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Team cohesion and leadership
Challenges in a leadership role
Challenges in a leadership role
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Recommended: Team cohesion and leadership
The challenging process of being a leader worth following is an arduous task. Yet, in the book the Five Dysfunctions of a Team, the fictional leader Katherine seemingly demonstrates it with an effortless ease. She established her position as a leader while standing her ground, and encouraging group engagement. Katherine also showcases high emotional intelligence with well thought out responses. Constant reevaluation of her team leads to astounding team building and development. All of these individual traits enabled her to not just be a great CEO, but a leader. A leader which would propel DecisionTech forward, among its competitors.
In order to mold a group of people into a higher performing team, Kathryn had a challenging task ahead of her. Her plan to hold an offsite retreat with the leadership team was a fantastic idea. This was her first real action as the leader of DecisionTech, and it would soon prove to have a positive impact on the future of the company and the leadership team. Kathryn held firm to the agenda she designed for the retreat despite the team trying to give her suggestions on what they thought the agenda should be. When Martin sent Kathryn an email letting her know he and JR would be missing part of the retreat for a business
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Up until this point, she was observing the team and allowing others to take the lead while she assessed the team. A new leader asserting authority can be beneficial in the state of uncertainty and low performance, especially when the team is dysfunctional. The expectations were now clearly stated. Also, the message that Kathryn sent was that she was committed to improving the team, and more importantly, she expected everyone else to be too. Kathryn was a successful team builder and knew she had to take the team out of their comfort zone to begin the true process of team building, knowing if this team had any chance at all all team members had to actively
There have been countless books, lectures, and and trainings, and retreats constructed around the idea of cultivating leadership in an individual. However, cultivating individuals’ ability to follow great leadership has received far less attention. Who are these people leading if each person within an organization is being trained to be a leader? The word follower has negative connotations, evoking the images of a weak, uncreative, milquetoast personality. However, Jimmy Collins, in his book, “Creative Followership: In the Shadow of Greatness”, suggests that the ability to be led brings as much creativity, consciousness, and indeed leadership to an organization or team as the leader himself.
Keita Powell is a pint-sized powerhouse. She is energetic, result oriented, focused, and driven. Ms. Powell is one of many women in the Mary Kay Cosmetics sales force. She rose through the ranks from Independent Beauty Consultant to Independent Elite Executive Senior Sales Director rather quickly because of her charisma, ability to build a sales team of energetic men and women, and sheer enthusiasm to succeed. One would think that she was an amazing leader to get so many women to follow her in teaching skin care, beauty techniques, increasing and maintaining sells goals and to rise from a very junior consultant to one who is an executive in the business. However, she has made mistakes along the way and continues to feign focus on her sales force and customers but the true focus is on her needs, wants, and desires as well as keeping the use of her free pink Cadillac. This paper will evaluate Ms. Powell's leadership approach through four leadership models discovered through the Unit 3 readings.
When I was on a post surgical floor I witnessed a scenario where leadership was ineffective. It involved an RN and the nurse manager for the floor who was responsible for assigning the patients to nurses. The nurse manager on this floor usually only had one or two patients and spent most of their time dealing with any problems that arose on the floor. One RN was very upset with her patient load and said it was unfair and wanted to have at least one less patient as she said all 5 of her patients were going to be a lot of work. The nurse manager dismissed the RN and said there were care aides on floor to help so she would be fine and told her to get to work. The leadership issues here were a lack of communication
Heroes and leaders have long had a popular following in literature and in our own imaginations. From Odysseus in ancient Grecian times to May Parker in Spider-man Two, who states, “We need a hero, courageous sacrificing people, setting examples for all of us. I believe there’s a hero in all of us, that keeps us honest, gives us strength, makes us noble” (Raimi, 2004). Organizations need heroes, too. We call them organizational leaders. The study of organizational leadership, then, is really the study of what makes a person a successful hero. Or, what processes, constructs, traits, and dynamics embody the image of a successful leader.
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).
Leadership at times can be a complex topic to delve into and may appear to be a simple and graspable concept for a certain few. Leadership skills are not simply acquired through position, seniority, pay scale, or the amount of titles an individual holds but is a characteristic acquired or is an innate trait for the fortunate few who possess it. Leadership can be misconstrued with management; a manager “manages” the daily operations of a company’s work while a leader envisions, influences, and empowers the individuals around them.
