A team is defined as a group of people working interdevided guiding for leaders to take appropriate actions to achieve team effectiveness.

The actions are clear, elevating goal which team goals must be very clear so that one can tell whether the performance objective has be realized; results-driven structure where teams need to find the best structure for accomplishing their goals; competent team members, groups should be composed of the right number and mix of members to accomplish all the tasks of the group; unified commitment, a common mistake is to call a work group a team but treat it as a collection of individuals, teams do not just happen: They are carefully designed and developed; collaborative climate, the ability of a team to collaborate is essential to team effectiveness; standards of excellence, effective group norms are important for group functioning; external support and recognition, a supportive organizational context includes material resources, rewards for excellent performance, and so on; finally principled leadership, team leaders should serve as coaches. (Northouse, 2013)

                In order to focus more specifically on each one of the actions that Northouse proposed, I have a great experience of teamwork that can illustrate the actions one by one. My freshman year of college I participated in a Supply Chain Management case study with Boeing Company along with three of my other friends. We finally got the second place on the case competition. We had a clear, elevating goal. The goal that we all agree on was to finish the case and meet the requirements of the scenario which were keep a 15% profit and deliver the Chinook aircrafts within four years. We had a result-driven structure where each team member had autonomy. Everyone spoke up of one’s idea to contribute to the case and we set the deadlines for ourselves in order to finish the parts we were assigned to. Since we decided to look at the case from three aspects which were labor cost, supplier evaluation and parts ordering frame we had competent of people (4 of us) needed with one person to sum up our discussion. We had unified commitment where people in our team are best friends to begin with. We communicate and help with each other. Also, the collaborative climate was great and everyone was being trusted since we are friends. The standards of excellence was met because no one wants to let our friends down. The rewards of $1,000 for the first place, $600 for the second place and $400 for the third place served as the external support and recognition. Finally, the team leader in our team was a sophomore who is a year older than the rest of us who served as coach during the case competition.

                Each one of the action is very important. Fail to complete one of them could result in team ineffectiveness. For example, the second year we participated in the case with same teammates and everything else was almost the same as the first year; however, there were failures on result-driven structure and collaborative climate, we did not place anything.

                To sum up, the actions on team effectiveness Northouse emphasized on is very important to follow if the leader want to improve team effectiveness and to complete a higher achievement.

References

Northouse, P.G. (2013).  Leadership: Theory and Practice.  Los Angeles: Sage Publications.

                 On July 7^th, 2013, an airplane coming from Seoul, South Korea to San Francisco, CA. crashed when landing. Two passengers killed and were identified as two 16-year-old Chinese girls who may have been part of a group coming to the United States for summer camp. (Los Angeles Times, 2013) The primary assumption for the crash is the immature skilled pilot which this news brought the media’s attention in China to the air crash that happened in 1997. The airplane operated by China Southern Airline flying from Chongqing to Shenzhen crashed when landing. The pilots tried to land the airplane under bad weather conditions and for the first time on the tract at the southern tip of grounding, grounding of aircraft jump three jump, then. Fly and then turn left up to 1200 meters. The investigation and the 12-minute black box record showed the evidence that the crash happened because of the mistakes that the pilot made. The captain, Lin Yougui, only flew solo for 22 hours; the co-pilot, Kong Dexin, flew solo for 88 hours prior to the air crash. (China Wikipedia)

Further investigation shows that the leader of China Southern Airline had an extremely abnormal relationship with both the captain and the co-pilot, which could be explain by the LMX theory, the in-group relationship. Due to the relationship between the two parties, Lin and Kong were named to be captain and co-pilot when their practical operation level did not meet the standards. And the reason they were on the positions was because the leaders ignored the fact that the pilots had not passed the flight exam. In this situation, the LMX not only ran counter to the basic human value of fairness, but also caused consequences that took 33 people’s lives away.

Leader-member exchange (LMX) theory takes an approach and conceptualizes leadership as a process that is centered on the interactions between leaders and followers. To be specific, within an organizational work unit, subordinates become a part of the in-group or the out-group based on how well they work with the leader and how well the leader works with them. Moreover, subordinates in the in-group receive more information, influence, confidence, and concern from their leaders than do out-group subordinates. (Northouse, 2013) There are both strengths and criticisms associated with LMX theory. Although I personally had great experience during my internship according to LMX theory as one of the in-groups, I am focusing on the criticism of LMX theory in the blog because of this recent happened air crash.  

