Group Process and Team Development - Assignment Example

Team leadership Team leadership is focused on achieving objectives, team and people development. A team leader is vested with responsibilities of ensuring task leadership behaviors are aligned to goal attainment. He or she also establishes mission, vision and strategic change in leadership through coaching. Team building becomes the centre of a leader who values integration, problem solving and conflict management. Overall, a team leader is required to build and maintain relationships. As a team leader, I will prioritize on directing behaviors of my group members towards the planned objectives and goals. I will influence and motivate my members’ behaviors so to keep in sight to the goals. I will help the group to define its goals in a way that is consistent with the requirements of the environment in which we operate. I will therefore, develop and coach group members into making strategic and operational decisions. I will make sure that activities of group members are integrated to shared goals through communication, conflict resolution and team building. I will maintain the morale and keep the group members interested to stay in the group by evoking soci0-emotional behaviors. Regarding leadership responsibilities provided in the table below, I will rate Myself as follows; LEADER Responsibilities See Venn Diagram above: Evaluation Rating 1-10: 1 = Extremely Effective 10 = Not Effective Lead When Necessary Achieve the Objective 2: Highly effective Evaluate and Intervene as Needed Achieve the Objective 1: Extremely effective Appreciate Team Members Develop the People 5: Effective Develop Individuals by Coaching/Guiding Develop the People 7: Moderately effective Engage the Team Build the Team 6: Slightly effective Reinforce Results Build the Team 3: Very effective My most challenging areas are team engagement and development of team members through guidance and coaching. I am still weak in guiding members by making them understand their roles, interactions and responses. I also find difficulty in establishing team building techniques and activities. I am not so sensitive in understanding the group dynamics and possible stages they are in team development. However, I have established dialogue with members through seeking their opinions on my coaching tactics. I developed a questionnaire detailing on their expectations. I am employing proactive measures to ensure that I understand the dynamics of group members who are transforming from one stage to another. I recognize the stage at which the team is like forming, Norming, and closure among others. I am also keen to recognize that the individuals concerned are engaged through development of various activities that gets them engaged. My strengths lie in achieving team objectives especially evaluation, intervention and through building the team by results reinforcement. I often step back consistently to monitor and evaluate team performance. I am in charge of logistics like coordinating materials, to resource lobbying and communication of team activities. I also ensure that the team obstacles like conflicts, dissention and lack of morale are eliminated. In the case where the media and other interested parties are involved, I intervene to protect the image, integrity and teams resources. I am gifted in mobilizing resources and letting the others contribute to proper management of resources. Situational Leadership I consider directing as a situational leadership model as the most appropriate in this instance. I prefer providing direction to members by instructing them of what to do, when and how to complete the task. I am not used to my team members and possibly do not understand their strengths and weaknesses. I also like getting things accomplished my way since I see the team objectives and responsibilities are all vested in me. I prefer being called a leader through the roles I play as a team leader and not being there to support and delegate responsibilities. I believe that my instructions should be respected and obeyed. Coaching or guiding is difficult to attain since I am not ready to offer lots of support. My team members are less involved in decision making since most of the decisions starts with me. The members drive the team objectives, but reduce on their involvement in building skills and facilitation. For work to be done in an individual direction, I am not positioned to task my attention in guiding their ambitions. I prefer to regard organizational objectives first before individual qualities are considered. I regard coaching as only relevant when the objectives or team targets are not met and that the individual concerned should be coerced to improve. The two leadership qualities represent a flipside of the same platform. Directing and coaching are indispensable where results have been attained but require more emphasis on individual contribution to improve on the growth of the members. I find directing as initial model to use which later culminates to coaching. It helps to understand that new members grow and gain skills in the context of direction and support. I am able to adjust from directing to delegating and supporting depending on the nature and skills levels of the members. I direct when the members are still new to their roles while experienced members are delegated with responsibility since they are self-driven. Once the experienced members are able to act with minimum supervision, I support their activities and shared objectives. When the situation demands that work must be done in a defined manner and period, I rather direct the members to do so. Alternatively, if the work requires singular or contribution to shape a desired quality, I prefer supporting and coaching the team to drive the desired results. At any one time, I gravitate from directing to delegating and at times supporting. I know I am not engaging most recognized models like coaching