Developing Management Capabilities: The Importance Of Teams, Leadership, And Personal Attributes

Teams and Groups

Discuss about the Developing Management Capabilities.

People in organizations often come together to execute tasks together. When this occurs, it is commonly referred to as teamwork, with this collection of individuals being referred to as a group. Teams and groups are terms that are often used synonymously and interchangeably, albeit this usage is sometimes erroneous. There are distinctive differences between teams and groups, which will be explored and explicated through the following literature review.

Teams and groups are terms, which while often used interchangeably, signify distinctively different collections of people or animals. According to Morgeson, Lindoerfer and Loring (2010), a team refers to a collection of two or more people, who are interdependent, and who have shared common goals and shared accountability for their own outcomes and those of the team (Hughes & Jones, 2011). Griffin, Phillips and Gully (2016) elaborate that a group is a collection of two people who interact together and mutually influence each another. A team is, therefore, in essence, an objective group. The key difference between a group and a team can therefore be thought of as the objectivity of the latter.

Teamwork and working in teams has a variety of benefits for both the individuals gathering and the organization. For individuals, teams are an important avenue through which their belonging needs are satisfied. According to Gallie et al., (2012) teamwork has been reported to lead to increased employee satisfaction and improved productivity. On their part, Yang, Huang, & Wu (2011) report that teamwork has positive influences on project success, with stakeholder success and overall project success being attained where there is stronger team communication and team cohesiveness.

Usually, teams are formed with the aim of executing a particular task. As such, it is important that a team have individuals who possess the requisite skills to perform the required task. Griffin and Moorehead (2011) point out three types of skills that teams usually require. The first set of skills is technical skills, which are required to perform the job at hand. The second set of skills is problem solving and decision making skills. Finally, teams also require interpersonal skills. Technical skills pertain to the job at hand and are implicit to the realization of the job tasks. For an IT team, technical skills would include the technical knowhow such as programming. Problem solving and decision-making skills are important in orienting the team. Individuals who possess such skills enable the organization to determine its priorities and set it goals. Additionally, they also help to evaluate the various alternatives available and identify the direction that the team should take. Finally, interpersonal skills enable the team to have an ambience that is socially conducive for the harmonious working of all members. While these skills are highly important for the team, it is highly unlikely that all members of the team will possess each of these sets of skills. With the gradual interaction occurring in the team, however, members gradually develop proficiency in these skills. Moreover, the opportunity to learn and utilize new skills improves favorable attitudes towards teamwork (Jiang, 2010). Given the significance of each of these skillsets, it is important that while choosing a team leader, the team should select the individual who has the relatively highest aggregate of these skills.

Literature Review on Groups and Teams

A team leader is like any other leader and should as such; possess the qualities of a good leader. The responsibilities of the team leader may include organization and coordination of the team, providing strategic direction and communicating with individuals outside the team. Consequently, it is essential that a team have effective leadership. Griffin, Phillips and Gully, (2016) identify two leadership needs within groups. These are task roles and socioemotional roles. DuBrin (2011) argues that the leader must not only possess context specific knowledge, but also, great interpersonal skills since leadership is highly interpersonal in nature. Another important aspect for leaders is that they should recognize differences in the personalities of members of the team and how these members work around tasks (Banutu-Gomez & Rohrer, 2011). Griffin, Phillips and Gully, (2016) go on to note that leadership in a team may manifest itself in the form of a formal as well as an informal leader.

Commonly, the informal leader emerges to supplement the leadership deficiencies of the formal leader. If this is the case, the informal leader has an important role to play in binding the team since according to Dirks (2000), if followers are not confident in the leader, apathy may follow. The leader should have sufficient skills and ability to inspire confidence, an attribute referred to as idealized influence (Harms & Credé, 2010). Loss of employee trust in the leader can be detrimental since it leads to negative behavior and performance (Mosley & Patrick, 2011). Thus, informal leadership may be important in fastening the team, where the formal leadership is deficient.

