Strengthening Others for Team Excellence

Team Excellence

EMPOWERING, NURTURING

Strengthening Others for Team Excellence

Overview of Concepts

The first concept is transformational leadership, which is rooted on the ability to inspire and motivate (Northouse, 2013; Abu-Tineh et al., 2009). First introduced by Max Weber in 1948 and broadened by Sir McGregor Burns in the 70s, it connects charisma and leadership. It is woven around the four key concepts or styles, or the four I's, namely, idealized influence, inspirational motivation, individual consideration, and intellectual stimulation. Idealized influence shapes a follower into a leader by making him live a leader's action each day. This is applied to all types of groups. Inspirational motivation commits a follower or member to the group's shared vision. This inspires followers to work harder and better in achieving or fulfilling that shared vision. A certain level or amount of charisma is required of the leader in order to create this influence. Individualized consideration is used by almost every organization to detect or teach and then entrench the skills of individual followers or members for success. Examples are coaching, mentoring, and advising. Their individual needs are identified and fulfilled for the welfare of the greater group. The objective is to discover these needs and use them as basis in teaching critical skills to members for the purpose of achieving the group vision. And intellectual stimulation encourages new thoughts and approaches to group issues and problems. Long-held convictions are challenged instead of rejected. The leader facilitates intellectual stimulation by demanding increasing performance and better results from followers each time. Members respond to this challenge and this demand by presenting innovative or creative solutions in surpassing expectations and competitors (Northhouse, Abu-Tineh et al.).

Kouzes and Posner fashioned their own idea of a model leadership from their interviews of more than 1,300 middle-and-senior-level managers from both public and private sectors on their "personal best" experiences as leaders. Their model consists of fie five fundamental practices by which leaders may drive their members to perform extraordinary acts. These are model the way, inspire a shared vision, challenge the process, enable others to do, and encourage the heart. The strategy for commitment in modeling the way consists of setting a personal example through their own behavior and fulfilling their promises. In inspiring a shared vision, the leader constructs compelling ideals or visions of future outcomes and listens to others' own dreams and visions as well as shows them how their dreams may be realized. Challenging the process means willingly changing the status when needed and taking risks into the unknown. The leader leads followers to take educated or sensible risks and learning from mistakes as they do. He enables members by allowing them to make their own choices and supporting these choices and decisions. And he encourages the heart by rewarding members for their accomplishments by means of open praise, authentic celebrations and rituals (Northouse).

Their model is rooted on behaviors and presents prescriptions for leaders (Northouse, 2013). Even those with ordinary abilities can follow their recommended five practices of exemplary leadership because it is based on practice rather than personality. Kouzes ad Posner also produced the Leadership Practices Inventory assessment tool, consisting of 30 questions, for individual leadership competencies. It has been popularly used in leadership training and development programs (Northouse).

II. Importance of Sharing the Vision and Team Involvement

Through these, the leader is able to establish an environment of teamwork, which encourages all members to act uniformly in achieving the bigger vision of the team or organization (Northouse, 2013). An example is a leader informing members exactly what he believes in and the ways through which he became successful. Another is how cooperating with others contributed a lot or entirely to his achievements and getting to where he is now.

III. Differences and Similarities between Virtual and Non-Virtual Teams

Advancements in technology have increased the options of meeting and communicating with members of a group (Leimbach & Eidson, 2010; Root III, 2014). Instead of everyone physically gathering in a given location, some or all can meet in a virtual location. A virtual location is not bound to geographical limits and covers even remote areas. A non-virtual or traditional team meets physically in an actual and given location. Findings of a 2010 report said that 80% of surveyed companies formed virtual teams and conducted virtual meetings (Leimbach & Eidson, Root).

Communications and meetings by non-virtual or traditional teams cost more than those of virtual teams because of travel expenses, accommodations and rentals and expenses on materials used in meetings (Leimbach & Eidson, 2010; Root, 2014). A virtual team, in comparison, can cut costs up to 50% while tackling the same business as a non-virtual team. Members of a virtual team tend to perform multiple tasks than those in a non-virtual team. Furthermore, members of a non-team are able to strengthen their bond, build greater comfort among themselves through spontaneous conversations of shared experiences and reinforce the importance of their roles as real people. They are also more intimate and responses are more immediate, which are something lacking in virtual teams (Leimbach & Eidson, Root).

IV. Communication, Conflict Resolution and Geographical Issues

Communication may lower the cost of virtual team activities like meetings and remove geographical differences (Leimbach & Eidson, 2010; Root, 2014). But they cannot achieve the same effectiveness of actual or non-virtual team activities and interactions. Communication suffers in virtual team interactions because of the lack of human factors like the tone of the voice, body language, facial expressions and important non-verbal cues. These non-verbal cues may indicate confusion, displeasure, discomfort or some disagreement, which can lead to miscommunication and problems (Leimbach & Eidson, Root).