Leadership and Teamwork in Management - Essay Example

 Leadership and Teamwork in Management Week 20: 1) What new skills and experiences have you acquired in the past 12 months? The knowledge I have acquired for the past one year has significantly improved my management skills. Generally, through my interaction with other team members, I have learnt to work diligently, efficiently and respectfully towards achieving the goals and objectives that had been set. As such, through these experiences, I was able to gain knowledge pertaining management issues, but I also developed numerous skills. For instance, I have acquired skills to work in a cross cultural team and among individuals with different ideologies and diversities. As such, my team working skills have greatly improved. Notably important, over the past year, I have also noticed that there exists a significant variation in the value systems of people from different cultures. To illustrate, I noticed the existence of difference in attitudes among my team members, more so in towards teamwork, achievement orientation, and hierarchy. Through these differences, I learnt how culture can effectively influence a group of people can work together achieving a common goal. Equally important, due to the cultural diversity and different locational backgrounds among members of our groups, there existed various differences in terms of communication, technology involvement, time management approaches, preconceptions and stereotyping among others. As a result of these occurrences, I learnt several factors that could help the team to solidify and work together regardless of the differences. For instance, I learnt not to make instant judgments or assumptions about my colleagues or their different styles they used to carry out tasks. I also tried to learn their foreign cultures so as to know what they expected. It is worth noting that doing this enabled me to create a close relationship with my colleagues thus largely eliminating our cultural differences. Besides, my communication skills were also greatly enhanced since I learnt that I should think how information would be received by the other parties before communicating. For instance, communication through text messages and emails can at times greatly be misunderstood and would thus be inappropriate modes in delivering stressful and sensitive messages. 2) What skills do you want to develop throughout this inquiry? It is beyond doubt that this inquiry has a lot to offer in terms of improving and developing my skills. As such, throughout this inquiry, I intend to intensely improve on skills such as time management, team management, communication and social interaction. Besides, I also intend to increase my knowledge in the overall sectors encompassing the field of management. Essentially, this inquiry provides me with an opportunity to work with individuals from different geographical locations and backgrounds. Therefore, through consistent interaction with these individuals, I will be able to gather a large pool of knowledge and experiences pertaining management. Likewise, I want to broaden my interpersonal skills, focus and creativity. Generally speaking, being part of a diverse team can greatly enhance a person’s interpersonal skills since teamwork provides a platform through which individuals can share their knowledge and valuable experiences. This would also enable me to have a bearing of what I am supposed to do thus alleviating my level of focus towards achieving the team’s targets, goals, and objectives. Moreover, since heterogeneous groups usually look at issues in a wider angle as compared to homogeneous groups, it is beyond doubt that working within a team will broadly increase my thinking capacity and creativity towards solving contemporary management issues. Week 22: 1) How would you describe your contribution to the team? In particular, at first, my team was composed of two members. However, after a short period, we were joined by four other individuals thus making us a team of six hardworking individuals. Generally, this team was made up by industrious individuals who were always ready to go beyond their imaginable capabilities in order to effectively attain the team’s set targets, goals, and objectives. As such, we were a team which worked unanimously towards achieving our goals. To illustrate, we consistently interacted and engaged in extensive research and discussions while coming up with our final report. Even though at first we had agreeable disagreements and misunderstandings among different members of the team, we always came to a unifying conclusion that each member was satisfied with. This enabled us to develop a deeper understanding of the subject as well as build our interpersonal and social skills. Moreover, we carried produced several drafts of the report which were successively edited to become an ideal report. As such, I cannot ignore the fact that each member played a considerably important role in the overall achievement of our team’s goal. As a team member, I made several contributions towards the overall success of the team. For instance, besides recognizing and understanding my roles, I ensured that I also understood the roles of other team members. This enabled me to integrate my roles with those of my colleagues thus allowing me to work coherently with the team members towards the achievement of the overall goals. As such, I always ensured that my colleagues were motivated by presenting a spirit of openness, hard work, and positive attitude. Similarly, I always ensured that I treated all my team members with respect and dignity. For instance, I was always ready to listen to their opinions without interruptions and was always ready to accept any positive criticisms, suggestions and acknowledgements. 