Overview of the Main Concepts of Team Leadership

Overview of the Main Concepts of Team Leadership

According to Northouse (2012), team leadership has become one of the most popular theories of leadership research. A team refers to a group of employees within an organization, who are interdependent of each, and share a common goal which can only be realized through coordination of their activities. Actually, this can be attributed to the fact that team members typically have dissimilar and unique roles that represent critical contributions to collective action. It goes without mentioning that a team can either be virtual or non-virtual (Tiffan, 2014).

A team leader refers to an employee who facilitates the activities of a team, for instance, by working collaboratively with them in a manner that helps ensure that tasks assigned to the team by an organization’s management are accomplished effectively and efficiently. Perhaps it’s imperative to mention that the roles of a team leader include guiding, instructing and offering directions based on an organization’s mission and vision (Northouse, 2012).

In essence, a strong team leadership creates an influence that helps strengthen others so as to achieve team excellence which can only be attained if a team leader has the capability to stimulate a group with aligned outcomes; essentially this includes both affective as well as developmentally based team outcomes (Tiffan, 2014). Much research has been focused primarily on the solutions to organizational problems that face teams, and thus this has gone a long way in creating a platform that guarantees team success while avoiding failure. For instance, current researches are focused on team variables like bonding, and the relationship between behavioral, affective and cognitive processes ...

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... or face to face in the case of virtual and non-virtual teams, respectively, as well as quick response to conflicting issues (Shuffler et.al., 2010).

The Importance of Communication, Conflict Resolution and Geographical Issues

Communication, conflict resolution and geographical issues play an important role in enabling team leaders to lead effectively. Kouzes and Posner (2012) outline that good communication allows members of both virtual and non-virtual teams and their leader to exchange ideas that foster collaboration among members. This actually enables team leaders to resolve conflicts that often arise from conflicting ideas, and hence this enhances the development and adoption of solutions to geographical issues like cultural conflicts. A team with good communication, limited conflict and a few issues can excel in nearly every sector of the global economy.