the group. The team members are usually suspicious, nervous and unsure. This stage of team development has several characteristics namely, members of the team try to define the task, conceptual and lofty discussions emerge as members of the team try to express their identities and discussions emerges concerning information that need to be gathered. Thus in forming stage the team leader should help the members to know one another. He/she should ensure that the task and the purpose are defined clearly and management expectations of the group are observed. Storming This is the second stage in team development. Once the team has worked for a while they leave the forming stage and enter this stage. Dissension occurs as politeness wears off over basic operating and mission procedures. The primary issue turns out to be control. For example, members start asking questions like who is going to decide on this and that activity. At this stage, it becomes obvious that disagreements emerge. In team development, storming is regarded as the most difficult stage for a team to weather, but it is indispensable for a healthy team development. Readiness to work things out crops up when team members begin to trust one another to the extent of airing their differences. This stage has various characteristics namely members begin to show their true self and their true styles, members start causing irritation to one another by getting into one another’s territory, lack of progress results into a growing impatience and general disagreements over tasks emerges , overall purpose and process of the team emerges. In addressing the storming stage, the team developer should not ignore the storming stage. Facilitators of team development should instead surface the conflicts in order to address them. This becomes a good time to carry out ground rules review, revisit the related administrative matters and purpose of the team. Norming The team moves to this stage once they recognize their differences and deals with them. At this stage, they star asking questions such as how can we accomplish our work? Which criteria should we use to accomplish our work? Beyond the nervousness and politeness of past and forming the concerns and issues of storming, the need to know how they are functioning arises in a team. Emotional conflicts and differences declines among the team members as they continue to learn how to work out their differences. Thus more time and energy is dedicated towards achieving their purpose and the focus of the team becomes clear. Several characteristics of this stage include, formal procedures and ground rules that might have been ignored previously are taken seriously at this stage, the team develops the tendency of holding more discussions on various issues and items spending less time on generating ideas but utilising more time in making decisions, conflicts among team members are resolved and addressed in the most professional manner, the team becomes bigger at this stage and thus emergence of subgroups becomes inevitable, members of the team opts to deal with specific topics hence limiting the agenda items. To address the norming stage, the facilitator should remind the team of their task as the team will want to accomplish its purpose. Facilitators should also adhere to the road map, become more diligent and provide enough time for receiving feedbacks. Performing stage This is also called the action stage. It is the final step in team development where the teams are highly effective in solving problems. They can also reach solutions quicker and issues can be handled faster before they become problems. Various characteristics of this stage include, the team becomes more productive as tasks are accomplished faster and the team looks for more to do, the team becomes pro-active and does not wait any longer for management’s directions, teams demonstrates loyalty and respect among group members which is substituted for disagreements and dissensions. (Losada, 1999) To address the performing stage, facilitators take into consideration that performing level are self regulating generally. Processes, decision making, road maps and other matters concerning the management of the team are handled independently by the team. When the team is well prepared through team development exercise, there is great need for leadership to portray skills, strategies and approaches that rhymes with the team. Thus the following discussion will look at the skills, strategies and approaches that a leader need to portray in an organization. Leadership skills, strategies and approaches An outstanding leader should have the skills for articulating ideological visions that matches the held values of his/her followers. This skill describes a better future to which the followers have a moral right to which they are alleged to. A leader is supposed then to use the self sacrifice and passion approach to have a strong conviction of and a passion of what he/ she regards as his/her visions moral correctness. Thus a leader makes use of extra ordinary and outstanding strategy to make sacrifices that are extra ordinary in the interest of his mission and vision. Faith is another strategy that a leader should portray in his/her leadership. This means that a leader should have determination, persistence and confidence. Another approach that a leader should demonstrate is recognizing the desirability of the employees perceiving them as credible, competent and trustworthy leaders through image building. In this respect, the leader in an organization uses the strategy of being the role model because leader-image-building sets the stage for role modelling that becomes effective because followers identify with the role model’s values especially the role model they perceive in positive terms. As an important skill, a leader acts as the spokesperson for the organization he/she represents by symbolically representing the organization to outside constituencies. In this regard, a leader uses the approach of communicating the management’s expectations to the followers as well as demonstrating his skills by confirming his strong confidence in the followers’ ability to exceed the performance expected of them. A vital strategy that a leader should use is the motive arousal. This means that a leader selectively arouses the followers’ motives especially the motives that seem relevance to the accomplishment of a mission and a vision. To realize all the above, a leader should realize that at one point differences might arise. He should then be prepared to deal with different perspectives. Dealing with different perspectives. A leader should always know that different perspectives can either benefit or fragment a project team. A strategic approach should therefore be used to harness the power in the differing perspectives among the employees or followers. Team functioning and collaborative team building is one of the most powerful tools that can be used to deal with different perspectives because it hinges on respecting and understanding the diversity and differences that arise in organizations. (Casey, 1993) If managed well different perspectives can be an incredible asset to a project team. In this regard, the leaders should be well acquitted with issues that can fragment a highly performing team by having the skills to deal with different perspectives that arise in the organization. This can only be achieved if the leaders develop effective communication in the organization. The role of communication in leadership Communication is one of the most vital aspects of a manager’s role. Ignoring uncertainties and failings risks disaster. The manager should resolve to communicate in the most appropriate methods, that is, through e-mail, notice board, meeting or through a memo. Communication should be very simple, succinct and precise in order to pass the leaders message clearly to the followers. Since most of the problems arising in an organization are directly related to communication breakdown, it is vital for a leader to effectively utilize communication in order to alleviate such problems. Through communication a leader is able to pass the management’s expectations to the followers or employees as well as taking the feedback to the organizational management. Communication also helps leaders in resoling conflicts by using different styles of leadership as discussed above. Developing leadership skills When developing leadership skills, the leader should take into account the strategies and the approaches he/she needs to utilize as well as the type of leadership style to be used. This is because different leadership styles have different skills that need to be used and integration of skills might result into conflicts of interests. For example, in democratic leadership the leader should use the collaborative skills, in autocratic leadership the leader should use the commanding skills. The leadership styles that support team work should be used together with participatory skills while those that do not support team work should be used with less participatory skills. Thus in developing leadership skills the determinant factor is the kind of leadership that the leader anticipates to adopt. Conclusion. Leadership is a vital aspect of an organization. However, as seen from the above discussion, good leadership calls for commitment and sacrifice of the leaders towards achieving exemplary performance. Team work in action becomes an important aspect in the organization because teams act as propellers for individual members to perform their tasks as required and according to the expectations. The report above has therefore addressed issues such as different types of leadership styles, various ways of developing the teams, dealing with different perspectives, the role of communication in leadership and ways of developing the leadership skills. Recommendations This report is important to every individual that aspires to become a leader. It contains the information that a leader needs to put into practice in order to enhance his or her leadership capability. Leaders should source for such important pieces of information that enlightens them of the importance of encouraging group and team work in the organization so as to achieve the desired goals in the organizations they lead.   REFERENCES Adair, J. (1983), effective leadership, (New York, Pan Books) Adair, J. (1997), leadership skills, (New York, IPD) Belbin, M. (1996), management teams: why the succeed or fail, (Butterworth, Heinemann Publishers) Peters, T. (1989), thriving on chaos, (New York, Pan Books.) Syrett, M. and Hogg, C. (1991), frontiers of leadership, (New York, Sage Publishers) Winstanley, D. (2005), personal effectiveness, (New York, CIPD Publishers) Casey, D. (1993), managing learning in organizations, (Buckingham, OUP) Losada, M. (1999), the complex dynamics of high performance teams, (Oxford, Oxford university press) Read More