Team leadership principles and practices

Team Leadership

Many organizations have inspired to a team-based structure within the last twenty years. In some cases the teams are independent or leaderless. But few companies have grown to be really victorious with their independent teams. A changeover period is necessary in victorious cases to aid the old supervisors to move into new roles as facilitators or resource managers. In the greater part of team-based organizations and during that changeover period, there is a requirement for team leaders. This position is different from the traditional supervisor, and thus requires different skills/capabilities. (Team Leadership: www.hmhandassociates.com) One of the main and latest additions to the literature on leadership concentrates on team leadership. Most science moves ahead through projects. These projects consist of interdisciplinary teams and usually have project staffs that are gathered mainly for the project in question. The aptitude of project managers to work efficiently in this fluid organizational environment may thus become a necessity. (Chapter 12: Leadership)

The following are the ways in which the team leadership varies from the traditional top-down leadership: Accountability for group success is not the leader's responsibility alone but is shared by the group; Control over the final decision is not retained by the leader but is best left to the group; The significance of one's function and power are de-emphasized in team leadership; The leader views the group not as a set of individuals but as an cooperating and combined team; The task-oriented jobs of the team are not done only by the leader but are shared by the whole group through its new roles; Group maintenance functions are not done methodically but are highlighted and shared by the group as a whole; Socio-emotional processes and communications, while generally disregarded by leaders in top-down settings, are watched strictly by team leaders; Expressions of members requirements and thoughts are not depressed but are encouraged by team leaders and are dealt with plainly in meetings. (Team Leadership: www.ncrel.org)

In the earlier part of 1980's Sony was going through a failing phase with its computer products as many of them are out of date by the time they hit the market. To turn around this failure, Toshi T. Doi was inducted to develop a new line of small office computers. One of his initial actions was to draw together a team of 11 engineers and motivate them to design any kind of computer they wanted with a small number of specifications. The team came to a conclusion that rather than developing an office computer, they would develop an engineering workstation. Their enthusiasm for the project forced them to spend nights and weekends working, dedicated to making "their dream" a certainty. In six months, they developed what typically takes two years to develop, a workstation acceptable to the market. Within one year the product acquired over 20% of the Japanese workstation market. It was an extraordinary team achievement. Doi intuitively felt that he would need a real team to turn around the failing phase in Sony's computer products. (Team Leadership: Emerging Challenges)

Though real teams are easy enough to characterize and explain, they insist unfailing hard work and persistent attention to the six fundamentals of the definition of a team: 'a small group with complementary skills, committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and working approach for which they consider themselves jointly accountable'. For successful enterprises, teams are turning out to be more essential. Front-line workforce teams are usual in most basic industries, cross-functional teams are regularly the best way to manage across complex matrix situations, and unbiased leadership systems increasingly grow the added leadership capacity that comes from team ability closer to the top. (Team Leadership: Emerging Challenges)

Future team leaders will have to raise the level of their game in four ways: thoroughly reviewing and reacting quickly to team chances based on circumstances; inculcating self-control among the members; changing leadership roles more effortlessly and widely; and training to use the fundamentals in a large range of "virtual team" situations. Victory in a quickly changing marketplace will need the skill to change performance patterns from side to suit the job at hand. Therefore, it will be important to be able to recognize the circumstances that call for one-leader unit behavior, on top of those that necessitate team behavior, and to alter the working approach of group appropriately. The combined performance results of any small working group are more about regulation than being together, authority or personal responsibility. But real teams need a very different kind of discipline than one-leader units.

In both cases, the leader may start the needed discipline; but as group competence comes out, peer- and self-control come into take part in. Surprisingly, the U.S. Marine Corps generates some of the best examples of team performance that we have noticed. A real team, at all times, have a leader. It is capable of extracting leadership ability of each of its members at different times and in different manners. Based on the job, real teams enhance their leadership ability by changing the role of leader from side to side within members. The member with the adequate knowledge or experience related to the specific job currently handled will take on the leader position. It is more demanding to change the position of leader if the teamwork happens at a higher level in an enterprise because of embedded lifestyle and crushing time pressures. However, the most successful teamwork at any level in the organization displays skill for any and all members to be in charge of the group at different times. (Team Leadership: Emerging Challenges)