Every company has a way that they operator; there are different positions that need to be filled to make sure that a place is running efficiently. This can vary from place to place. In my time in the workforce I have only had worked for three companies and one is very recent. Just from the short amount of time working there I have been able to see how they have grown to be a strong player in the environmental technologies field because they make sure that we as employees are as efficient as we can be. All of it starts with our team; we are broken up into four different teams that team is the people that you continue to work with everyday.
With any team over time you bond. When walking around this facility you can see how true that is for the team that I am on. They all know each other and they know what each person is good at.
The Hill Model could be used to represent the leadership at the company that I work for. First off we take a look at the leadership. We determine that the person responsible for the whole facility would be the Plant Manager and he oversees how efficient we are as employees and to make sure that we are meeting all of the customers needs and specifications. Though he is primarily responsible for how we are as a whole he is only part of the leadership. There is a whole different level to the leadership team and that is the person that is right above the operators the one on the floor, making the decisions to make sure that we are meeting all of the goals put in place for us. When looking at the Hill Model we can see the leadership decisions can be broken down there have to make decisions about tasks, they need to know when to monitor or take action and finally they need to know if it is a internal or external leadership action. (Northouse, 2016)
For this assignment I am going to focus on the internal leadership actions because they are the actions that I get to see on a daily basis. When running a business everybody is trying to be the very best they can. My company being no different we are trying to stay at the top of the field we are in and need to make sure that we are performing to our highest ability to make sure that keeps happening. Each person is put on a team I am on team B and each team has a leader. When looking at a leader you may see somebody that is pointing you in the right direction but it is so much more than that. Per the Hill Model once it’s shown that it’s an internal decision we can break that down more. This is where we see tasks and relational. One of the tasks at my work is goal focusing and in order to get us excited about that goal as a team they do goal sharing. Where we have goals put in front of us our leader tells us what we need to do as a team to get there and gives us the tools necessary. Another thing our leader focuses on is maintaining standards. We have standards as a company and the companies buying from us also have standards and our team leader is the one that does evaluations to make sure that we are performing up to those standards everyday we step on the floor. He is overall responsible for how we act and perform as a team. If we are not doing something correct he will be the one correcting us and coaching us to make sure that we are not performing at a lower level.
The reason it works for us to have a team leader is because we need to be efficient as we possibly can. There is a sense of order we know who to turn to when we need help, support, motivation and overall communication he is the one that lets us know what we need to do to. I’m some companies people complain of a lack of communication but my team leader makes sure that we are informed and able to do the best job that we can.
Northouse, P.G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
maa5905 says
Your post describes a few instances of team leadership, and brings to light that in organizations today, a person may be a leader on one team, but a member of another team. For example, your floor manager leads a team of operators but is a member of the plant manager’s team.
In your post, you mention that your employment with your company is recent and acknowledge that team bonds form over time. Northouse (2016) posits that “integration of individual actions is one of the fundamental characteristics of effective teams” (p. 370). Your observation that members of your team “know each other and know what each person is good at” supports this premise. It also supports the outcomes that organizations seek to achieve through effective teams: greater productivity, more effective use of resources, and better decisions and problem solving (Northouse, 2016). But as a new member of Team B, have you faced any challenges with group that have required the team leader to employ internal relational leadership actions?
Our lesson commentary describes different stages of group development. The second state, storming, is characterized by group conflict. When new members join an established group, the group may go through the storming stage—and encounter conflict—as new members learn how they fit into the group (PSU WC, 2018, L.9). Hackman (in Coutu and Beschloss, 2009) points out that newcomers can be “deviants” …and that’s a good thing. A deviant is “someone who can help the team by challenging the tendency to want too much homogeneity, which can stifle creativity and learning” (Coutu and Beschloss, 2009). It would be up to the team leader to step in to address collaboration issues, conflict, or power issues that may spring up with the introduction of a new member to help integrate the new member and their contributions for the best interest of the team (Northouse, 2016).
References
Coutu, D., & Beschloss, M. (2009). Why teams don’t work. Harvard Business Review, 87(5), 98-105.
Northouse, P.G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
Penn State World Campus (2018). Lesson 9: Team leadership. Retrieved March 17, 2018 from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1923777/modules/items/23736159