In today’s workplace many of us are familiar with working in groups in order to accomplish every day tasks. Groups are considered to be members of two or more people who have a single mission to achieve but can work independently from one another (PSU W.C., Lesson 9, 2014). We are even used to working with other members while getting our degrees through Penn State. While I have worked in groups for certain classes, mo
st professors require we work as a team in order to accomplish the assignment. Teams are different from groups in that the assignment cannot be completed unless each team member works directly with one another. Basically teams are much more dependent on each other than groups are.
In the workplace we find that team leadership is must more common. The performance functions for team leadership include getting the job done, making decisions, solving problems, adapting to changes, making plans, and achieving goals (PSU W.C., Lesson 9, 2014). Leaders of teams need to not only focus on motivating their employees to perform to the best of their ability, but to also ensure that the organization is successful.
Recently we had a monthly team meeting in my office. These meetings bring all members of the branch together to discuss each departments success or short comings in the previous month and discuss how we plan to make improvements if need be going forward. Our manager is the leader of these meetings and was appointed by our Vice President to influence the behavior of all other members through reward or punishment. I personally believe that my manager was born to be a great leader. He contains all the traits needed to motivate us to do better while making us think how we could better our departments. He is just one of those individuals that can draw your attention no matter what he is talking about. He effectively motivates us does through positive criticism and giving us constant recognition of our accomplishments.
Since we have started these monthly meetings, my department has continued to increase our sells while billing out a higher percentage on our cost to sell ratio. While we all work very hard individually to make our organization successful, we must work dependently to one another in order to make sure the goals of the company are met. Positive team leadership skills foster task work while reinforcing excellence. These are the main reasons why our organization continues to be successful month after month.
Leaders today need to invest in their employees to make them successful. Through motivation, recognition, playing into others strengths, maintaining a systematic process and gaining the trust of your teammates team leaders can be the most effective for their organization (John Hall, 2013). With strong leaders such as my manager, companies will run more harmoniously and continue to gain multiple successes in a falling economy.
References:
J. Hall (2013). 12 Simple Things A Leader Can Do To Build A Phenomenal Team. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnhall/2013/01/29/team-building-leader/
Penn State World Campus (2014). PSYCH 485: Lesson 9, Team Leadership. Retrieved from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/fa14/psych485/001/content/09_lesson/08_page.html
Thank you for your blog. I agree that leaders need to invest in their employees. This is what allows some leaders to get the most out of people and help them realize their full professional potential. Employees come to work and want to do well. Most want to excel and be recognized for their efforts. A manager that is aware of this and supports this devotion to work and the tasks involved creates positive synergy as well as allegiance to the team and company.
My early days of work were more influenced by leaders who dictated their instructions and the teams followed. We really had no room for change or questions. I have been fortunate to witness the metamorphosis of the workforce and feel this has been positive progress. People are more committed when they feel their opinions are welcome as part of team contribution without fear of firing or retaliation. The Human Resource environment has progressed to be more of a valuable information source and support for employees and managers. Hall’s twelve steps for managers support the notion that great leaders may also be trained if they are receptive to learning and being open to their employees so they may work together to foster success.
Thank you for sharing the article “12 Simple things a leader can do to build a phenomenal team.”
Hall (2013) mentions twelve things that leader should perform in order to build an effective and successful team. Most of these suggestions are based on Hill’s Model for Team Leadership that describes and arranges leadership actions in groups (Northouse, 2013). Hill divides leadership actions in two main categories, internal and external (Northouse, 2013). Internal category in its own turn is partitioned into task and relational leadership actions. Hill’s task action such as maintaining a standard of excellence is comparable to Hall’s recommendations “don’t settle for mediocre” and “maintain systematic processes” (Hall, 2013). In the latter recommendation, Hall (2013) advises to assess team and individual effectiveness on a regular basis as well as Hill. Moreover, Hill’s internal relational leadership actions that include satisfying individual member needs and building commitment and esprit de corps are similar to Hall’s tips such as “trust is crucial” and “give recognition” (Hall, 2013). In Hill’s model, the author focuses on the leader’s actions that are directed toward diagnosing and resolving environmental problems related to networking, advocating, and sharing information with team members (Northouse, 2013). Hall also includes these aspects in his recommendations; he advocates for sharing information from books and articles about successful leadership with team members. Hall (2013) in his article includes, however, one thing that stands separately because it considers a leader’s action that is not obviously focused on team leadership such as growing a leader’s authority in the industry. Hall (2013) contemplates that a leader who has more expertise and power in one’s field will eventually attract more talented people to his/her team. Even though this idea is not directly correlated to Hill’s leadership actions, it still recalls external environmental action that includes “advocating and representing team to environment” (Northouse, 2013, p.298). Therefore, Hall’s strategies are grounded on Hill’s Model for Team Leadership.
Reference
Northouse, P.G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and practice (6th ed.). Los Angeles: SAGE.
Hall, J. (2013). 12 Simple Things A Leader Can Do To Build A Phenomenal Team. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnhall/2013/01/29/team-building-leader/