Goal Setting and Team Development - Essay Example

Goal Setting and Team Development Goals and objectives are critical components of management in terms of the planning, organizing, leading and controlling framework. Clear goals and objectives give teams the appropriate boundaries that are required to make decisions concerning the task that needs to be accomplished. Additionally, setting goals and objectives for the team enables the team to gain a clear understanding of what makes for meaningful or tangible results for the team. According to Morgeson, DeRue & Karam (14) setting goals and objectives helps in accomplishing the team’s task.

According to Morgeson et al (14), research on the subject of team leadership offers compelling evidence to suggest that setting clear goals and objectives is one of the most valuable leadership functions for promoting effective performance of teams. In one meta-analytic review of literature on team goal-setting, it was established that teams that have clearly defined goals and performance expectations significantly outperformed teams that lack goals (Morgeson et al 14). Another study on the subject involving 238 knowledge employees from 26 project teams in the consumer, technology and chemical products industries was conducted.

It was established that clarifying objectives, inspiring and motivating through challenging goals, as well as, rewarding the team’s members whenever they achieve goals are important leadership behaviors that promote the creativity of the team (Morgeson et al 14). This goes to demonstrate that setting clear goals and objectives plays a vital role in motivating teams. Similarly, many other studies have established that setting clear goals and performance expectations are important for team development and performance even in the traditional business setting (Morgeson et al 14).

For instance, one study on leadership processes within sailing teams established that team leaders who set explicit goals and clear performance expectations are associated with better performing sailing teams (Morgeson et al 15). Works Cited Morgeson, Frederick. DeRue, Scott. & Karam, Elizabeth. Leadership in Teams: A Functional Approach to Understanding Leadership Structures and Processes. Journal of Management, Vol. 36(1). (2010). Web. 25 september 2015.