Leadership in Business

Chapter 11 - Summary Leadership in Teams and Decision Groups

By: Kevin Pratama Eka Darmadi Lim Eric Ariawan 3094004 3094802 3094808

Class: Y

University of Surabaya Faculty of Business and Economics International Business Networking 2012

THE NATURE OF TEAMS

In many of these subunits the members perform the same type of job, but they work alone, do not depend on each other, and need little coordination. This type if job unit is sometimes called a coating group because there is little role interdependence among the members.

The word team usually refers to a small task group in which the members have a common purpose, interdependent roles, and complementary skills. Some distinct types of teams can be found in organizations, including functional work teams, cross-functional teams, self-managed teams, and top executive teams.

FUNCTIONAL WORK TEAMS

Functional work team usually has different responsibilities, but they are all helping to perform the same basic function. In a functional work team, leadership responsibilities are usually concentrated in a formal leader, although other group members may assist in performing specific leadership functions.

VIRTUAL TEAMS

There are some reasons for increased use of virtual teams, including the rapid pace of globalization, increased inter organization cooperation, employee desire for more flexibility in work arrangements, growing emphasis on service and knowledge management activities, and need for more flexibility and innovation in product development and delivery of customized services.

COMITMENT TO SHARED OBJECTIVES

Task commitment is higher when the team considers the objectives worthy of their best effort. An important leadership role in teams is to make sure that all

numbers are highly committed and willing to make a maximum effort to successfully carry out the team mission.

ACCURATE, SHARED MENTAL MODELS

Mental model is how someone perceives the nature and cause of a problem and likely solutions. A shared understanding about assumption and cause effect relationship can facilitate the development of effective strategies and plans by a team and increase their commitment to Implement them.

INTERNAL ORGANIZATION AND COORDINATION

The performance of a team depends not only on the motivation and skills of members, but also on how members are organized to use their skills. Performance will suffer if a team has talented people but they are given tasks for which their skills are irrelevant, or if the team uses a performance strategy that is not consistent with member skills.

EXTERNAL COORDINATION

The performance of a team also depends upon adjusting their activities to be consistent with the activities of interdependent units inside or outside the organization. External coordination requires timely and accurate information about client needs and outside events which affect the work of the team.

RESOURCES AND POLITICAL SUPPORT

Group performance also depends on getting information, resources, and political support needed to do the work. Maintaining a dependable supply of resources is especially important when the work cannot be done without them and no substitutes can be found.

COLLECTIVE EFFICACY AND POTENCY

Member commitment depends in part on the shared belief of members that the team is capable of successfully carrying out its mission and achieving specific task objectives. Collective efficacy is likely to be higher for a team with strong member skills, a high level of mutual trust and cooperation, ample resources, and a relevant performance strategy.

SELF MANAGED TEAMS

Self-managed teams will help to differentiate between internal and external leadership roles. The internal leadership role involves the responsibilities of management assigned to the team and shared by the members of the group. It is typical for self-managed teams to have an internal team leader who is elected by the members, and the position may be rotated among different members on a regular basis.

The role of an external leader involves the responsibilities of managerial which is not delegated to the team. The type of external leaders is middle managers, special facilitators, or some of the previous first-line supervisors. Each external leader usually works with several teams.

CROSS FUNCTIONAL TEAMS

The advantages of cross-functional teams are the specific leadership behaviors used in cross-functional groups to build task commitment, develop effective performance strategies, ensure member trust and cooperation, obtain necessary resources, and maintain external coordination.

The difficulties and obstacles facing many cross-functional teams are so great which the formal leader cannot carry out all of the relevant leadership roles alone. The difficulties in gaining commitment from members with other duties and conflicting loyalties increase the need in cross-functional teams for a designed leader with significant position power and good interpersonal skills.

MUTUAL TRUST AND COOPERATION

High level of cooperation and mutual trust among the members in an organization will help to carry out the mission of the organization. It is essential for the members to share information and resources and help each other when team member roles are highly independent. Cooperation will occur when members identify with the team, value their membership in it, and are intrinsically motivated to support it. Cooperation is also facilitated by a high level of mutual trust.

DECISION MAKING GROUP

Groups have more relevant knowledge and ideas that can be pooled to improve decision quality and active participation will increase member understanding of decisions and member commitment to implement them.

The quality of a group decision depends in the contribution of information and ideas by group members, the clarify of communication, the accuracy of prediction and judgments, the extent to which the discussion focused on the problem and the manner in which disagreement is resolved.

DETERMIND THE GROUP PROCESS:

1. Group Size

Large group may have more information and a wider variety of perspective about the problem, as well as more opportunity to involve all parties who will be affected by a decision.

2. Status differentials

Large differences in member status can inhibit information exchange and accurate evaluation of ideas, usually low status members are

usually reluctant to criticize or disagree with high status members. However the opinion of high status member has more, influence and tend to be evaluated more favorably.

3. Cohesiveness

A high cohesiveness can be a mixed blessing. A cohesive group of people with similar values and attitudes is more likely to agree with the decision, but members tend to agree too quickly without a complete, objective evaluation, of the alternatives.

4. Member Diversity

The extent to which members vary with regard to personality, demographic attributes. And functional specialization has implication of group process and outcomes. People tend to be less accepting of other who have different belief, values, and traditions. As noted earlier, diversity can also impede communication when members use different language, jargon, measures and criteria.

5. Emotional Maturity

Groups with members, who are low on emotional maturity, tend to have more disruptive self oriented behavior and aggressive behavior like interrupting and shouting down the other members.

6. Physical Environment

The physical environment for a meeting can affect group process, the seating arrangement can create psychological separation of the leader from members, resulting in a climate of stiff formality.

7. Communication Technology

The communication technology used by the group can affect group processes and the resulting decisions. Advances in communication technology offer benefits not only for virtual groups but also for groups with face to face meetings.

LEADERSHIP FUNCGTION IN MEETING

A major obstacle to effective problem solving and decision making in a group that has relevant information and ideas widely distributed among the members. The leadership role can be shared to some extent, but members of decision group often prefer to have one designed discussion leader who has primary responsibility for conducting the meeting.

Application Guideline for leading meetings:

1. Inform people about necessary preparation for a meeting 2. Share essential information with group members. 3. Describe the problem without implying the cause or solution. 4. Allow ample time for idea generation and evaluation. 5. Separate idea generation from idea evaluation. 6. Encourage and facilitate participation. 7. Encourage positive restatement and idea building. 8. Use systematic procedures for solution evaluation. 9. Look for an integrate solution. 10. Encourage efforts to reach consensus when feasible. 11. Clarify responsibilities for implementation.