Module 5: Leading Teams
A leader of any group is likely to encounter people with diverse backgrounds, beliefs, and ways of working, which makes for a challenge, even under the best circumstances. However, it is the leader’s responsibility to grow the team into a cohesive and well-functioning successful group. Welch, the somewhat controversial CEO of General Electric once said, “Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others” (Welch, 2012). While today’s leaders are in traditional face-to-face teambuilding each day, they are now frequently leading team members that are geographically scattered throughout the country or in some cases, the world. While both scenarios …show more content…
While some teams are permanent, others come together for a specific project and dissolve once the project is completed. Ideally, the goal is to develop a self-directed team under the guidance of a strong leader. According to Daft (2015), self-directed team members have high levels of job satisfaction and a strong sense of belonging to the organization. In developing a self-directed team, the leader likely employed the styles of the visionary, affiliative, and democratic leader to build cohesiveness, collaboration, and independence within the team members. This combination breathes independence into the team as the leader gives a sense of meaning and purpose to the work, is adept at authentic caring and helping people bond, and makes it clear, he or she values their ideas and trusts them to make independent decisions. This type of high-functioning team is a testament to great …show more content…
The challenge becomes greater if the team is scattered throughout multiple countries. Because these teams attempt to bring people together who speak different languages, live in widely separated time zones, and are likely culturally very diverse, the leadership needed is quite different than for traditional teams. While each situation is unique, today’s leaders should expect this challenge in their work. Studies of virtual teams revealed the top challenges to be verbal and non-verbal communication, building trust, rapport, and strained decision-making (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2015). To mitigate these issues, a leader can achieve success using a combination of transformational, situational, and pacesetting leadership styles. While the transformational style nurtures and builds trust among the members, the pacesetter models excellence and self-direction to achieve a well-functioning team. In addition, leading a virtual or global team requires the flexibility and adaptability of situational leadership to analyze problems from a distance. While pacesetting and situational leadership might be unnecessary in traditional teams, leaders must develop these skills with the reality of virtual teams in today’s global
A leader of any group is likely to encounter people with diverse backgrounds, beliefs, and ways of working, which makes for a challenge, even under the best circumstances. However, it is the leader’s responsibility to grow the team into a cohesive and well-functioning successful group. Welch, the somewhat controversial CEO of General Electric once said, “Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others” (Welch, 2012). While today’s leaders are in traditional face-to-face teambuilding each day, they are now frequently leading team members that are geographically scattered throughout the country or in some cases, the world. While both scenarios …show more content…
While some teams are permanent, others come together for a specific project and dissolve once the project is completed. Ideally, the goal is to develop a self-directed team under the guidance of a strong leader. According to Daft (2015), self-directed team members have high levels of job satisfaction and a strong sense of belonging to the organization. In developing a self-directed team, the leader likely employed the styles of the visionary, affiliative, and democratic leader to build cohesiveness, collaboration, and independence within the team members. This combination breathes independence into the team as the leader gives a sense of meaning and purpose to the work, is adept at authentic caring and helping people bond, and makes it clear, he or she values their ideas and trusts them to make independent decisions. This type of high-functioning team is a testament to great …show more content…
The challenge becomes greater if the team is scattered throughout multiple countries. Because these teams attempt to bring people together who speak different languages, live in widely separated time zones, and are likely culturally very diverse, the leadership needed is quite different than for traditional teams. While each situation is unique, today’s leaders should expect this challenge in their work. Studies of virtual teams revealed the top challenges to be verbal and non-verbal communication, building trust, rapport, and strained decision-making (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2015). To mitigate these issues, a leader can achieve success using a combination of transformational, situational, and pacesetting leadership styles. While the transformational style nurtures and builds trust among the members, the pacesetter models excellence and self-direction to achieve a well-functioning team. In addition, leading a virtual or global team requires the flexibility and adaptability of situational leadership to analyze problems from a distance. While pacesetting and situational leadership might be unnecessary in traditional teams, leaders must develop these skills with the reality of virtual teams in today’s global