You are assigned to a team by your professor and given your task in which you have a week to work with that team to create a paper. Your heart begins to beat faster, and you start asking yourself questions. Who have I been paired with? Are they an A student? Are they a C student? Are they going to make contact on the first day the project starts? Am I going to have to do all the work? Sounds familiar, right?
Most of us dread seeing group project assignments show up in our syllabus. I think group work ranks at the top of the most hated list alongside with public speaking. Over the years, I have been a part of many teams during my educational journey. I have found that school teams and the projects associated with them have the potential to be particularly challenging and even more so when they are in virtual settings. We often share different goals, different schedules and come with a mixed bag of competencies. When reflecting on the team projects I have been involved in over the years, I have had both positive outcomes and negative ones. Using some components of team leadership, I will illustrate a successful team I was recently privileged to be a part of and how the relationship that we created was a key factor that contributed to our success.
Team leadership revolves around the needs of the team and the outcomes of the team (Penn State World Campus, L7). Northouse posits that multiple factors lead to successful teams and they include the following; competent team members, a clear goal, a unified commitment to the goal, clear norms of conduct and a collaborative climate (2016). Looking at each of these factors I can clearly see how our team, Joe, Sarah and myself, created our winning recipe for success.
Competent Team Members Competence relies heavily on technical and interpersonal skills (2016) which thankfully we all shared. As we worked to divide and chunk the project out into individual pieces, we were honest about our strengths and weaknesses. For example, I enjoy creating transitions and working on flow, so I offered to take on that role. I also exposed the fact that was not an excellent proofreader so I asked who would like to take that part of the project. Joe and Sarah offered to tackle portions of the paper that they thought they would be best suited for as well. While not every team member needs to have the same level of competency in the same areas the team as a whole must accomplish the team goal. In addition to our honesty related to our strengths and weaknesses, we were all open to each other’s ideas, and all approached the project with a positive attitude that came across in our first email exchanges.Interpersonal teamwork factors such as these are associated with successful teams (Northouse, 2016).
A Clear Goal The rubric gave us the criteria that we would need to fulfill for the project. Once we started a dialogue with each other we confirmed that first, we all understood our assignment and its components and second, we collectively voiced that we wanted to earn the highest grade possible. Had the rubric not been provided we would have been left to our own devices to determine what it was that we needed to accomplish with this assignment. Lacking a rubric, or clear instructions, it could have resulted in wasted time trying to define our goals as we all may have interpreted the assignment differently. Teams can often fail when goals or tasks are not clearly defined (Northouse, 2016). Furthermore, if Joe was determined to get an A on the paper, yet I was fine with a C, our team goals would not have been clear. If I was more interested in just turning in an assignment, but Joe had a goal of high-quality work this would have created an imbalance in motivation within our group. If I was not going to put as much effort into the project as Joe, he would have picked up on this and deemed me a slacker.
Unified Commitment to the Goal Northouse suggests that ‘excellent teams are those that have developed a sense of unity” (2016, p.370). Early on in the project, Joe suggested that we choose funny superhero names for ourselves. This group project was the first that I had been a part of where someone had suggested this rather unorthodox exercise but in hindsight, I felt that this was a key piece to the puzzle that led to our successful ability to work together. Relationship roles are said to support the relationship within the group (Northouse, 2016), and with Joe’s suggestion it helped the three of us, at least in my eyes, make a slightly deeper personal connection with each other. Additionally, during our time collaborating on the discussion forum, through telephone calls or text messages we had opportunities to exchange more personal details about ourselves. The relationship that we created contributed to our commitment to our team goals.
Norms of Conduct I can say that we all equally stepped in as leaders at different times and this led to the feeling that we were all equally qualified, capable and willing to do what it took to meet our goals. In an unspoken way, we were holding each other accountable for the work that we each produced which put pressure on each one of us to perform at our highest level. Northouse suggests that it is important that teams establish its standards of excellence, so members feel pressure to perform at a high level (2016). Because we all combined our clear expectations and that was coupled with the healthy team relationship we created it served to increase our individual commitment to the team and the overall quality of the product that was created.
Collaborative Climate Finally, together we combined to form a collaborative climate with each other. The ability to work with each other was necessary for our team’s success. Although we did not have much time to develop our relationships with any real depth we were able to do so enough to feel comfortable with, trust and rely on each other when necessary. Collaborative climates are developed from “honesty, openness, consistency and respect (as cited by Northouse, 2016. P. 370). When Joe’s kids were sick, we were able to happily accept the adjustment to the schedule we had set forth and did not feel frustrated with the delay. When Sarah had to work the late shift towards the end of the project, I stepped in to take care of all the fine tuning of the paper to get the job done. We trusted that what we told each other was the truth and with this, we did not feel taken advantage of at any point. Effective team leaders facilitate this type of climate, and in our case, we all exhibited leadership behaviors that allowed this positive climate to develop.
Throughout this project, the three of us equally shared in the leadership responsibilities and there was no single leader. Joe assumed the first leadership opportunity when he was the first to post on the discussion board and make topic suggestions. Sarah took it upon herself, in a leadership role, to reach out to a member of the group we had not heard after the first few days After we had a consensus of which movie we would focus on I stepped in to set up a time frame in which we were going to complete the phases of the project. At any given time we would each share assuming leadership roles throughout the project. With our sharing of the leadership roles, we were able to step up when the situation called for it, offer leadership when required and also step back and let each other lead where appropriate (Northouse, 2016). Within the context of our virtual team, we were more effective which this type of leadership rather than if one person alone assumed the leadership role.
