Group Leadership and Formation

Group Dynamics and Teams
Introduction
This paper examines an experience I had in a group dynamic that did not go well. The group was tasked with a rush project and the members of the group were not prepared professionally or personally to meet the demand. The result was a complete failure, but looking back on it I can see why it failed. This paper will describe the experience, discuss it from multiple points of view, and show what could be done to turn a similar situation into a success the next time around.
Concrete Experience
We were a team of five: Paul was the group leader; Bishop was from sales; I was heading the social media team; Carlos was from product development; Dodd was from HR; and Michelle was from PR. Each of us had worked together in the past, so we were familiar with one another; however, on this occasion we were meeting together for the first time under stressful circumstances. Management was under pressure to get a new product to market by the end of the month—and no one was ready for this project.
Paul was clearly uncomfortable with being put in this position. He had plans to take the end of the month off for a vacation and now those plans had been shelved. I had achieved some success with my social media team but there was chatter among some that we weren’t doing a good job of controlling the narrative at times and too many negative reviews were allowed to remain for too long on our feeds. Carlos was uncertain that the product would be ready in time. Dodd was leaving for another company in two weeks so had no real vested interest in anything that happened here. Michelle felt betrayed by management over an earlier issue so had no incentive to work with us on this project; plus, she had personal issues and did not have time to work overtime for us on this.
We had one week to come up with a strategy to get our new product to market and get demand for it to a high level. Given that there was serious strain within out group, we got off to a rocky fight, with Michelle storming out of the first meeting after feeling insulted by Paul. Dodd demonstrated a great deal of indifference and Carlos was unenthusiastic about taking news back to his department that they would all have to be working late over the next four weeks. The project ending up stalling and taking not one but four months to finish—and the whole time management was unhappy.
Reflective Observation
I behaved somewhat upbeat because to be honest I was not under a lot of pressure. I had to handle the social media coverage, but I felt my time was doing well and we had the figures to prove it. The others on the team were facing different issues. Michelle had personal and professional issues that really needed to be addressed—but they weren’t being addressed and the added pressure of this project just made it that much harder for her to contribute. Dodd had basically checked out because he was leaving in two weeks for a new job—so it did not even make sense for him to be in the group and he stated as much to all us individually. Bishop was frustrated by the group’s lack of cohesion: coming from sales, he was used to individuals acting like professionals when push came to shove and he was put off by our group’s lack of focus. Paul demonstrated little leadership as he was still upset about losing his vacation time and he let his emotions get in the way of his better judgment. He really needed to get us focused and when Bishop tried to bring focus, it just rubbed everyone the wrong way and he ended being seen as too hard. I was just hoping we could all get along like we had in the past. Carlos was simply being objective when he laid it out clearly that the product was not going to be ready in a month.
Abstract Conceptualization
According to Schermerhorn and Uhl-Bien (2014), for a group to work effectively, its members have to be productive, personally satisfied and committed to one another. However, we all had our own behavior types, too, as Schermerhorn (2014) notes all teams have: there was I, trying to be the helper and failing because the group still needed to air its issues before it could begin clicking. There was Bishop trying to take charge and force the group to get it together. There was Carlos who was the objective thinker, whose objectivism, however, was like a rain cloud. Had our leader been a little less emotionally perturbed about his own situation and a little more skillful in emotional intelligence, which is what Sanchez-Nunez, Patti and Holzer (2015) note is needed in effective communication, our group might have come together more efficiently in the beginning. The reality was that most of us had not had our needs met, so there was no way the group as a whole was going to become self-actualized, as Maslow (1943) explains in his motivation theory and hierarchy of needs model. Vroom’s (1964) expectancy theory also explains what was going wrong with our group: no one’s expectations were being met, and according to this theory people make decisions based on what they expect to get in return. Dodd expected to be gone in two weeks, for example, so his decision to express complete indifference was based on the fact that he wasn’t going to be getting anything for his efforts.
According to the Force Field (2016) model, the factors needed to break down the barriers were not in place: the group members were not appropriately selected, there was a lack of structure because of the rushed nature of the project, there were blocked communication channels because of personal and professional issues, and there was an overall lack of trust because few in the group really expected this project to succeed. In short, management was expecting a home run and we were striking out because the factors simply were not in place to resist negative obstacles in their myriad manifestations.
Active Experimentation
One way to respond to the next occurrence of a similar experience would be to use Tuckman’s Five stages of group formation as a guide to getting a group to gel quickly and effectively. The stages are: (1) forming, (2) storming, (3) norming, (4) performing and (5) adjourning (Chapman, 2016). We were stuck in the first stage because no one was willing to let anyone air grievances and just listen and offer support. Most of the group was done with it from the word go. Additionally, the group members have to be productive, satisfied and committed—and that all needs to be worked out in the forming stage. To listen, however, requires emotional intelligence—and that is one thing I have learned from this analysis. I would like to put my emotional intelligence skills to use as a leader of a group by showing my ability to listen, empathize and communicate encouragement in a positive way.
Conclusion
Our group failed to hit the ground running because personally few members were satisfied, not everyone was committed, and not everyone was being productive. In short, some of the parts were simply not doing what they needed to be doing. A little bit of EI could have helped. Some better leadership in the forming stage was needed for certain. Next time, I will try to demonstrate so emotional intelligence to help get my group the emotional support it needs to come together more effectively in the beginning.


References
Chapman, A. (2016). Bruce Tuckman’s 1965 Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing team-development model. Retrieved from http://www.businessballs.com/tuckmanformingstormingnormingperforming.htm
Force Field Analysis: Analyzing the Pressures For and Against Change. (2016). Retrieved from https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_06.htm Models of communication.
Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4), 370.
Sanchez-Nunez, M., Patti, J. & Holzer, A. (2015). Effectiveness of a leadership development program that incorporates social and emotional intelligence for aspiring school leaders. Journal of Educational Issues, 1(1), 5-9.
Schermerhorn, J. (2014). Exploring management (4th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons.
Schermerhorn, J., & Uhl-Bien, M. (2014). Organizational behavior (13th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons.
Vroom,V. (1964). Work and motivation. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.