Team work is becoming more and more prevalent as time goes on. Now more than ever before we are seeing collaborations happen all around us. Work has shifted from in-office to online, and now we are seeing some work transition back to in-office while some work is remaining virtual for the foreseeable future. People are meeting a lot more online yet are still very much dependent on others to get their work done. We can imagine that it is generally easier to work as a team while being in person, and it becomes a little more difficult to do while working apart. The lawyer might rely on the paralegal, and they in turn might rely on the E-Discovery specialist and so on. For some, this reliance on virtual teams might be advantageous, but for others it might be more difficult.
Consider how communication changes when as the workplace changes. For those working in teams that are globally dispersed, virtual teams are fantastic. They can communicate extremely fast and share data or presentations almost immediately. Sometimes however, there are teams that usually work together in person and are not trained properly on how to work in virtual teams. Communication is often hit or miss, meetings are called that could have been avoided with a simple email, and there can be a lot of disorganization if they have poor leadership. From personal experience there has been an influx of meetings that take up too much time and end up being superfluous. Because of this, there are usually numerous requests for overtime in order to get things done within deadlines. Employees are tired and over worked and companies are paying more to allow for overtime because of these meetings that are due to disorganization and poor team leadership.
In order for teams to flourish there needs to be a culture that supports employee engagement, yet some organizations are set up in such a way that their typical vertical decision making is the only way to get things done (Northouse, 2016). Teams will have a hard time achieving goals if they are not empowered to make decisions laterally while also not allowing for decision making at lower levels of rank (Northouse, 2016). So what can be done for organizations that have a really hard time allowing this type of leadership? For example, legal departments sometimes need to run with vertical decision making based on their hierarchy. A paralegal cannot make calls on their level and typically need direction from others who are higher up within their team. Sometimes someone who is higher in the pecking order such as a lawyer will also need things from the paralegal before he or she can proceed. In situations such as this it can be very hard to allow lateral decision making at lower levels because things must be precise and are often reliant on others who are different in rank.
It undoubtedly will take extra effort from those in positions where shared leadership in team settings is difficult to pull off, to lead and be led effectively. One such way of demonstrating effective team leadership is to use distributive leadership where one individual will rise to the leadership occasion when appropriate, and then step back and let others take the lead when appropriate for them (Northouse, 2016). Using the legal department example I mentioned earlier, we can see that it is not possible most of the time for individuals to be able to take positions where they can make decisions autonomously, most of the time. The trade-off is that they can lead in intervals with distributive leadership. One specialist can step up and take the lead and then hand it off to someone else who specializes in a different area. They are not making big decisions themselves but they would now be able to guide collective decisions to be approved by higher management more effectively. Teams that use shared leadership are often higher in trust and cohesion and have less conflict than groups who do not use it, and this is especially true in virtual settings which are very common these days (Northouse, 2016).
In situations such as a big busy legal department, the more common occurrence at least in my experience, is that there will be more team leadership by one individual than there will be individual leadership. Groups will often run themselves but will require guidance and final decision making from their leaders who are mostly managing attorneys and project supervisors. These leaders will need to be able to do and understand a lot, as team leadership can be tricky. They would do well to understand The Hill Model for Team Leadership which basically states that the leader needs to evaluate team performance and then take action to ensure that they have been effective (Northouse, 2016).
The first step within the model is to examine the team and form a mental model of how they are functioning which allows the leader to decide if they need to continue to monitor or if they need to take action. Actions can be internal or external and include task, relational, or environmental actions (Northouse, 2016). This means that they can vary their approach from focusing on training or maintaining standards, to networking and sharing information based on the team’s needs. The outcome is that the leader can evaluate the team’s effectiveness and proceed from there (Northouse, 2016).
Many times I have seen leaders who do not evaluate teams individually and tend to use a blanket strategy for each team they coach. One size does not fit all so this approach rarely works. The Hill Model allows for teams to be evaluated and coached on a case-by-case basis. It works well because it allows for the complexities of team leadership to be analyzed by different points of focus as well as different points of view especially when integrated with shared leadership (Northouse, 2016). The leader can use the model to analyze both internal and external situations and choose from a wide variety of solutions to ensure effective team performance, and when this sort of monitoring and evaluating situations is shared among a group, you will get more diverse behavioral and situational interventions (Northouse, 2016). This will allow for greater team effectiveness all around and especially when there are teams who cannot fully make leadership decisions on their own and require a little help from a true team leader.