Looking back through time, I recall a time that I was part of a team that was not as effective as it could have been. Based on what I have learned and experienced working in this team I can see now that in the previous team there was a lack of trust and understanding which was a consequence of not taking the time to make a personal connection with one another. None of us took a chance to get to know one another at any point during the project. Our project was riddled with misunderstandings, frustrating moments and an unbalanced work distribution. Perhaps the first ingredient in the recipe for success is as simple as suggesting something silly such as making up a superhero nickname like Joe did with our group. Perhaps you are a Magnetic Octopus, Dynamic Munchkin or maybe even a Sticky Assassin. Use it to break the ice and get the team relationship off to the right start during your next group project and see how it goes. Maybe group projects do not have to be as bad as we make them out to be.
References
Northouse, P.G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice (7th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA; SAGE Publications.
Penn State World Campus (2016). PSYCH 485: Leadership in Work Settings. Lesson 9: Team Leadership. Retrieved from: https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1803831/modules/items/21139902
Kyle Eric Jacobson says
In my academic experience group projects represent a grab bag, you have no idea what you’re going to get, and you may even hesitate to put your hand into the bag to get the ball rolling. I believe that your topic of group projects viewed through the team leadership approach is highly relevant and related to almost every student, especially online students who have undoubtedly had both good and bad experiences with group projects. In previous experiences of my own, I have found that group projects work in one of two ways. Either one dominant member steps forward into a “solid” leadership role and the others fall in as submissive subordinates, or leadership is shared among members of the group. Both of these can present significant challenges to a group as they move through the traditional process of forming, storming, norming, and disbanding. I’m happy to hear that you had such a positive shared leadership experience, Northouse (2016) states that although shared leadership invites risk into team, “team to shared leadership have less conflict, more consensus, more trust, and more cohesion than teams that do not have shared leadership” (p. 365). In previous group projects where shared leadership has been successful, I have found the entire experience to be very pleasant and efficient. Under this circumstance, no one person feels the entire burden of command, and each feels as though they can contribute whatever they can to the team and likely feel a higher sense of ownership of the final project.
In this post, I found it very interesting that you found increased productivity that was able to be derived in the team from a higher level of interpersonal connection between the team members. In virtual groups, it is often the human factor that is missing from the team that causes it to lack the cohesion that a face-to-face team may develop. As we learn more about human integration into virtual environments, I would be very interested to see what techniques and technology evolved to bring this sense of interpersonal connectedness into virtual teams that you are able to feel in this situation.
Lastly, I recently found myself on a highly productive virtual team and can relate to many of the topics that you mention in your post. I find it very interesting to see how drastically different each group assignment can be based solely on the personal difference and the situation. Although difficult group projects are likely to still take place in the future for all of us, we may be able to improve the quality of these projects by integrating ideas from the team leadership approach into them and providing more virtual environments such as the one you mentioned where people can thrive and projects can be completed through trust and good team collaboration.
Best wishes,
GD
Graciella Maria De Souza says
Very interesting comment, and to start I may agree with your statement that team work is really scary for most students at some extent. The self-questioning is probably pretty accurate and I would not say it is the most hated interaction source among students, but is certainly difficult, specially on online courses. There are online barriers that makes students interactions limited and impersonal. Behind the computer screen it is easier for most people to just justify their behaviors and lack of collaboration on team work, when face-to-face homework makes it difficult because people do not want to face the disappointment of others in the team. So there are many considerations about this source of interactions and the differences can generate a list long of characteristics.
I am happy your team experience was positive and each member would consciously contribute to the final work. I have had mixed experiences throughout this few past years with online teams, some of them were really efficient and the results were very good. However, I have had tragic experiences where some team members were not in the same page and they always end up misleading our goals. Either ways, the experiences were valid as I have learned a lot about team leadership and situational factors (Northouse, 2016). The interpersonal relationship is definitely ground breaking in this source of work; apparently in your team it worked well. In some of my experiences, social loafing happened a lot and members would definitely wait on others to finalize the team work (Aronson, Wilson, & Akert, 2013). It made the interpersonal relationship weak and there was some mistrust throughout the semester because it raised a feeling that those team members would never be accountable.
Maybe the secret for your team was really the norm of conduct, as you mentioned everyone acted the same way and it created the feeling that everyone’s qualifications were synchronized. Also the team leadership style proved to be very efficient, as all of you contributed to the situation and seemed to relate to one another pretty well. Congratulations! I know in some teams the work can be frustrating and challenging. Overall, the idea of team work on online classes is to help us to develop an ability to exchange knowledge and learn with others’ feedback. This training we receive in class will help us in the future to prepare to opportunities where our work interactions will be informal or inconsistent. When we get there, we will have an good insight of our attitudes towards team work and professional online interactions. This team work at classes are a good base forming for us, and may be well used when the time comes.
Sincerely,
Graciella Souza
References:
Aronson, E., Wilson, T. D., & Akert, R. M. (2013). Social psychology (8th ed.). Boston: Pearson.
Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice (7th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.