Team and Group Dynamics

Strengthening Others for Team Excellence

For a team to be successful in their activities, they need a strong leader who will bring the team together by ensuring the team members trust each other and look forward to achieving the goal of the team. According to Northouse (2012), the team leader is important and should exhibit traits such as intelligence, confidence, integrity, and determination. Kouzes and Posner (2012) also suggest similar qualities stating that the leader should be honest, inspiring, competent, and forward-looking. These scholars present different views of groups and teams dynamic, which form the subject matter of this paper.

Group dynamics and cohesiveness

According to Northouse (2012), a group's cohesiveness is promoted by the leader's qualities. The leader should be intelligent, as seen in their communication and problem-solving skills, excellent as seen in their synergy with the team and determined. Kouzes and Posner (2012) define competence as the most important trait to bring together a team. According to these two scholars, when the leader is competence, they are able to instill enthusiasm, energy and optimism in their followers making them cohesive. Northouse (2012), on the other hand, argues that the leader needs to inspire their team to be cohesive through their intelligent communication.

The similarities between the arguments by Northouse (2012) and Kouzes and Posner (2012) are clear yet also different on another level. Kouzes and Posner (2012) state that strategic planning and forecasting to see challenges and obstacles and mitigate them effectively is the key strength a team leader should have. Northouse (2012) also supports thus stating that a leader must act proactively through their interaction with the team. The scholars also agree that a leader should look beyond their self-interests and focus the team on the common interest.

Sharing the vision and team involvement

As argued by Ruef (2010), to lead a team effectively, the leader must align the team around the shared vision. The scholar states that the most important element of a leader is their ability to develop a common vision for their team members, which becomes their inspiration to follow. Alignment is important to make sure that the leader is not moving in one direction and the team in a different direction.

Sharing a team vision is the foundation for setting goals and turning plans into actions. In today's world, it is important for the team to persuade, inspire, and influence their team members towards developing individual goals that align with the overall team goal in order to get everyone aligned. The advantage of involving the team members in creating individual goals is that when the team members participate in goal setting, they feel greater ownership of the vision than when the leader develops the vision and goals on their own. On the contrary, this process can be time-consuming and haphazard. Thus the need for the team leader to get the teams to develop these goals in an energizing and productive session and he or she should be in charge of the process at all times.

The objective of the leader should be to gain the commitment of the team towards the shared vision. This commitment can be gained by getting all team members to contribute to the team's vision in one way or another so that it becomes a shared vision through the collaborative approach. The leader then provides direction for the team based on the agreed vision and team cohesiveness increases considerably.

Virtual and non-virtual teams

Virtual teams, as defined by Rad and Levin (2003), are the teams that are geographically distributed in different areas but share a common goal. Non-virtual teams, also referred to as collocated, conventional, traditional or face-to-face teams, are those teams that work together in physical proximity. Today's connected world has increased the popularity of virtual teams since more companies are embracing this way of working since it removes barriers and challenges such as traffic, relocation, etc.

One key similarity between virtual and tradition teams is that they share a common goal. No matter where the team members are located, they need to share a common goal since this is what brings them together. Another similarity is that the teams interact with each other through verbal and non-verbal communication to discuss and facilitate their work.

Virtual teams are fundamentally different from face-to-face teams. The first key difference is that defined by Cleaver (2001). Virtual teams are often characterized by demerits such as lack of emotion in communication, lack of visual contact, and slow feedback. This creates disadvantages and inefficiencies in how the teams work. In a research study, it was found that non-virtual teams had greater levels of communication and teamwork due to the physical proximity that facilitates efficient communication. Face-to-face teams tend to develop close relations that facilitate these interactions.

Another difference between virtual and non-virtual teams is defined by Naquin and Tynan (2003). Virtual teams often tend to be passive and suffer from inferior decisions since they are more prone to a power-oriented dimension of decision-making where team members receive instructions from their leader. On the other hand, face-to-face teams have the advantage of active communication and discussion that allows them to share creative ideas towards generating collaborative solutions.

To create cohesiveness in these team environments, the team leader must ensure he or she actively communicates to all team members regularly. When team members are empowered with information, they are able to perform their tasks better. This means the team members should meet regularly to ensure they have a platform for communication. Secondly, the team leaders in both environments must set the stage for conflict resolution. While virtual teams are more prone to conflict, the team leader must find a more interpersonal way of resolving conflict rather than using electronic communication (Rad & Levin, 2003). If needed, the leader may organize a face-to-face with the team member to resolve the conflict. The last way a team leader should ensure cohesiveness is to talk to outliers separately. When there are team members who do not share the team vision, the team leader should find a way to separately connect with this team member and connect the team vision to the individual's personal interests (West, Hirst, Richter, & Shipton, 2004).

Importance of communication, conflict resolution, and geographical issues