Reference:
Northouse, P. G. (2015). Leadership: Theory and Practice. [MBS Direct]. Retrieved from https://mbsdirect.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781483317540/
Lauren Dunleavy says
Hi,
I enjoyed reading your post. I agree that team work is becoming a popular agenda. It’s interesting because i work as a family advocate and I went from meeting with 5-7 families per day in their homes, to now just waving on a computer screen. Things have really changed! I think communication has completely changed in my line of work. I’m seeing people struggle and miss bits and pieces of things being said, which for my team has led to a lot of miscommunication and turmoil. A group has a single target goal and all of the members must work together to achieve this goal (PSU WC L9 P2). If only it were that easy for all groups to understand this. Within the place I work, there is such a huge turn around with employment. It makes it hard for groups to work cohesively because of the huge turnaround. Everyone seems to be in a different phase of group forming and participation.
I find it interesting that you discussed distributive leadership. That is basically how the teams I work in participate. Although, it is not supposed to occur this way. Team members seem to babble on and one of the members will just cut someone off and get to the specific skill or question that is being asked. At the end of the meeting, we all find that the distributive leadership form has helped us all. As you can imagine, going through the stages of forming, storming, norming and conforming can be very hard when everyone on the team is constantly transitioning! The performing stage that we have all been targeting where I work is basically where we are all able to perform our roles, interdependent of one another and accomplish goals successfully (PSU WC L9 P3). Northouse mentions task function and maintenance function as being the two important roles (Northouse 2013). These are things that just don’t seem to be getting accomplished where I work unfortunately.
It seems like such a huge task being the person on the outside watching my supervisor manage all of the moving parts of forming and building groups. Currently she has 3 groups of 3. Each group has a facilitator that runs the group meetings. Each group has a family support advocate that prepares the families and follows up after meetings. Each group also has a youth support that prepares and supports the child/children involved in the group. Every few months one of these team members transitions into either a new role, or they quit their job because of the low pay. While i can imagine how hard it is for my boss to manage all of this, we have still been able to plan successfully with families, and that in my book is an accomplishment!
Pennsylvania State University (2020). Leadership in work. Module 9: Team Leadership. Retrieved from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/2075467/modules/items/30110483
Northouse, P.G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice. 7th Edition. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
Amal Torres says
I liked your title for the blog as it is easy to predict what informative material the blog holds inside. I can relate very well to the first line of your blog as “Teamwork is becoming more and more prevalent as time goes on.” The rapid technological advancement in this modern era demands collaboration and teamwork to achieve and accomplish success. There are scarce organizations that are progressing with individual working plans (Fapohunda, 2013).
Teamwork benefits the organization in many ways. It helps the project be completed with more innovative and creative ideas through teamwork than individual working. It leaves individuals with less stress and workload when they work in a team. Similarly, leaders also face stress because of dealing with more and more subgroups of projects. You are right that managing teams with so many responsibilities requires shared leadership. Shared leadership is as mandatory nowadays as teamwork in organizations (Barak et al., 1999).
Shared leadership indeed has less percentage of cohesion and conflicts than those who are dealt with individual leadership. Because shared leadership has more than one person to deal with, plan, strategize and implement teamwork plans than individual leaders. Shared leaders also have less responsibility for reviewing and finalizing the work as compared to individual leadership. Virtual teams are one such type that demands more effective use of shared leadership (Northouse, 2019). Because in working virtually, the work needs to be checked and whether the participants understand the work, communicating properly with them, checking their reviews, and much more is needed to be monitored in virtual working.
References
Barak, M., Maymon, T., & Harel, G. (1999). Teamwork in modern organizations: implications for technology education. International Journal of Technology and Design Education, 9(1), 85-101. doi.org/10.1023/A:1008849803984
Fapohunda, T. M. (2013). Towards effective team building in the workplace. International Journal of Education and Research, 1(4), 1-12.
Northouse, P. G. (2019). Leadership: theory and practice. SAGE Publications.