Leading and Working in Teams

Characteristics of work groups

• size
• shared purpose
• interaction over time
• interdependence
• identity

What makes a group a team?

• clear and inspiring shared goals
• results-driven structure
• competent team members
• unified commitment
• collaborative climate
• standards of excellence
• external support and recognition
• principled leadership

Perspectives on Leadership

• trait approach
• style approach
• contingency approaches
• leader-member exchange(LMX)

Emergent Leaders

• Participate early and often
• Demonstrate your competence
• Don't push too hard
• Provide a solution in time of crisis

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Power

• Position Power
• Coercive Power
• Reward Power
• Expert Power
• Referent Power
• Information Power
• Connection Power

Functional Roles: Task Functions

• information or opinion giver
• information or opinion seeker
• direction giver
• summarizer
• diagnoser
• gatekeeper
• reality tester

Functional Roles: Relational Functions

• Participation encourager
• Harmonizer
• Tension reliever
• Evaluator of emotional climate
• Praise giver
• Empathic listener

Functional Roles: Dysfunctional Roles

• Blocker
• Attacker
• Recognition seeker
• Joker
• Withdrawer

Promote Desirable Norms

• create desirable norms early
• comply with established norms
• (Norms: informal, often unstated rules about what behavior is appropriate...e.g., honor your commitments, admit your mistakes, don't interrupt others...)

7 Factors that Promote an Optimal Level of Cohesiveness

• shared or compatible goals
• progress toward goals
• shared norms or values
• minimal feelings of threat among members
• interdependence among members
• competition from outside the team
• shared team experience

Groupthink: too cohesive

• illusion that group is invulnerable
• tendency to rationalize or discount negative information
• willingness to ignore ethical or moral consequences of the team's decision
• stereotyped views of other teams
• team pressure to conform
• self-censorship
• illusion of unanimity
• mindguards against threatening informatio

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Risky Shift

• Is the likelihood of a group to take positions that are more extreme than members would choose on their own:
• 1) when members are conservative, their collective decisions are likely to be more cautious
• 2) more commonly, teams are prone to making riskier positions than they would have made individually

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