2) How might you improve your contribution? Definitely, there are various intrinsic and extrinsic factors I can adopt and improve in that will enable me to even contribute further to the success of the team. For instance, by improving my communication behavior and skills, I will be able to enhance the understandability of my colleagues thereby reducing or even eliminating the chances of misinterpretations and misunderstanding within the team. Equally, using a non-confrontational approach when communicating with my team members would also significantly increase performance and contribute to the overall success of the team. As such, I would avoid personalizing and criticizing the team members. For instance, instead of telling a colleague that “you are too slow in completing your duties,” I would tell them that “we will work together to ensure that the organizational targets are met in time.” Equally important, I will ensure that I contribute positive feedback and get to know my team members even better. Contributing positively to feedback would help the team to maintain a high morale and create an atmosphere of togetherness. This could also be achieved by inspiring others with a positive attitude and approaching roles with a positive “we can do it” mindset. Generally, every individual is different and thus, every team member has different sets of strengths, weaknesses, declinations, and talents among other factors. Therefore, to ensure that I contribute towards the success of the team, I will work towards ensuring that I get a better understanding of all the five members of my team. This will enable me to learn how and when to complement or them correct them thus making us to develop a positive and strong working relationship. Week 24: 1) What challenges have you experienced during the inquiry? In my opinion, language barrier was the main challenge that I encountered during the inquiry. As a non-native speaker from China, I found English to be a hard nut to crack. As such, at first, the subject appeared difficult since I had to take a big portion of my time not only to understand some of my team members, but also to read and understand important topics. Moreover, due to the existence of language diversity among the team members, communication was quite a big issue to deal with. Apart from language and communication, I also experienced a challenge in terms of the use of technology. Generally, technology has positively aided in the bridging of the distances that exist between various geographical locations (Torero, 2006). For instance, during my inquiry, I would usually communicate with my relatives back home through my phone and would thus make me feel that indeed the distance between us has significantly been cut down. Nonetheless, like a coin that has two sides, the use of technology also presented itself as a huge challenge. To illustrate, although there might be several similarities they are widely different. This therefore made me to be quite confused at first on how I would use certain technological devices. Equally important, we discovered that the using technological devices such as phones, computers and platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to convey information led to occasional misunderstandings. To illustrate, the use of such platforms and others like texts and emails made the team members to interpret the messages differently. In addition, besides the use of smileys, one cannot get the true facial expressions and real opinions since the face to face contact has been cut down. Furthermore, problems such as the lack of timely access to appropriate technology and incompatible or obsolete technology also became a huge challenge and greatly affected my team performance at first. 2) How have you addressed these challenges? To repeat, the challenge of communication and language barrier was quite hard to address, more so during my first day. However, as time passed and as I continue to interact, the language differences among the team members faded, thus enhancing our understanding of each other. It is also worth noting that we all agreed to put several measures in place in order to improve our communication process. For instance, not only did we choose simple English as our main language but we also urged ourselves to avoid using slangs, idioms, and tough vocabularies. Therefore, we always used simple plain English as our mode of communication. Analogously, despite initially presenting itself as a huge challenge, I eventually managed to use technology appropriately. To illustrate, we urged the team members that were conversant with the use of the available technologies to take us through the basics. They did this without hesitation and after just a short time, we became the technology gurus. Comparatively, since the use of technological devices to communicate led to occasional misinterpretation of the messages, we agreed and opted to use another way of communicating. As such, putting everyone in consideration, we collectively developed a schedule that would enable us to effectively achieve our team objectives. Therefore, not only did this act help me to deal with the challenge of using technology, it also increased social interaction among team members. Week 26: 1) How is your group managing the inquiry? In order to manage the inquiry and ensure that each member works towards the achievement of the overall goals of the team, we coherently devised some general principles. Notably important, it is through these principles that the group has managed to effectively and harmoniously work towards the completion of stressful and difficult tasks. Profoundly, it is an outspoken fact that every human being, regardless of his or her background, geographical locations or race, hold stereotypes as well as preconceptions. As such, we encouraged each other to treat our preconceptions as merely hypotheses and not facts, and as a result, each one would present their views pertaining certain issues before we came to conclusions. Equally important, the team members usually insisted on the practice of certainty and equality principles. For instance, to avoid cases of “unintended discrimination,” group members were urged to be sure of how they were to address each other before they did. To elucidate further, when a group member was not certain of a custom or practices of another, such as how names are pronounced, they were to ask or seek help so as not to offend each other. This act further strengthened the existing relationship among group members since it improved group interaction. Equally important, the group members have always treated each other with equality, dignity and respect. This has led to good team performance since each member developed a feeling of belonging. In addition, it is worth noting that despite the existence of the group leader and his assistant, the concept of equality has made members to interact freely. 