Think back to your childhood. Your parents have enrolled you in the community soccer program and you are aimlessly running around the field, having more interest in looking up at the sky rather than kicking the soccer ball. Maybe you think back to when you were at school, learning the alphabet as a class through singing and listening to fun stories. From a young age, individuals are presented with the concept of working together with others to accomplish designated goals (Penn State World Campus, 2023). A child’s enrollment in school or sports further expands on their knowledge of teams. These examples signify the fun, light-hearted nature of connection and collaboration within teams. Overtime, competition is introduced at individual, team and organizational levels. Does personal competition put a damper on the collaborative, fun nature of teams or does it strengthen the team structure and overall goal performance? The importance of balancing both task accomplishment and team maintenance within team leadership becomes more prevalent when teams are challenged with competitive forces.
Throughout my childhood, I was involved in various softball programs, including school, travel and the community’s little league teams. The marketing of these programs symbolized family and friendship. These values depicted the foundational elements of collaboration within teams. Teams are designed with the intent of accomplishing a goal through high levels of interaction and dependency (Penn State World Campus, 2023). Teams can not accurately function without teammates taking responsibility for distinguished tasks and communicating with other teammates to incorporate all the individual portions into one comprehensive goal (Penn State World Campus, 2023). I played softball alongside the same groups of girls from elementary to high school, across all teams I was involved in, with the goal of building a sisterhood and winning games through the collaboration of individual and team skills.
The fun of little league and singing chants in the dugout began to dwindle as competition became more prevalent within the game. Competition not only presented itself as the other teams that stood diagonal to ours in the away dugout, but also was displayed within our own dugout as other teammates names were displayed on the starting lineup. The team dynamics began to falter as a result of travel teams intermingling within school and personal competition increasing. Our collaboration was outwardly displayed by our level of performance against external competitors but internally our collaboration declined with each new season and game that was presented. Personal competition within the team negatively impacted our team structure and inhibited the team from fully reaching mutual goals. Many individual players and the coach were driven by competition and task performance rather than the collaborative environment within the team.
Success within these teams is dependent on effective leadership (Northouse, 2021). Team leadership has critical functions within team development and performance. Leaders facilitate the attainment of goals by making decisions and problem-solving. By engaging in team based problem-solving, leaders evaluate the internal and external circumstances to generate quality strategies that will enhance team effectiveness (Northouse, 2021). The school coach, who was also involved in a travel organization, treated the school team as practice for his travel team. The coach focused on the performance of his travel players rather than acknowledging other players for their skill and utilizing all players to increase team effectiveness. Team members, especially those receiving play time, leaned into these conditions and acted superior to other teammates. This merge between school and travel teams enhanced personal competition and facilitated differentiating goals across players. The team dynamics faltered as a result of inconsistent interactions within relationships.
Competition may propose enhanced motivation and involvement within teams or it may present the exact opposite. Depending on it evolves, competition can have detrimental impacts on teams (Li, 2022). Individuals interact with others based on how they perceive one’s goals are connected with their own (Beersma et al., 2003). Negative feelings and behaviors can generate as a result of personal completion among team members, especially in relation to allocating task-relevant knowledge (Li, 2022). Individuals within competitive team structures withhold valuable information and may be more motivated to impede on other team member’s advancements rather than support them for the benefit of the whole team. Team members within this competitive environment do not act in the interest of others (Beersma et al., 2003). Personal competition initiates comparison between team members, creating divisions within the team structure (Li, 2022). Rather than collaborating working together to attain goals, individual team members aim to behave in ways that improve their personal outcomes. Collaboration with others in competitive conditions would inhibit individual success. These divisions generated within a team by personal competition can diminish overall team performance (Li, 2022). Team failure may be dependent on a team’s inability to integrate individual contributions (Northouse, 2021).
Without a supportive environment, competition can significant put a damper on collaborative climate within teams. Effective team leaders engage in maintenance functions to ensure the team acts in a cohesive, positive manner (Penn State World Campus, 2023). In reference to this example, these relational functions were absent. The coach did not encourage collaboration among all team members (Northouse, 2021). These functions were attributed to team captains in hopes to maximize team effectiveness (shared leadership) but due to the extent of personal competition within the team, these functions were not supported (Northouse, 2021). The initiative of shared leadership enhanced more dysfunctional roles within the team, distracting the team from the attainment of its mutual goals (Penn State World Campus, 2023).
Overall, the team would have benefited from more of a balance between team performance and team development (Penn State World Campus, 2023). More effective teams attain cohesion and distinguished task-related outcomes (Northouse, 2021). In order to enhance team performance within this example, team leaders should have focused more on the collective and collaborative elements of teams. To do this, leaders develop a safe environment that encourages communication and they also manage the team’s problem-solving initiatives (Northouse, 2021). The integration of the these crucial team aspects would have fostered more trust within the team and would have diminished conflict referring to personal competition. If these leadership functions were balanced, the team could have benefited from more of the positive qualities that competition can introduce.
References
Beersma, B., Hollenbeck, J. R., Humphrey, S. E., Moon, H., Conlon, D. E., & Ilgen, D. R. (2003). Cooperation, Competition, and Team Performance: Toward a Contingency Approach. The Academy of Management Journal, 46(5), 572–590. https://doi.org/10.2307/30040650
Li, J. (2022). Personal Competition Among Sports Players and Their Performance as a Team: A Moderated Mediation Model. Frontiers in psychology, 13, 862599. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.862599
Northouse, P.G. (2021). Leadership: Theory and Practice. 9th Edition. Los Angeles: Sage Productions. ISBN 978-1-5443-9756-6
Penn State World Campus (2023). Lesson 9: Team Leadership. https://psu.instructure.com/courses/2245314/modules