Team Management Creating and Managing

Team Management

Creating and Managing a Successful Team

Creating and managing a successful team requires the consideration of many factors. Motivation, leadership, cohesiveness, and team assessment are just some of the factors that need to be considered. In this essay, I will discuss how I would build, support, and manage a successful and cohesive team.

A successful team needs team members who are motivated. Before thinking about how to motivate team members, I would first think about what I want team members to be motivated to do. In turn, this needs to consider the purpose of the team and what it should achieve. Based on this, I would first establish clear goals for the team and clearly define what the team should achieve. I would then use this to determine what team members should be motivated to do. There are two major reasons for this. The first one is based on the belief that a team is created for a specific purpose and to achieve a specific goal. This means that it is no good just to have team members motivated. Instead, team members need to be motivated to achieve the goals of the team and allow it to achieve the purpose it was established for. This is noted by Schermerhorn (395) who describes motivation as creating a work environment where individual needs are satisfied via efforts that also serve organizational objectives. The important point about this definition is that individuals needs to be motivated in a certain direction for a team to be effective. The first step of defining what the goals of the team are is important because it will provide clear objectives that team members can be motivated to achieve. Simply having a well-defined and clearly stated objective will be a motivating factor. The second important point is that having a clear objective will unite team members and ensure they have a common purpose. This will be a factor that will help create a cohesive team unit.

In the team, I would be an interactive leader. This is defined as "a leader who is concerned with consensus building, is open and inclusive, and encourages participation" (Daft 517). It is also noted that "interactive leadership promotes the idea that striving to reach organizational goals enables employees to reach their full potential" (Daft 517). I would adopt this leadership style for the purpose of empowering and utilizing the full potential of every employee. I believe that employees who are given the opportunity to reach their full potential find that this gives them self-motivation. For this reason, there would be less emphasis required on providing other means of motivating employees. In essence, employees would have the chance to achieve to their full potential, which would be good for the employees and good for the organization. For team members, this would mean that their full involvement in the team would be expected. As team leader, it would also mean that leading the team would depend on personal power, rather than reward power, since leadership would not be tied to the ability to give employees monetary or other kinds of rewards. Personal power is considered to be one of the most effective types of leadership, with Goleman (51) noting that leader with personal powers "have resonance with a wide circle of people - and have a knack for finding common ground and building rapport."

As noted earlier, a large part of building group cohesiveness involves giving the team a clearly identified goal and clearly stated objectives. This would mean that no matter how many differences there are between individual employees, they are all united by the common goal of the team. Another way I would manage group cohesiveness would be to focus on the functioning of the team as a whole and ensure that every team member is able to contribute. I recognize that different team members will have different personalities and styles and that this may need to be accounted for. For example, some team members will be outspoken and may contribute easily. Others may be less outspoken and more passive. For these team members, I would give defined tasks. By giving individuals this direction, they will be able to make a contribution to the team and this will help build group cohesiveness. I would also allow team members to take on leadership roles at appropriate times. For example, if a certain task of the team is linked to a team member's primary skill, I would allow them to lead the team during that task. This will help build team chemistry by allowing all members to see the value of the other members. It will also help build leadership within the team and will help the team members leading to see that they have value to the team. This strategy will also help with motivation, since employees are likely to be motivated by the opportunity to utilize their key skills and be recognized for them.

For techniques of persuasion, I would focus on the objectives of the team and the team members' roles in achieving the objectives. The objective would be not on forcing team members to take certain actions, but instead helping them to want to take certain actions. This would also involve encouraging team members to see beyond just their own needs and to recognize the needs of the team overall. This includes that team members may need to compromise for the good of the team. This approach is linked with the empowering of employees and the interactive leadership style. Overall, the focus will be on cooperating as part of the team, while being committed to the team.

The main mental skills I would incorporate would be conflict management skills, decision making skills, and communication skills. Conflict management skills are necessary since any group of people working together will encounter conflicts. Rather than consider conflict as negative, I would educate team members and increase their conflict management skills. With this approach, conflicts that occur can either be managed well so they are minimized, or managed well so that a source of conflict actually becomes a source of improvement. The most important point is that team members have the skills to understand and manage conflict so that it does not disrupt the effective functioning of the team. The second mental skill I would incorporate would be decision making skills. This is especially important because decisions will have to be made by individuals, but these decisions may impact the group. In other cases, team members will have to make decisions as a team. For the effective functioning of the team, it will be important that team members can make decisions effectively both individually and on a group basis. This will allow for the team to operate effectively. Giving employees these key skills will also empower them to make decisions and be confident in those decisions. The final mental skill I would incorporate would be communication skills. Since a team involves people working together, communication skills are crucial. I would especially focus on listening skills to ensure that all employees are able to contribute effectively to the team.