6. Leadership and Teamwork

Question 1

Transaction Leadership Characteristics

Answer 1

• Planning
• Budgeting
• Organising
• Staffing
• Monitoring
• Control

Question 2

Transformational Leadership Characteristics

Answer 2

• Change
• Vision
• Direction
• Aligning People
• Motivating
• Inspiring

Question 3

Situational Leadership Characteristics

Answer 3

1. There is no single ‘best’ style of leadership
2. Effective leadership is task-relevant
3. Maturity means
4. Effective leadership varies

Question 4

Benefits of Situational Leadership

Answer 4

• A way of ensuring that your leadership style will always be appropriate
• An approach which helps you flexibly apply the right type of leadership style at the right time
• A system to help you base your leadership style on the needs of the team members
• A means to identify the ‘development level’ of the subordinates

Question 5

Characteristics of Effective Teams

Answer 5

1. Unified commitment to a goal
2. Priorities and seeing the big picture
3. Clear roles, responsibilities, and knowing strengths and weaknesses
4. Shared decisions and involving the right people and encourage and value input
5. Trust and constructive criticism
6. Understanding personal traits
7. Established rules, rights and expectations
8. Help and use time effectively
9. Set SMART objectives and own the deliverables
10. Constant growth and personal development
11. Hierarchy and built-in decision making system
12. Participation
13. Open communication
14. Efficient use of ideas
15. Accountability
16. Competency

Question 6

Benefits of Effective Teams

Answer 6

• Commitment to the project
• Commitment to the project manager and other team members
• Creative, flexible and responsive to the demands of the task.
• A sense of purpose and camaraderie
• Increased team member job satisfaction
• Improved and meaningful communications
• Better conflict resolution
• More creativity leading to more ideas and better results
• Increased employee satisfaction
• The opportunity to develop and acquire new skills
• The speed at which things can be achieved
• A sounding board for testing out ideas and thoughts
• A support network that you can draw on
• Achieve positive results

Question 7

Limitations of Teamwork

Answer 7

• Personality clashes
• Over emphasis on “getting on”
• Avoiding disagreement leads to “safe” decision making
• Too much friction – Sometimes caused by misinformation
• Escalating disagreement can lead to “politicking” and point-scoring
• Emphasis on the individual
• Lack on influence on decisions
• Lack of agreement at senior management level
• Too many meetings

Question 8

Characteristics of Effective Delegation

Answer 8

1. Has the most appropriate team member to allocate this work to, taking into account their skills, career development, interests, availability and workload been carefully selected?
2. Have you prepared clear objectives, deadlines and success indicators and discussed these with team members?
3. Have you defined any limitations or constraints?
4. Have you set time aside to share expectations and ensure understanding?
5. Have you provided all relevant information?
6. Does information travel to employees quickly enough for them to make intelligent, informed decisions about their work?
7. Can questions be asked freely?
8. Are you encouraging individual initiative and creativity?
9. Has there been enough training for team members to enable them to perform the task well?
10. Will you be providing the necessary feedback for the team member to stay on track?
11. Have team members been given the appropriate authority to complete the task?
12. Do team members know where they can seek help and guidance if needed?