Strengthening Team Cohesion Through Leadership and Communication

Introduction

For a team to succeed in their activities, they need a strong leader who brings the team together by ensuring team members trust each other and work toward achieving the team's goals. According to Northouse (2012), the team leader is important and should exhibit traits such as intelligence, confidence, integrity, and determination. Kouzes and Posner (2012) suggest similar qualities, stating that the leader should be honest, inspiring, competent, and forward-looking. These scholars present different perspectives on group and team dynamics, 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 demonstrated through communication and problem-solving skills, effective in creating synergy with the team, and determined. Kouzes and Posner (2012) define competence as the most important trait for bringing a team together. According to these scholars, when a leader is competent, they can instill enthusiasm, energy, and optimism in their followers, making them more cohesive. Northouse (2012), by contrast, argues that leaders need to inspire their teams to be cohesive through intelligent communication.

The similarities between Northouse (2012) and Kouzes and Posner (2012) are evident, yet they diverge on important dimensions. Kouzes and Posner (2012) state that strategic planning and forecasting—the ability to anticipate challenges and obstacles and mitigate them effectively—is a key strength team leaders should possess. Northouse (2012) supports this view, stating that a leader must act proactively through their interaction with the team. Both scholars also agree that leaders should look beyond self-interest and focus the team on common interests. Through these shared principles, effective leaders create the psychological safety and mutual commitment necessary for team cohesion.

Sharing the Vision and Team Involvement

As argued by Ruef (2010), to lead a team effectively, the leader must align the team around a shared vision. The scholar states that the most important element of leadership is the ability to develop a common vision that becomes the inspiration for team members to follow. Alignment is critical to ensure the leader and team are moving in the same direction.

Sharing a team vision is the foundation for setting goals and turning plans into action. In today's environment, it is important for the team leader to persuade, inspire, and influence team members toward developing individual goals that align with the overall team goal. When team members participate in goal setting, they feel greater ownership of the vision than when the leader develops it unilaterally. However, this collaborative process can be time-consuming and sometimes haphazard. Thus, the team leader should guide the team to develop these goals in an energizing and productive session, maintaining charge of the process throughout.

The leader's objective should be to gain team commitment to the shared vision. This commitment can be achieved by getting all team members to contribute to the team's vision in some way, transforming it into a genuinely shared vision through a 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 teams that are geographically distributed but share a common goal. Non-virtual teams, also referred to as collocated, conventional, traditional, or face-to-face teams, work together in physical proximity. Today's connected world has increased the popularity of virtual teams as companies embrace this working model, which removes barriers such as traffic and relocation costs.

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

Virtual teams are fundamentally different from face-to-face teams in several ways. The first key difference, defined by Cleaver (2001), is that virtual teams are often characterized by disadvantages such as lack of emotion in communication, lack of visual contact, and slow feedback. These factors create inefficiencies in how teams work. Research has found that non-virtual teams had greater levels of communication and teamwork due to physical proximity, which facilitates efficient communication. Face-to-face teams tend to develop closer relationships that enable these interactions.

Another difference, as defined by Naquin and Tynan (2003), is that virtual teams often tend to be passive and suffer from inferior decisions. They are more prone to power-oriented decision-making where team members receive instructions from their leader. In contrast, face-to-face teams benefit from active communication and discussion that allows them to share creative ideas and generate collaborative solutions.

To create cohesiveness in both team environments, the team leader must ensure active and regular communication with all team members. When team members are empowered with information, they can perform their tasks more effectively. This means teams should meet regularly to ensure they have a platform for communication. Second, team leaders in both environments must set the stage for conflict resolution. While virtual teams are more prone to conflict, leaders must find interpersonal ways of resolving conflict rather than relying solely on electronic communication (Rad & Levin, 2003). If needed, the leader may organize a face-to-face meeting with the team member to resolve the conflict. Finally, team leaders should talk separately with outliers—team members who do not share the team vision. The leader should connect individually with such members and relate the team vision to their personal interests (West, Hirst, Richter, & Shipton, 2004).