Week 6 - Team Leaders

Question 1

What is a team?(Northouse, 2022)

Answer 1

Is a type of organizational group that is composed of interdependent members, who share common goals, and who must coordinate their activities to accomplish these goals.

Question 2

What is a group?

Answer 2

Is two or more individuals, engaged in social interaction to achieve a goal

Question 3

What is the main function/purpose of a team?

Answer 3

is to manage and direct the time, attention, and flow of information among individuals and organisational departments

Question 4

What are the desirable outcomes of effective organisational teams? (Northouse, 2022)

Answer 4

• Greater productivity
• More effective use of resources
• Better decisions and problem solving
• Better-quality products and services and
• Greater innovation and creativity (Parker, 1990)

Question 5

4 dimensions to distinguish real from pseudo teams (West and Lyubobnikova (2012)

Answer 5

• Interdependence
• Shared Objectives
• Reflexivity
• Boundedness

Question 6

According to (Richter et al., 2011, Delarue et al., 2008) what are the broad benefits of teams? (4)

Answer 6

• positive effect on organisational performance and financial outcomes
• improves employee attitudes (organisational commitment, satisfaction and motivation)
• decreased absenteeism and turnover
• positive benefits are further enhanced if the organisation has supportive HR practices in place

Question 7

According to (Mohrman et al., 1995): what are the specific benefits of teams? (4)

Answer 7

• Improve development and delivery of products and services, reducing costs and increasing quality.
• More effective management of knowledge and learning
• Promote innovation

Question 8

What are the 5 different types of teams?

Answer 8

Question 9

Define Shared/Distributed Leadership (Bergman, Rentsch, Small, Davenport, & Bergman, 2012)

Answer 9

occurs when members of the team take on leadership behaviours to influence the team and to maximize team effectiveness

Question 10

What are the potential impacts of shared/distributed leadership? Northouse, 2022) (2 positive, 1positive/negative)

Answer 10

+ allows for faster responses to more complex issues (Morgeson, DeRue, & Karam, 2010; Pearce, Manz, & Sims, 2009; Solansky, 2008 )
+/- involve risk and takes some courage for the member who steps forward to provide leadership outside the formal role of team leader (Amos & Klimoski, 2014) – can make a member to be reluctant to come forward and lead
+ Team with shared leadership have less conflict, more consensus, more trust, and more cohesion than teams that do not have shared leadership (Bergman et al., 2012).

Question 11

McGrath’s input-process-output model (3)

Answer 11

• Inputs: include member characteristics or group structure
• Processes: how the group does things,
• Outputs: the results of the processes, including task completion.

Question 12

Define Team role (Hucyznski and Buchanan, 2019 p.363)

Answer 12

Team role is “an individual’s tendency to behave in preferred ways which contribute to, and interrelate with, other members within a team”

Question 13

What is the Belbin 1981 model?

Answer 13

Is a model with a set of 9 roles that should be in a team:

Question 14

What are the 3 types of roles within Belbin’s 1981 Model?

Answer 14

• Action-orientated roles
• People-orientated roles
• Cerebral roles

Question 15

What are action-orientated roles in Belbin’s 1981 model? (3)

Answer 15

• Sharper
• Implementer
• Completer finisher

Question 16

What are people-orientated roles in Belbin’s 1981 model? (3)

Answer 16

• Co-ordinator (chairman)
• Teamwork
• Resource investigator

Question 17

What are cerebral roles in Belbin’s 1981 model? (3)

Answer 17

• Plant
• Monitor Evaluator
• Specialist

Question 18

How can Belbin’s 1981 model be applied? (5)

Answer 18

• Can be used to identify workers’ behavioural strengths and weaknesses
• Build strongrelationships
• Developqualified teams
• Personal Development
• Build a community

Question 19

What are the potential benefits of Belbin’s 1981 model? (7)

