Teamwork, Leadership & Personal Development-Individual Reflective - Coursework Example

 Teamwork, Leadership & Personal Development-Individual reflective Based on an incident that occurred during a team exercise on a residential weekend, my reflective essay exams this great change leadership experience. This reflective essay relies on numerous scholarly sources and articles to explore change leadership and teamwork, and their implication towards my personal development. The reflection essay is also an opportunity to explore the achievements of my team so far and evaluation of how the team can be improved further in future. This essay reflects the importance of effective teamwork, dynamic learning cycle, communication, conflict and negotiation, cohesion, and remedies for group thinking. The essay also incorporates concepts presented in Kotter’s model of change leadership and Tuckman’s team-development model that assisted me in the identification of areas for personal development to become an effective change manager. During the residential, I realized we needed to embrace technology in the form of a tablet for the team’s note taker. With the tablet, the notes recorded in the course of any meeting would later be emailed to every member and so would any necessary updates such as group meetings. This incident made me demonstrate strong leadership and effective change implementation and management through sensemaking. Weick & Sutcliffe [Wei05] define sensemaking as the process where peoples’ actions are rationalized through the creation of plausible images. For the sake of this paper, I will use the definition of a leader as one who influences others within a team context such that the team is directs its effort group undertakings[Ros91]. Sensemaking in my leadership enabled me to discover a new way of improving group meetings as I invented it while involving the other members, moved beyond stereotypes, and effectively communicating critical elements in the new way[Anc05]. The stereotypes for the team revolved around group roles as most members used the scapegoat that meetings’ timing were impromptu thus contributing to absenteeism that eventually contributed to members leaving the group for good[Got03]. Ikemoto [Ike07] highlights that previous research indicates that sensemaking is evident when a person’s attributes such as existing knowledge and beliefs are used to look into the future and proof that the unbelievable is believable. Within any group setting today, the constantly changing world requires that everyone seeks to interpret the occurrences around them by trying to make sense of the situation. Personally, I used sensemaking to make the unbelievable happen by ensuring that group members are not only informed, but that even from anywhere, they can get involved in group meetings or even participate. I used strong judgment to make the decision to change the nature of group meetings while making them productive and useful in sharing information and growing the knowledge of the team. In my opinion, shared by Bercovitch & Jackson [Ber091], group cohesion contributes effectively to holding team members together, facilitating high level interaction, and supportive communication. My judgment is that having satisfied members of in a team was crucial in promoting healthy negotiations to settle differences and resolve conflicts[Eng13]. Whether or not one is working with a small or large group of people, the leadership is expected to anticipate challenges that make change implementation very hard. However, a leader has to be prepared for challenging times such that they demonstrate a strong belief in their ability to successfully accomplish change. According to Todnem & Burnes [Tod13], leaders can only manage to manoeuvre challenges encountered during change by ensuring that they have a good vision and clear goals in order to achieve success and grow. Fullan [Ful11] emphasizes that with a vision and well-defined goals, a good leader will develop a sense and the ability to bring about planned change through positive relations with others, encouraging a culture of continuous improvement, use of power teams, and practicing informed decision making. Through positive relations and respect for others, I managed to have the team listen to me, understand the costs and benefits of the proposed change, and make positive decisions to embrace change[Edm14]. Having reached an agreement with the team, it was agreed that a new beginning was crucial. This time, group dynamics as defined by Tuckman was carefully followed and a first meeting was organized. One thing that I was cautious about was culture because the group would depend on my direction and guidance, and that fact that there were no clear individual roles and responsibilities[Tuc65]. I was also very prepared with information as I anticipated that the meeting would have lots of questions that they expected satisfactory answers for and that would clear their doubts or eliminate any form of distrust. With clearly defined goals and a vision, I managed to have the team running with the new changes in place, especially since I decided to not only be a good communicator and listener, but also a proactive risk taker[For10]. To deliver change, I was willing to risk my reputation for the future gain of the team. I understood that I was not to lead haphazardly, since this was an opportunity to improve the group and it meant going to the extent of forfeiting every rule or standard that did not serve the needs of the team. Forfeiture of norms or team rules meant that I was ready to risk being insubordinate if only for the benefit or the interests of the team members, but never without forethought or carelessly. Risk taking demanded proactivity since I had to take the initiative while anticipating and recognizing changes in the group environment to allow for the exploration of possible courses of action to react to those changes. Proactivity also meant that I confronted my problems rather than avoiding them, and also aiming at something that no one else could see even if it involved creating a non-existing opportunity[Bas15]. As part of my personal development and to enable me in leading change in today and in the future, I was keen to identify ways to enhance my change management skills. For instance, the new team needed to build trust and to effectively achieve this goal I have to be vulnerable as a leader. According to Herold & Fedor [Her08], a vulnerable leader energizes employees not by rallying them around, but by ensuring that they have the opportunity to work on their own such that they could collaborate and consult allowing them to build more trust with each other. It is important to have team members build trust such that they are comfortable being exposed to their fears, weaknesses, or failures. Trust also translates to the establishment and retention of strong leader-follower relationships, such that the follower can take off some of the pressure from their leaders and this could improve the leaders approach to change leadership. Secondly, I need to understand my source of influence, especially since team leadership involves facing varying situations and demonstrating success. Kegan & Lahey [Keg09] also emphasizes that understanding one’s influences makes it possible to decipher the limitations, implications, and advantages linked to the influence source in any situation. This way, it is possible to identify the best influence reservoir to use for what situation. The implication in all is that any change leader must seek success using continued insider relationships, or outsider relationships characterized by careful balancing, listening, attempts to create smaller and quick wins, and learning. To sum it up, I demonstrated numerous positive qualities of change leadership that led to the success of the team. Here, I managed not only to use sensemaking to think, but also to act and develop change as I sought for change signs. I managed to use observations to shape decisions, and identify ways to implement alternatives by first understanding available choices. To implement the change, I used the first five steps in Kotter’s eight-step model for leading change where I first created urgency, build strong leader-follower relationships, established a vision for change, and communicated it to the group, and finally eliminated all obstacles, especially those linked to group roles and group thinking. For my personal development, I became aware that as a change leader, I needed to avoid rallying around team members to have things done as this would mean pressurizing them to attain results. On the contrary, I had to ensure that each member understood why the change was necessary and allow the group to build trust, master conflict, attain commitment by forcing clarity and closure, and embracing accountability such that difficult issues are not avoided but are confronted. From the incident, I learnt that change process encounters numerous obstacles that could arise from the group or outside and that could be overcome through greater understanding of my sources of influence in any situation and managing influences such that they overcome their intended obstacles other than becoming obstacles. Finally, although this opportunity was of great significance to my personal development, future similar experiences could improve my personal development for change leadership even further, thus preparing me for future complex leadership roles. Bibliography Wei05: , (2005, p. 409), Ros91: , (Rost, 1991, p. 42), Anc05: , (Ancona, 2005, p. 2), Got03: , (Gottlieb, 2003), Ike07: , (2007, p. 94), Ber091: , (2009, p. 29), Eng13: , (Engleberg & Wynn, 2013), Tod13: , (2013, p. 209), Ful11: , (2011, p. 3), Edm14: , (Edmondson, 2014), Tuc65: , (Tuckman, 1965), For10: , (Forsyth, 2010, p. 134), Bas15: , (Bast, et al., 2015), Her08: , (2008, p. 67), Keg09: , (2009, p. 45), Read More