6.3 Autonomy Flashcards
Decision-making roles
When roles are clearly defined, each member understands where expertise, responsibility, and accountability lie within the team
Teams with clear decision-making roles are able to
Move past accumulation activities and engage in the interaction phase (retrieving, exchanging, and structuring information) and examination activities, during which they can interpret and evaluate information gathered.
Serves as a catalyst to advance to the team to the examination phase
Team with clearly defined roles and responsibilities
Roles serves as guidance
Enabling members to make more efficient use of each other’s personal store or problem-relevant information
This type of perceptual distance represents confusion about who is supposed to do what and who is responsible for decision making
Perceptual distance regarding the degree of team decision-making
A leader of an autonomous group is responsible for
Supporting the team but allowing members to make their own decisions
Optimally, the leader and team clearly understand their decision-making roles and responsibilities
If not, certain decisions may be inadvertently ignored, resulting in inaction on the part of the team, or both parties may “weight in” where only one party (the leader of the team) has authority, resulting in confusion and hindering of the cognitive processes and subsequent performance
Agreement about the locus of decision making can aid in negotiating, interpreting and evaluating information
Thereby moving the team through the cycle of collective cognition and improving team performance
If perceptions regarding decision-making autonomy are not aligned, this should be detrimental to performance
Team autonomy can be beneficial to performance.
Team performance should be highest when perceptions are aligned and decision-making autonomy is considered to be high rather than low
If the leader perceives the team has more decision-making autonomy than the team believes they do, the resulting dynamics may be more detrimental to team performance than if the team perceives it has more autonomy
In contrast to our arguments regarding goal accomplishment and constructive conflict
If the team perceives greater autonomy and encroaches on the leader’s area of perceived authority
Some misunderstanding may arise initially, distracting the team from performance efforts, but at least decisions are still being actively addressed and corrections to roles and responsibilities will likely be made by the leader
If the team is not aware of its responsibilities (believing it has less autonomy)
This may result in inaction on the part of the team, which should pose a greater hindrance to team performance
If the leader assumes the team is responsible for most key decisions, he or she may feel little need to provide clarification and monitoring, constructive suggestions, and role modeling, even though such behaviors are needed
The team, however, may need and desire such intervention, particularly if they do not feel ready to accept decision-making authority
