The Team That Is Not a Team
The main teamwork problems that are occurring among the team members is that there is a lack of communication, a lack of clarity in terms of what the team’s goals are—and therefore no sense of how the team is to be successful. An effective team is one that is productive, personally satisfied, and committed to its members (Schermerhorn & Uhl-Bien, 2014). Following on that idea, teams should be motivated, committed by a shared sense of values, emotionally stable and supportive, and dedicated to achieving performance benchmarks (Schermerhorn & Uhl-Bien, 2014). As the de facto leader, Harrington has to be proactive in bringing teammates together to discuss their agenda. However, this is not happening because Harrington is mainly reactive and the team members feel that he is really in competition with Smithers and only cares about getting a promotion for himself. There is general dissatisfaction among the group as the actual leader, Vonich, has essentially washed his hands of the team and told Harrington (who has never led a team before) to handle everything. Ultimately, this comes down to Vonich being an absent leader—or, as Schyns and Schilling (2013) would say—a poor leader whose lack of good leadership and personal involvement has a negative effect on the team overall.
The leadership style that is being evidenced by Harrington...
That evidenced by Vonich is distant. Between the two, nothing is getting achieved by the group. Instead of identifying goals, Harrington insists on more research among the members. The leadership problems that are occurring are based on the fact that the leader is a novice and does not know how to integrate the members of the team so that they are working together instead of in opposition to one another.
What should be negotiated is how to achieve new product development. Harrington wants more information so as to set the appropriate course, but the rest of the team is frustrated by the manner in which team meetings always end in arguments. No one is willing to listen. This goes against Tuckman’s five stages of group development, which state that in order for a team to become functional, it must first meet five conditions: forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning. These five stages are what need to be negotiated in order for the team to be successful. The forming stage is the first stage and represents the moment when the group is coming together. Often this is where anxiety, fears, doubts and questions are expressed. Harrington’s team needs to get past this stage in order to move on and become successful. Effective communication is critical to this stage. People communicate using verbal and non-verbal cues and these need…
