Module 5 "Team Leadership"

combination of two or more people who who try to achieve a common goal and depend on each other to achieve this goal

because they increase productivity and effectiveness, they help reach competitive advantage in a globalised market, people are more creative and can adapt faster to changing business environments

1 Multipersonality

2 Interdependance

3 Goal orientation

1 interpersonal interaction: exchange personal and proffesional info regularly

2 membership perception: being a part of a social unit within the organization

3 structured relationships: existing roles, norms and regulations control team behavior

4 Reciprocal influence: employees influence each others opinions and behaviors

5 individual motivation: being a part of a team satisfies their needs

Leaders should respond to different behavioral patterns of teams to be successful

1 Relational level

2 Task- related level / factual level

Gives info about interpersonal interaction within a team

• Members are friendly to each other

• There are no personal conflicts

• Members enjoy working on a team

• Members can respond to each other

• Members support each other on personal problems

Prioritises the achievement of goals, gives importance to task related aspects of team

• Clear standards regarding performance

• Problem solving techniques are applied

• information is shared regularly and systematically

• team examines possible alternatives and its feasibility before decision making

1. Social group

2. Lone fight club

3. real team

4. expert team

• No emotional cohesion or professional cooperation within the team

• Team performs poorly

• Evident in newly formed teams that are still in an early phase of development

Leaders should try to improve both the factual and relational levels in parallel.

• Factual (task-related) and relational levels are highly developed

• Cooperation and communication flows are clearly regulated

• Team members exchange information intensively and support each other in personal matters

Leader should try to maintain the high level, for example by setting appropriate team goals and should keep the team flexible

• Focus is primarily on the exchange of personal concerns and less on fulfilling the work task

• Team spends a relatively large amount of time and energy to cultivate personal relationships or to deal with personal conflicts; at the expense of the team's performance

Leaders should strengthen team structures by means of fact-oriented leadership instruments

• Factual level is strong and the relational level is relatively low

• Performance is impaired because team members support and communicate with each other to a very limited extent in personal matters

• No cohesion between the members

Leaders should improve the relational level

1. Hierarchical position ( execution teams, mngmt teams)

2. Duration: (project teams, permanent)

3. functional heterogeneity (mono or multifunctional)

4. institutional heterogeneity (intra organizational or interorganizational)

5. intercultural heterogeneity (monocultural or international)

6. intensity of personal interaction (F2F, virtual or bionic teams)

Consists of at least three members (human & robots) who perform joint tasks interdependently, interact socially to achieve a common goal

*In a production related team, the robot is considered an automation, a machine

*In a office related team, the robot is compared as social companion

y= Role of technology: partner or tool

x= Mode of teamwork: virtual/remote or F2F

1. Remote HRTS (human robot teams)

2. Human Robot Teams (HRTS)

3. Technology intense teams/ tech supported teams

4. Virtual teams

1. Human directed robot team

2. Robot directed team

3. Human and Robot direct mixed team (one team robot is boss, another team human is boss)

4. Autonomous mixed team (humans and robots work together to accomplish complex team tasks)

1. Company related

2. Employee related

Opportunities

• Improved coordination due to interdependencies in the team

• Increased efficiency through improved coordination of specialized skills

• Improved decision quality through integration of different perspectives

• Better customer service through accumulation of competences in customer contact

Risks

• Reduction of decision quality through peer pressure

• Increased coordination effort due to interdependencies in the team

• Increased risk of conflicts due to different professional or personal views of team members

• Increased resistance of the team to change through the development of a “subculture”

Opportunities

• Faster familiarization through information exchange with other team members

• Self-reflection of own behavioral patterns through feedback from other team members

• Beneficial learning of new skills and knowledge

• Increase of identification with the company due to the team membership

• Increased motivation by satisfying central needs for social contacts and recognition

*Healthy : Focus on task issues, differences of opinion about the task, differences in values and perspectives, different expectations about the impact of decisions

*Unhealthy: competition over power, rewards and resources, hold grudges of the past, conflicts between individual & group goals, poor team meetings, bad communication

Based on two dimensions,

y= Leader assertiveness : extent to which a leader can influence others to reach his goals

x=cooperativeness of a team

There are 5 approaches

1. Confrontation: high level of leader assertiveness but no cooperativeness of team

2. Collaboration: high level of cooperativeness of team and high level of leader assertiveness

3. Compromise: middle level of leader assertiveness and middle level of cooperativeness of team

4. Avoidance: team avoids conflicts at all costs

5. Accommodation: members try to keep actual status and avoid changes

the extent to which members reduce their own performance by relying on the performance of others. Also known as free riders or sucker effect

Because as some members give different engagement to their tasks and other members notice it, this can interfere with the team performance

1.- Make performance transparent

2.- Increase motivation for each member

*divide tasks into individual responsibilities

*implement metrics to measure individual contributions

*give individual bonuses or rewards

*implement individual objective performance measures

It focuses on the relation between the team formation and team performance

Newly formed teams take time to reach its full performance potential

1. Forming

2. Storming

3. Norming

4. Performing

1. Forming: Relational level HIGH, factual level LOW

2. Storming: Relational level HIGH, factual level LOW

3. Norming: Relational level LOW, factual level HIGH

4. Performing: Relational level HIGH, factual level HIGH

Extent to which a leader influences the activities of a team

1. Intensity of team leadership AND degree of communication/ collaboration (processes)

2. Intensity of team leadership AND degree of personal/ task conflict

When degree of team leadership is low, degree of collaboration starts to increase, as the degree of team leadership keeps increasing level of communication increases too until it reaches a point that it starts to decrease again when the degree of team leadership is high.

-→ Lack or extreme team leadership leads to negative effects of team success due to lack of identification of members with goals, limited creativity due to no group dynamics

-→ Medium degree of team leadership is most suitable for team communication

Medium level of team leadership is related with lowest level of conflict because members have a joint agreement of team goals and they use creativity techniques

Lack or extreme degree of team leadership leads to high level of conflicts.

the more involved a leader on operational activities is, the bigger the influence on the team

1. Moderated team: leader acts as a moderator, coordinating and supporting the team

2. Autonomous team: leader doesn’t exist, team is responsible for their own task achievement

3. Integrated managed team : leader has fixed role, he is responsible for decision making, task implementation and fulfilment

4. Led by management team: several team members who also act as leaders, decide tasks and responsibilities

5. Led by team speaker: team speaker acts as a mediating role AND team member

6. Individually led team: members have a bilateral interaction with leader but there is almost no connection between team members