Groups and teams do not automatically emerge as coherent structures. Rather, after the formation of the group, it undergoes certain pains before it can eventually become a wholly functional unit (Griffin, Phillips, & Gully, 2016). There are several theories that track group development, but most are consistent with Tuckman’s five-stage model (Forsyth, 2009). Tuckman’s model initially had four stages, but he later expanded it to five by adding the adjourning stage. The initial four stages in the development of groups are forming, storming, norming, and performing (Frances, 2008). During the first stage, orientation, also referred to as forming, members are coming together and really do not know each other (Forsyth, 2009). This stage is characterized ambiguity, tentative interactions, tensions, and growing interdependence. Griffin, Phillips, & Gully (2016) refer to this stage as the mutual acceptance stage, where individuals share information and discuss tasks as they get to know each other.

Benefits of Teamwork

The next stage is storming, also known as the conflict stage (Forsyth, 2009). During this stage, there is a lot of conflict within the group and people begin to express their dissatisfaction and disapproval. Forsyth (2009) further indicates that at this stage, members begin to form coalition. On their part, Griffin, Phillips, & Gully (2016) do not attend to the conflict aspects of this stage, which they refer to as communication and decision-making. Instead, they argue that this stage is characterized by expression of attitude and the establishment of group norms and goals. This, however, seems to be aligned more with the third stage, structure, also termed as norming. At this stage, there is increased satisfaction amongst members of the group and increased unity and cohesion (Forsyth, 2009). For their third stage, Griffin, Phillips, & Gully (2016) discuss motivation and productivity where they aver that at this stage, there is increased cooperation and creativity, and people are more focused on their tasks. Again, aspects of this stage appear to be more consistent with the fourth stage, performing, where Tuckman argued that the group’s attention shifts to focus on the tasks and the attainment of goals. An important caveat is that not all groups reach this stage, even if they are highly cohesive (Forsyth, 2009).

The last stage outlined by Griffin, Phillips, & Gully (2016) is control and organization, where they contend that members now work interdependently with tasks being assigned according to capability. There is also increased flexibility and self-control. The final stage appended by Tuckman is the adjourning stage, which involves the dissolution of the group (Forsyth, 2009). This stage can be planned or spontaneous. Forsyth (2009) indicates that even for planned dissolution, however, members may encounter problems as they endeavor to reduce their dependency on the group.

Several tools exist, which managers and individuals can use to assess and evaluate their own leadership and teamwork capabilities. This include the Johari window, the Big 5, ESCI and the Belbin team inventory. These tools allow an individual to gain insight into their own abilities. I used three of these tools to gain insight into my own capabilities and the following paragraphs present and review the outcomes about my own personality.

The Big 5 personality test is a test that assesses five dimensions of human personality. According to this item, my personality was revealed as open to new experience and nervous/high-strung. I attained an average score on each of the other merits. This means that I am neither organized nor disorganized, neither particularly social nor reserved, and finally, neither extremely forgiving nor irritable.

Leadership and Teamwork

The second tool that I used was the ESCI personality test. ESCI refers to Emotional and Social Competence Inventory. My ESCI scores revealed that I am adaptable, empathetic, achievement oriented and oriented towards teamwork. This means that I am well capable of working within teams. My adaptability allows me settle in well within various teams and team roles. I am also able to achieve much since I am an achievement oriented individual.

The final tool used is the Belbin’s team inventory. The Belbin test evaluates nine team roles, and provides feedback to an individual on which combination of these team roles is best suited to the individual. Based on the outcomes of the workshop assessment, I discovered that some of my skills including planning and coordinating with teammates, setting team goals and resolving team problems. In terms of team roles, I am suited for roles such as the implementor, teamworker, coordinator, and shaper. I am least suited to being a resource investigator, plant and monitor.

Looking back at my test results on each of these frameworks, I feel that they indeed reflect my true personality because there appears to be a level of congruence among the results for each test. For example, the ESCI test revealed that I am adaptable and empathetic, while the Belbin inventory indicates that I am suited to being a teamworker. I feel that my empathy is one of the factors that enables me to solve team problems. Secondly, the Belbin test also indicated that another of my stronger roles is being an implementer and team shaper. I feel that this is tied to my achievement orientation as revealed by the ESCI test. My achievement orientation means that I am able to analyze tasks and determine what I would wish to achieve. This is what makes me a good fit for the role of setting team goals. One of the qualities of a shaper within a team is that they tend to be cautious about meeting deadlines and goals. I feel this is tied to the ESCI outcome of being achievement oriented. Furthermore, a less desirable trait of the shaper is their frustration and emotional reaction. I feel that this reflects what I discovered through the Big Five personality about being nervous/high-strung. Overall, there is strong agreement between the outcomes of the various tests.

