4 Teams and Leadership Flashcards
What are teams?
Interdependent collection of individuals who work together toward a common goal and who share responsibility for specific outcomes for their organisations
- There is a growing trend in organisations to use workgroups
- Identifiable memberships and tasks - require to interact with one another
What are the factors that affect team performance?
(1) Inputs; environment, task characteristics, team members
(2) Processes; norms, communication and coordination, cohesion, decision-making
Explain the Inputs that affect team performance
Environment; resources and support team receives from organisation affects performance. Training, managerial support increase satisfaction and performance.
Task Characteristics; type of task (divisible vs unitary). teams motivated by tasks that require a variety of skills, provide autonomy, are meaningful and important and provide performance feedback
Team Members; personality predictors of teamwork (agreeableness and conscientiousness = ratings and work completed), cognitive ability predictors (increase=better)
Explain the Processes that affect team performance
Norms; violation to production norms are very serious, what time day starts/ends.
Communication & Coordination; important especially when task is interdependent and dynamic. Effective groups minimise coordination losses. Increase accountability of team and increase individual evaluation.
Cohesion; associated with good team performance
Decision-Making; good for larger pool knowledge and checking each others errors. Good when demonstratable right answers
What is the norm?
Informal and sometimes unspoken rules that teams adopt to regulate members behaviour
- The violation of productivity norms is considered a serious violation: showing up late (may be forgivable) but not doing your work is a big no
What is cohesion?
The degree to which team members desire to remain in the team and are committed to the goals
What is social loafing?
Reduced motivation and performance in groups that occurs if there is a reduced feeling of accountability or reduced opportunity for evaluation of individual performance
In communication and coordination, what can groups do effectively?
Effective groups are able to minimise coordination losses (i.e., reduced coordination that occurs when team members expend their energies in different directions or fail to synchronise their work)
In factors that affect team performance, what personality predictors affect teamwork?
Agreeableness and conscientiousness predict supervisor ratings of work team performance, objective measures of work team accuracy and work completed
In factors that affect team performance, what cognitive ability predictors of teamwork?
General cognitive ability and job-specific skills are good predictors of team performance
When do groups do well?
There are demonstrable right answers
- Smart kid can convince everyone else
- They rely on member with the most expertise
- Intellective vs judgemental tasks
What is the Illusion of Group Effectivity?
The experience-based belief that we produce more and better ideas in groups than alone
Why don’t groups do better than the best member?
(1) Process loss
(2) Failure to share unique information
(3) Group polarisation
(4) Groupthink
What is process loss?
Aspects of group interaction inhibit good decision making
What is meant by failure to share unique information when groups are working together?
Most of the group discussion focuses on shared information, even though each may possess lots of unshared information e.g. 3-person teams of physicians diagnosed hypothetical medical shared -> shared info was discussed more than unshared info
What is group polarization and why does it occur?
Groups shift toward a more extreme version of members’ initial viewpoint.
Why?
- Persuasive arguments: with even a slight bias in one direction, you’ll hear more favourable arguments on that side
- Social comparison: when members realise the group is leaning in one direction, they may seek acceptance by moving further in that direction
What is Groupthink and what are its conditions?
Decision-making in which maintaining group cohesiveness and solidarity is more important than considering the factors in a realistic matter
Conditions for groupthink
- Group under stress
- Directive leader
- Illusion of unanimity
How can we improve group decision-making?
- A leader doesn’t reveal their wishes at first and sits back and hears out what other people should say
- Assign someone to be the devil’s advocate - someone to challenge the idea
- Authentic dissent
- Are 2 heads better than 1? Groups have a head start but face special obstacles that can be helped
What is leadership?
Leadership is the process whereby an individual influences group members in a way that gets them to achieve the same group goal that he or she has identified as important
Name the theoretical approaches to leadership
(1) The Trait approach
(2) The Behavioural approach
(3) The Power and Influence approach
(4) The Contingency approach
(5) The leader-member exchange theory
(6) Transformational leadership
Explain the trait theory of leadership
Argues that some traits are shared by all effective leaders.
- Originally little relationship was found between traits and leadership
- Now, some traits correlate with leadership due to advances in personality assessment
Personal traits related to leadership success:
=High energy level
=Tolerance for stress
=Emotional maturity
=Integrity
=Self-confidence
=Motivation (need for power, achievement, affiliation)
=The big 5*
=Intelligence*
Explain the behavioural theory of leadership
Emphasises what leaders actually do on the job and the relationship of this behaviour to the leader effectiveness
- Initiating structure vs consideration behaviours
- Consideration more strongly related to satisfaction and initiating structure more related to performance
Explain the power and influence theory of leadership
Types of power
(1) Reward power: giving people rewards for good jobs etc
(2) Coercive power: reprimanding people etc
(3) Legitimate power: legit power cause they’re in a position of authority
(4) Expert power: the follower believes that the leader has the expertise in a given area so they follow them
(5) Referent power: when a follower wants to be like a leader because they reference personal qualities
Explain the contingency theory of leadership
Effective leadership depends on a match between characteristics of the leader and the situation
Control is contingent on 3 factors
(1) Leader-follower relationships
(2) Degree of task structure
(3) Leader’s authority or position
- Task-oriented leaders effective in favourable and unfavourable circumstances
- Person-oriented effective in neutral circumstances
