photo taken in Shanghai, China by Jianan Ye
“…information from the social environment (i.e., communication and friendship networks among coworkers) had a significant effect on individuals’ job satisfaction.”— (Schneider et al., 2016)
Before I moved to the U.S., I worked for an Italian suit company based in Shanghai, China, as a writer for their marketing team. In that corporation, I was part of a large team that consisted of a photographer, designers, other field staff, and my team leader. One of my regular assignments was to conduct GQ-style interviews with male guests who were considered successful businessmen in Shanghai who “knows how to choose and wear a suit”. In my role, I first needed to communicate with the interviewee on the phone to get to know him a bit and introduce to him the whole interview process. Then, we would meet in person along with our whole team. When the photographer and designers were taking care of the interviewee’s appearance, I conducted the interview. The interview article I wrote, with photos taken by other team members, would later be posted on the company’s several media platforms.
photo taken in Shanghai, China by Jianan Ye
I admit I loved that job. It was time flexible, well-paid, and I was able to meet many interesting people and hearing their stories. I fulfilled every task I was assigned to on time and customers were happy with my work. However, my job satisfaction at the time was undoubtedly low. It was not the job that bothered me but the team leader.
Our team leader liked to act like a boss, and to flaunt her authority to a quite extreme level. One day, it was at the company’s dinner party, I was completely stunned by her behavior. “Who da hell do you think you are? You do what I told you to do! Got it?” It was loud and rude. She just humiliated one of our colleagues in front of 50 guests. I saw that young, humiliated colleague’s face turned pale. Everyone in the room, including the guests, were looking at her, trying to comprehend what just happened. I was also confused by this type of management or even social interaction. From that moment, I knew that she was not the person that I would want to follow. Eventually, I learned that while she had an excellent public relations background, she was very actually insecure about her limited fashion knowledge, and therefore acted in a way to instill fear in her subordinates in order to appear in charge.
photo taken in Shanghai, China by Jianan Ye
This week, as I learned the term “team cohesion” from the textbook, this old memory came back. Since that incident at the party, the team dynamic changed dramatically. If “team cohesion” existed before the incident, it was gone after that party. It reflects what was depicted in the textbook that “…autocratic leadership (i.e., the coach as leader makes all decisions and refrains from delegating any power) is associated with lower levels of task cohesion.” (Schneider et al., 2016) My old team leader certainly fits into this category of autocratic leadership, and as you can see, it kills the cohesion within the team. As a result, everyone at the team eventually left, and I was the first.
“Hey, dear, my new job is fantastic! I really should have left earlier!” The young photographer, the one who was humiliated by the leader at the party, called me before I left for the U.S., sounding happy.
Reference:
Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., & Coutts, L. M. (Eds.). (2016). Applied social psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems (3nd ed). Sage.
Tags: psych424
Team cohesion is a very important aspect to have for a business. Many companies today have team building activities in order for the employers in the business to build relationships with one another. This improves companies as a whole. Employers build relationships with each other causing them to trust each other with completing their own tasks to achieve the goals the company has set. Team cohesion in a work place leads to a sense of belonging and personal satisfaction which is important for creating a work environment where employees want to stay and excel. Creating a work environment where the employees want to excel causes the business to achieve more of the goals set for it (Podium, 2021). The importance of team cohesion is that if team cohesion is occurring, the team is working well together which leads to improved performance. Team cohesion can improve the performance and motivation of a team (Gruman, 2016). As you have described in your experience, the company you worked for lacked team cohesion. What do you believe your team leader could have done differently in order to create a work atmosphere where team cohesion existed? If you were the team leader, how would you have created a work environment where team cohesion worked effectively?
Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (2016). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (3rd Edition). SAGE Publications, Inc. (US). https://mbsdirect.vitalsource.com/books/9781506353951
Podium. “6 Steps to Improve Team Cohesion and Achieve Goals Faster.” Podium, 30 July 2021, http://www.podium.com/article/team-cohesion.