The leadership fable, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, examines the leadership qualities and professional dialogue that makes teams effective. Throughout the novel, Lencioni provides an effectual illustration to lead a professional team to utilize open dialogue, including conflict, to reach their goals. Leadership is a multi-faceted topic, which requires much collaboration, research, and a never-ending search to find and refine oneself; hence, it is vital to surround and immerse oneself in literature from profound leaders and to mold your leadership style as a model for personal change to effectively engage in future relationships with others. When one practices leadership
The foreground of leadership is an individual’s enhanced capacity to direct others into a path that they are supposed to tread upon. However, such power is not immediately incurred by a person. The idea of developing leadership skills from a very young age is somewhat vague in its own form. Though, there is the existence of instinct. The way humans think and the way the physical, mental and emotional attributes humans develop through time affects the way they act upon others; which eventually affects their instinct. When it comes to developing leadership instinct, Helen Fisher intends to show how women have a naturally-based personal development that leads them into growing up with talents for leadership. In her article entitled The Natural Leadership Talents of Women, she points out how scientific evidence supports such idea and how this information could actually help organizations today when it comes to designating women leaders in their teams.
Dave is in a different category of team development as his requirement forms from a specific need or objective. The selection of team members does not follow the same structure as that for Kyle and Steve whereas Dave must form team dynamics based on who is provided to the team, not necessary based on expertise but on who is available at the time. With this deviation from a normal talent pool to a modified experience pool, precise responsiveness for encouraging members' team identification is leadership (Huettermann et al., 2012). Knowing the experience pool of potential team members is dependent of availability of personnel requires the leader too quickly and activity combined level of followers' self-concepts, abilities, and aptitude to achieve the project goals there forth strengthening the team’s identification and stimulating team-oriented efforts (Huettermann et al., 2012). This type of team building leadership requires a strong understanding of personalities and personality types. This is one of Dave’s strengths and is the underlying concept of his position. Strong interaction with differing personalities requires a skilled leader to communicate in ways that will not hinder the process as opposite personalities begin forming and norming in group dynamics (Bell & Smith, 2010).
The leadership styles present in the company is very important factor in order for the change to be successful. Chris Peterson exhibits the transformational leadership quality to tackle her new project. She is able to empower members on her cross functional team to collaborate and create a new product to launch to current and perspective clients. This type of leadership is effective as the group members were able to tackle challenging expectations considering the work environment and lack of support from other departments. DSS’s departments follow the team leadership structure. Each department vision is to work on their sole projects only. The department is committed to its work which tends to hinder other projects because of the lack of free flowing communication. The lack of communication between the teams shows poor leadership quality. The chief operating officer is ultimately the source of the lack of communication and direction. DSS Chief Operating Officer Meg Cooke has a laissez-faire leadership style. She gave Peterson authority to lead a project but provided no guidance or direction. She also was not responsive to the needs of the
Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R., McKee, A. (2002). Primal leadership: Realizing the power of emotional intelligence. Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing.
“A manager manages using authority-or the right to get others to do things by virtue of their positional power. While a leader leads through the ability to influence other people to do things using a certain degree of personal power or charisma” (McLean, 2005, p. 16). By definition, leadership is about influence. Therefore, it is impossible to discuss the theme of leadership without including followers or to try to explain the idea of team building without explaining the influence of a leader. While each concept is unique, both have a direct affect on the other. A leader is not a leader without someone following him or her and a team will always develop a leader whether indirectly or directly appointed. However, leadership and team building are much like the preverbal chicken and egg; and many theories have developed over several years trying to explain the influence on each other and the successful development of teams and leaders.
1. Christine’s leadership abilities could benefit by having knowledge of the stages of group development. Specific to her situation, it seems that aside from the very first group meeting, Mike was not present for the forming stage of the group. As a result, questions such as “What can the group offer me?”, “Can my needs be met and still contribute to the group”, and other discovery inquiries did not get answered for Mike so he has not felt part of the team so he has withdrawn from the group. As a leader, Christine could have encouraged to Mike the importance of being present for group meetings so he can be part of the team. For example, at the lunch room incident when Mike walked away, she could have talked with him individually and explained to him that she perceives that he does not feel welcome and has been avoiding team meetings. Christine could address the how important it is to attend the team meetings, explain to him the “WWIFM” (what’s in it for me) aspects and the fact that team needs him as he has so much that could contribute and add value to the team. She could also indicate that the team’s success will only be possible when every member contributes. By doing so, she can help ensure that Mike is able to join the group during the forming stage and hopefully move quickly to the norming and then performing stages.
Northouse, P. (2010). Leadership: Theory and practice (5th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.
Leaders are those who have a great influence on the lives of many people. This is especially relevant in today’s organizations, which face extreme time changes and an increasingly growing complexity (Yukl, 1998).