Answer 19

• Underachievement demands a good coordinator or finisher.
• Conflict requires a team worker or strong coordinator.
• Mediocre performance needs a resource investigator, innovator or shaper.
• Error prone teams need an evaluator.
• New teams need a strong shaper to get started
• Competitive situations demand an innovator with good ideas.
• In areas of high risk, a good evaluator may be needed

Question 20

What is Hill’s model for Leadership? (Northouse, 2022)

Answer 20

It emphasises the leader’s role in monitoring the team and acting to ensure its effectiveness, is structured around three primary components:
o Leadership decisions
o Leader actions
o Indicators of team effectiveness

Question 21

Characteristics of Team Effectiveness (Bottom of Hill’s model) (3)

Answer 21

• Two critical functions of team effectiveness are performance (task accomplishment) and development (team maintenance)
• Performance refers to the quality of the outcomes of the team’s work.
• Development refers to the cohesiveness of the team and the ability of team members to satisfy their own needs while working effectively with other team members (Nadler, 1998

Question 22

What are Hackman’s (2012) posited six enabling conditions that lead to effective team functioning

Answer 22

(1) Is it a real team?
(2) Does it have a compelling purpose?
(3) Does it have the right people?
(4) Are the norms of conduct clear?
(5) Is there support from the organisational context?
(6) Is there team-focused coaching?

Question 23

According to Larson and LaFasto (1989) eight characteristics that were consistently associated with team excellence

Answer 23

1 – Clear elevating goals
2 – Results driven-structure
3 – Competent team members
4 - Unified commitment
5 – Collaborative Climate
6 – Standards of Excellence
7 – External Support and Recognition
8 – Principled Leadership

Question 24

What are the 3 Leadership Decisions in Hill’s model of team leadership?

Answer 24

1 - is whether it is most appropriate to continue to observe and monitor the team or to intervene in the team’s activities and take action
2 - is to choose whether a task or a relational intervention is needed (i.e., does the team need help in accomplishing its tasks, or does it need help in maintaining relationships?).
3 - is whether to intervene at the internal level (within the team itself) or at the external level (in the team’s environment)

Question 25

What are the Internal Task Leadership Actions - Hill’s model of team leadership

Answer 25

• Goal focusing (clarifying, gaining agreement)
• Structuring for results (planning, visioning, organizing, clarifying roles, delegating)
• Facilitating decision making (informing, controlling, coordinating, mediating, synthesizing, focusing on issues)
• Training team members in task skills (educating, developing)
• Maintaining standards of excellence (assessing team and individual performance, confronting inadequate performance)

Question 26

What are the Internal relational Leadership Actions - Hill’s model of team leadership (6)

Answer 26

• Coaching team members in interpersonal skills
• Collaborating (including, involving)
• Managing conflict and power issues (fighting or avoiding confrontation, questioning ideas, avoiding groupthink)
• Building commitment and esprit de corps (being optimistic, innovating, envisioning, socializing, rewarding, recognizing)
• Satisfying individual member needs (trusting, supporting, advocating)
• Modelling ethical and principled practices (fair, consistent, normative)

Question 27

What are the external environmental Leadership Actions - Hill’s model of team leadership (6)

Answer 27

• Networking and forming alliances in the environment (gathering information, increasing influence)
• Advocating and representing the team to the environment
• Negotiating upward to secure necessary resources, support, and recognition for the team
• Buffering team members from environmental distractions
• Buffering team members from environmental distractions
• Sharing relevant environmental information with the team

Question 28

What are the strengths of Hill’s team leadership model? (3)

Answer 28

• Designed to focus on real life organisational groups
• Provides a cognitive guide that helps leaders design and maintain effective teams
• Current – takes into account the changing role of leaders and followers

Question 29

What are the criticisms of Hill’s team leadership model? (3)

Answer 29

• Not a universal model; it lists some of the common skills needed in situations but not specific skills
• Only provides guidelines for the leaders and does not suggest when to intervene and how to carry out the actions needed
• Assumes the leader is skilled in managing teams