Having discovered my own strengths and competencies when it comes to managing others, I believe there are a number of areas in which I can improve. The areas in which I can improve on include my nervousness and communication within teams. Under the Big Five test, I discovered that my neuroticism score is very high, indicating that I am easily emotionally stirred. I feel that this can interfere with my work as a leader and within teams. The areas where I require improvement and the course I plan to follow to do so are presented in the table below.

My personal goals:	How I will achieve them	Barriers to Achieving My Goals	Overcoming the Barrier	Determination of Achievement
To reduce my nervousness and become more calm and less easily emotionally instigated. Nervousness has profound negative effects on decision-making and can cause one to make poor decisions.	By exposing myself to more risk and more adventure so that I become used to exciting situations. One of my Big Five scores indicated that I am open to new experiences. I will harness this attribute to expose myself to situations that are likely to increase my nervousness. By pushing myself to these limits, I will be able to train myself to manage anxiety better.	I am naturally nervous and might tend to avert situations that will increase my nervousness. Focusing on the negative outcomes of situations.	I believe I can overcome the barrier by focusing on the positive outcomes and asking myself what is the worst that could happen to me even if the worst came to be. In this way, I will challenge myself to discover that the negative outcome will not be so bad.	When I can listen to others and comfortably ignore the impulsive urge to respond. When others can taunt me and I will not be drawn in to respond unnecessarily.
To enhance my ability to communicate at the interpersonal level. In particular, I would like to improve on my listening skills. Part of the problem with my listening is that I am easily distracted by internal factors. An improvement in my interpersonal and listening skills will benefit other areas of my life such as class. I also believe that it will help to improve my nervousness since I will be able to enhance my focus.	In order to improve my listening skills, I will train myself to focus on the subject of conversation more than anything else. The aim will be to reduce the effect of distractions	Internal distractions and contextual emotions. In addition, my keenness to detail means that I easily get distracted by details within a venue of communication and veer off.	I will begin by training myself to listen during short forums. As I successfully learn to listen, I will then grow into larger forums. I believe that the length of a forum can be overwhelming especially where it is too lengthy. As for distractions, I plan to practice with venues where I can remove potential distractions, then reintroduce them one by one.	My improvement in listening will be attained when I am able to recall what was communicated to me within the context it was communicated.

References

Banutu-Gomez, M. B., & Rohrer, W. G. (2011). Teams in Organization. The Business Review, Cambridge , 18 (1), 54-60.

Dirks, K. T. (2000). Trust in Leadership and Team Performance: Evidence from NCAA Basketball. Journal of applied psychology, 85(6), 1004.

DuBrin, A. J. (2011). Human relations for career and personal success: concepts, applications, and skills. 9th ed. , . Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall/Pearson.

Forsyth, D. R. (2009). Group Dynamics (5 ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.

Frances, M. (2008). Stages of group development–a PCP Approach. Personal Construct Theory & Practice, 5, 10-18.

Gallie, D., Zhou, Y., Felstead, A., & Green, F. (2012). Teamwork, skill development and employee welfare. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 50(1), 23-46.

Griffin, R. W., Phillips, J. M., & Gully, S. M. (2016). Organizational Behavior: Managing People and Organizations. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.

Harms, P. D., & Credé, M. (2010). Emotional intelligence and transformational and transactional leadership: A meta-analysis. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 17(1), 5-17.

Hughes, R. L., & Jones, S. K. (2011). Developing and assessing college student teamwork skills. New Directions for Institutional Research, 2011(149), 53-64.

Jiang, X. (2010). How to Motivate People Working in Teams. International Journal of Business and Management, 5(10), 223-229.

Morgeson, F. P., Lindoerfer, D., & Loring, D. J. (2010). Developing Team Leadership Capability. In E. V. Velsor, C. McCauley, & M. Ruderman (Eds.), The Center for Creative Leadership Handbook of Leadership Development. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass,.

Mosley, D. C., & Patrick, D. K. (2011). Leadership and Followership: The Dynamic Process of Building High Performance Cultures. Organization Development Journal, 29(2), 85-100.

Yang, L.-R., Huang, C.-F., & Wu, K.-S. (2011). The association among project manager’s leadership style, teamwork and project success. International Journal of Project Management, 3(29), 258-267.