LMX does lead to the unfairness between the in-group and out-group. According to research, in-group relationship lead to increasing productivity and friendly working environment. However, we have to keep the in-group relationship healthy to prevent tragedies.

S.F. plane crash: Victims identified as 16-year-old Chinese girls (2013, June 7). In Los Angeles Times. Retrieved July 9, 2013, from http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-airplane-crash-students-20130707,0,66810.story

97 5.8 China Southern Airlines plane crash (n.d.). In China Wikipedia. Retrieved July 9, 2013, from http://www.86wiki.com/view/3500948.htm

Northouse, Peter. Leadership: Theory and Practice. 6th ed. Los Angeles: SAGE, 2013. Print.

This chapter mainly focused on skill approach. Compare to the “great man” theory, I personally agree more on the skill approach. Everyone has the potential to lead and to be successful.

There is a great example that I learned from TV. This guy who lost his job and had to live upon his wife’s salary for six years. While he was at home, he took care of their children, did all the house work but he never stopped writing scripts which was his interest. No one thought that he could ever stand out. During these six years, he tried to promote his script in Hollywood and other Chinese film companies. Finally, his hard work paid off when the vice president of Central Pictures Corporation wanted one of his script. His name is Ang Lee. He eventually became a famous director as well as a great leader. Ang Lee was never born to be a leader. His parents worked in school and were good at Arts. However, after the basic technical skills he worked on during the years he was unemployed, he started to become a leader.

I think it is significant for one to build up his/her technical skills in order to be a leader. From my personal experience, I was in a pistol shooting team and in every competition, I was always the champion. Thus, my coach named me to be the team leader and no one opposed for that. I lead my team well and we won a lot of competitions. The reason why my teammates all listened to me is because I have a better technical skill than them and my sayings are convince. I was never a good leader before that and I never thought that one day I could be a good leader. Thus, it is important for any leader in any field to improve their technical skill before they lead.

It is also very important to the leaders that they need to adapt new skills and ways to manage their followers. One cannot simply assume that he or she owns the leading skills. Just like Mumford et al. mentioned, environmental influences plays a role in leadership too. Leaders have to adapt to new environments in order to be successful.

Overall, I don’t think the traits of leader are born but learned. 

Trait of Leader

            As the commentary and the book talked about, trait approach is one of the importance approaches to study leadership. It discussed the Five Factor Model (FFM) of personality which consists of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experience. It also discussed the dark-side of personality traits that related to leadership which are argumentative, interpersonal insensitivity, narcissism, fear of failure, perfectionism, and impulsivity. Intelligence is also related to leadership. However, it’s not only the intelligence quotient (IQ) matters; emotional intelligence (EQ) plays a very important role too.

            Although in the book and commentary, author paid special attention on one’s IQ rather than EQ. I do not agree. According to our textbook, leadership is defined as “a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal.” (Northouse 2013)A good leader has to be warm-hearted, and care for his or her employees in order to bring the team together and to interact with the employees well. This is an important process where the leader could influence a group of individuals. There are research evidences to support that EQ is as important IQ. “A Fortune 500 company in financial services proved that their high EQ salespeople produced 18 percent more than the lower EQ salespeople. One recent study conducted by a Dallas corporation measured that the productivity difference between their low scoring emotional intelligence employees and their high scoring emotional intelligence employees was 20 times. A Texas-based Fortune 500 Company had utilized personality assessments for candidate selection for years with little results in reducing turnover in their high turnover sales force. After turning to an emotional intelligence-based selection assessment and EQ training and development program, they increased retention by 67 percent in the first year, which they calculated added $32 million to their bottom line in reduced turnover costs and increased sales revenues.”

            Also, there is one sentence in the commentary that I cannot agree anymore. The commentary says that different culture might need different leaders in order to maximum the productivity. According to my personal experience, Chinese people pay more attention to benevolence, emotional intelligence, and care-giving. However, in the United States, people pay more attention to individual achievement, for example, IQ rather than EQ.

            In conclusion, due to the culture influence I’ve growing up with, which is in China, I think EQ is more important than IQ.

References

Poskey, M. (n.d.). The Importance of Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace: Why It Matters More than Personality. InZeroriskhr. Retrieved June 18, 2013, from http://www.zeroriskhr.com/articles/emotionalintelligence.aspx