This became a major roadblock for the project with opposing views on the problem. Finally, the manager spoke to the client and explained the situation. They agreed to extend the due date by a couple of months and the developers and testers felt that time was good enough to make the changes. So, communication helped to clear this stand-off between the team members.

Leadership style of the manager

The manager followed a democratic style of leadership. According to Daft (2007, p.44), "A democratic leader delegates authority to others, encourages participation, relies on subordinates' knowledge for completion of tasks, and depends on subordinate respect for influence." This is the exact approach that was followed by my manager and it proved to be effective. He could manage the entire project and could communicate easily with those located in different parts of the world.

Such a style of leadership was comfortable for all the team members because they felt they were the experts in their assigned role. An autocratic style would have failed because it would impose too much authority on these people who felt they know their job best. Also, the roles were clearly defined and such a style would have disintegrated the team. On the other hand, a free style of leadership would have given too much authority to the team members and this would have proved chaotic, given the different timezones, cultures and location. Using this style, he was able to get the opinions of team members and discuss it with the client o find an amicable solution. In my opinion, this is the best solution for this problem.

Team

The team was a diverse group of individuals who came together to create a software for a banking client. It proved to be successful as the software was accepted by the client and its millions of customers...

This common purpose was achieved easily through effective communication, clear distinction of roles and the ability of people to work in diverse groups.
The different groups of people came from different cultures and they had a different accent, though English was the common language spoken during team meetings. The accent, choice of words and the level of perception made it difficult to communicate. This is due to the numerous barriers or distortions that arose frequently because what was said by one person was interpreted completely by the other. This problem was overcome by improved communication levels. The idea proposed by one person was repeated back to the person by the second person to ensure that it was understood properly. Though it took a longer time, it nevertheless ensured that there were no distortions and this played a vital role in the success of this diverse team.

Another advantage was the clear definition of roles. The development aspect was handled by the Indians while the testing was done by the Filipinos. This reduced confusion to a large extent and in my opinion, this was the best way to segregate a diverse team. Also, there was constant communication through emails, phone and even video conferencing so that every member of team knew the exact updates and status of the project. This resolved differences and helped the team to act as one cohesive unit.

In short, it was a great experience for me to work with such a team and it helped me to learn a lot about communication and its effectiveness in this global economy and workforce.

References

Daft, Richard. L. (2007). The Leadership Experience. Publication: Cengage Learning.

Hartley, Peter. Bruckmann, Clive. G. (2002). Business Communication. Publication: Psychology Press.