2) What are your preferred roles/tasks/skills within the group? Every member in the group has been assigned with different roles that they should actively engage in in order to ensure the prosperity and success of the team. Although I am well versed with the roles of all other team members, there are various roles and tasks assigned to me. To begin with, as the group leader, I have to play the role of a coordinator and act as a spearhead. As such, I am responsible for various duties such as coordinating the team efforts, disseminating important information among group members, and clarifying the objectives and purposes of the projects undertaken. In addition, I also have to ensure that decisions are made and implemented and that the team is making progress. Equally important, due to my creativity, experience and knowledge in management, I also play the thinker’s role. Basically, in this role, I certify that information has been collected and analyzed appropriately. This enables me to think through issues and come up with possible solutions to those issues. Furthermore, as the head I am responsible of ensuring that other team members are meeting their targets so as to eventually realize the overall targets of the team. As such, I periodically evaluate the performance of other team members in order to determine the team’s progress. This role can be quite stressful since I usually have to deal with issues such as complacency and delays that make me impatient. Relatively, I also have to ensure that all the team members are cared for and that each one of them “fits in” the team. For that reason, I always work towards ensuring that the group maintains a positive attitude. This can be achieved through factors such as easing existing or emerging tensions, creating humor and developing a team spirit. Week 30: 1) What has been your biggest mistake during this project? As the leader of the team, there are several mistakes that I have committed throughout the course of this project. However, the biggest mistake that I did was the fact that I concentrated in managing the various tasks and events rather than concentrating on leading the other team members. Basically, this made the team members to focus on attaining individual goals and thus it reduced the aspect of teamwork. Generally, this was perpetuated by the fact that I always set individual targets and thus it was hard for the other team members to interact effectively and give suggestions on what ought to be done to improve each other’s performance. Equally important, another mistake is that the project plan did not have sufficient details of what was expected on the next phase and thus it was difficult to determine the next course of action once one phase had been completed. This thus resulted to excessive time and resource wastage and the performance of the team towards efficiently completing the project was negatively affected. 2) What have you learnt from it? Generally speaking, mistakes can negatively affect efforts that team members put towards the achievement of organizational targets, the time taken to complete the project, and in worse scenarios, the failure of the entire project. There are quite a number of lessons that I learnt from the mistakes that I made during the undertaking of the projects. For instance, I learnt that as a leader, it is important for me to focus on leading and positively guiding the team members towards attaining the organizational goals rather than focusing on task completion. Focusing on the task completion generally made the other team members to work hastily thus making them to lower their quality. In addition, this also encourages individualism and discourages teamwork since the group members will always tend to focus on the completion of their individual tasks rather than looking at the overall objectives of the team. Week 32: 1) What have you found most valuable during this experience? This experience has presented me with an opportunity of learning numerous valuable lessons. However, what intrigued me most is that I came to realize that management does not merely entail the aspect of leading the employees towards the completion of their tasks. As such, I came to realize that management comprises all activities that are going on throughout the team. For this reason, I learnt that besides coordinating, planning, controlling and carry out an analysis of the performance of team members, leaders and managers have other important roles to play. For instance, the leader in the team has the responsibility of ensuring that besides having a good team spirit, the team members develop efficient and good working relationships among themselves. Consequently, it is important for the leader to ensure that the communication between the team is increased. Arguably, effective communication plays an important role towards the achievement of the team’s goals, objectives and targets. The leader should thus put several measures in place that would enhance the communication process among the team members. To note, among the measures that can be used to improve communication include introducing social time within the schedule that will allow the group members to interact freely. Equally, the leader can delegate related duties to different members thus allowing them to constantly interact in the course of doing their roles. This also enables them to take responsibility of their tasks and those of others and as a result, teamwork will be enhanced. 2) What business skills have you learnt from the inquiry? Notably important, throughout the course of this inquiry, I have been able to learn various valuable business skills. In addition, I also been able to greatly improve on skills such as time management, team management, communication and social interaction. Undoubtedly, this inquiry has enabled me to broaden my knowledge more so in the field of management and networking. To illustrate, the inquiry offered me an opportunity to work with individuals from different geographical locations and backgrounds. As such, through consistent interaction with these individuals, I have been able to gather a large pool of knowledge, skills and experiences pertaining management. Among many business skills, the inquiry has enabled me to learn and improve my interpersonal skills, focusing skills and overall creativity. Generally speaking, being part of a diverse team can greatly enhance a person’s interpersonal skills since teamwork provides a platform through which individuals can share their knowledge and valuable experiences. Through sharing of valuable information and knowledge, I have gained experience and knowledge on what I am supposed to do thus alleviating my level of focus towards achieving the team’s targets, goals, and objectives. Moreover, since heterogeneous groups usually look at issues in a wider angle as compared to homogeneous groups, it is beyond doubt that working within a team will broadly increase my thinking capacity and creativity towards solving contemporary management issues. Works Cited Torero, M 2006, Information and communication technologies for development and poverty reduction: the potential of telecommunications. Read More