Everyone has been there: the professor drops in the syllabus that there will be an assignment that needs to be completed and it is a group assignment. Many people have also witnessed this in the work force. Not only may you have team members, but you work with co-workers every day to either get a project or task done, or make a business work. Teams happen in everyday life as well: friends coordinating plans, families planning vacations, or making decisions with both friends and family. Teams happen all the time in everyone’s lives whether it is expected or not. The key is, is that without teams we may be lost.
Contrary to many beliefs, working in teams and groups can actually be beneficial (Northouse, 2013, p. 287). There is an old saying that states that two heads are better than one. With so many ideas and solutions combined, a business (or life in general) can go more smoothly. But what makes effective leadership? Even though teamwork can be a great idea, everyone has also been in a group whether it be school, work, friends, or family, which just cannot seem to get anything done or accomplished. According to Northouse in Leadership: Theory and Practice, there many contributing factors for team leadership which can all be part of Hill’s Model for Team Leadership (p. 291). In this model, it claims that the leader’s main goal should be to monitor the team and do whatever action needs to be done in order to ensure effectiveness (Northouse, 2013, p. 289). Below, there is a great picture and representation of the model (Northouse, 2013, p. 291).
The first important step of the Hill’s Model for Team Leadership is the leadership decision process which includes monitoring or taking action. With monitoring, leaders are able to identify and analyze problems (Northouse, 2013, p. 292). With taking action, the leaders are actually able to help the group (Northouse, 2013, p. 292). After this process, a leader then needs to figure out whether they should intervene to meet task or relational needs of the group (Northouse, 2013, p. 292). Here, task needs are essentially performance functions which include the development of the team in order to reach a goal or completion of a project (Northouse, 2013, p. 292). Whereas, relational needs are more of a maintenance function of the team: creating a positive atmosphere, solving interpersonal problems, and making sure people are content (Northouse, 2013, p. 292). Lastly, the last decision that needs to be made by a leader is whether they should intervene internally or externally. In this particular decision, it is essential to know the problem at hand. If there is trouble with the particular task or the group members, then that is an internal problem (Northouse, 2013, p. 295). If the problem is because the team is not getting enough resources, then it is an external problem (Northouse, 2013, p. 295).
I know personally that I have been in a situation where a leader of a group has followed this Team Leadership Model. While at work, I was working with another intern and we both had a supervisor we reported to. Our task was not extremely challenging because it was simply organizing papers into employee files. It was a simple task, yet we had to be taught first where everything needed to go and how the labels should be placed. My supervisor at the time concluded that for the beginning while we were learning, she needed to take action. That was the first decision. She needed to help us with our understanding of how everything should be filed. For the next decision, she needed to figure out whether she needed to intervene to meet task or relational needs. Since the other intern and I had no issues and were set to start our project, our supervisor realized she needed to intervene to meet the task needs. She showed us exactly how the filing should work, where everything should go, and the deadline it needed to be completed by. The last decision she had to make was whether she needed to intervene internally or externally. Since there were no outside factors involved she knew that it would be internal. So therefore, she used an “internal task intervention” or a focus on the goals (Northouse, 2013, p. 295). Though we were her interns, she still used the team leadership model while teaching us how to put everything in its right place.
Teaming up can be tough. Yet somehow, if done correctly, it can be super-efficient. That is why it should be essential to stick with the Hill’s Model of team leadership in order to increase effectiveness. With the team leadership model, a leader can produce excellent performance results and maintain a healthy group environment.
References:
Northouse, P. G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and Practice (6th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.