or guiding, which implies that I am not fully utilizing the capabilities and emotional stability of the members. In the nut shell, the organizational objectives will have been attained. Johari Window Open area: I know I can mobilize, ignite and drive morale in people. I have the determination to achieve even in difficult circumstances. I communicate my thoughts with new people and thus confide in me for information. Blind area: I was feeling inadequate and unworthy in times of extreme challenges like passing a difficult course. I did not know that other people believe in flexibility and facing the difficulties directly. Hidden area: I knew that I had the secret of succeeding through reading and memorizing at the beginning of the semester. Others were not keen to start early. They later work under pressure to understand. Unknown area: The secret to approaching a future that is complex and unpredictable through selection of appropriate careers at the beginning of my university studies. Comparing Group Results To start with, the Beara Squad group that dealt with authentic leadership was an eye opener. I learned that people grant power to leaders because they have interest in public service and beyond the desires of money and power. I also learned that authentic leaders assume behavioral role model to which their followers observe and admire their attitudes and behavior. They make the followers more powerful and motivated to continue pursuing their objectives. This learning help to overcome challenges of modern living and to help others who are within my jurisdiction. The group working on communication at the work place allowed me to learn that effective communication through verbal, non-verbal and listening skills results in healthy relationships at the workplace. I also learned that communication increases profitability, work quality, training process and wins back lost customers. The Murray Migrators Group thought me that southwest airlines failed because of lack of communication strategy. Effective communication increases shareholder value, innovation, accountability and greater inclusiveness in corporate culture. Barriers represent communication challenges where messages are not sufficiently received by others. I also learned that giving example express to what is expected to lower the possibility of misunderstanding. Also, when support-ask questions are offered, they gain a better understanding. Besides, being appreciative in expressing gratitude is a crucial aspect of providing feedback. I learned that it is critical to recognize someone’s cultural background which is significant in giving feedback. Diverse cultures offer different views among subordinates and superiors. These must be taken into consideration before any feedback session. It was thrilling to learn that leaders influence their followers to accept their goals and work towards achieving them. Leaders are required to communicate with members clearly. In addition, leaders should motivate following by citing positive outcomes of the goals. It is the leaders’ responsibility to encourage others and always be honest in providing or receiving feedback. The summer scholars group on cultural perspective on leadership opened up my thinking on how to become aware of emotional intelligence. It has also thought me to understand and manage my emotions and those of my neighbors. I now know that there is power in self-awareness and self-regulation. I need to know my values, be calm and hold myself accountable. There is strength in motivation, empathy and social skills. I learned of skills for communication and its barriers. Interestingly, I learned that there are things one need to shun away while abroad like common hand gestures. Humans have two ears and one tongue for listening. I learned that one can listen for information, to obtain the subject of communication. Besides, others can listen based on personal contact and feelings. Some people listen for enjoyment or obtain some level of fun. Reflecting on Leadership and Learning I am delighted to have learned a lot in leadership and group development. I have learned that every organization has objectives that must be achieved through developing people and the teams they belong. Becoming a leader begins with becoming a group member. I learned that I need to transform from achieving objectives to building teams. I also recognized my strengths as a team leader as highly effective in evaluations and interventions as well as reinforcing results required. I also learned that my weakness is team engagement and developing individuals through coaching. I got determined to learn of ways to improving on my weaknesses and maximizing on the strengths. I needed to learn more on helping members to understand themselves and the responsibilities through initiating dialogues. I also needed to broaden my perception of team building techniques and be proactive on group dynamics. I appreciated the model suggested by Hersey and Blanchard (2000) that brought up captivating analysis of leadership. I found that leadership styles are applicable at certain situations and are specific to the individual in question. I was a useful piece to know that rigidity in being flexible to leadership styles is catastrophic to the team performance. Johari window is a totally new phenomenon to me. I am coming across it for the first time. I appreciated the studies of Laft and Ingham that one can be able to enlarge an open area with minimal disclosure of sensitive information. I got to know that self disclosure allows one to be cooperative and productive. Besides, I have learned that Johari window when applied in the context of the team establishes feedback as the principal determinant. Managers and leaders can merit on incorporating the lessons of new members and striving to obtain constructive feedback from them. By applying the Johari window, I have known that self-disclosure and group feedback assists me to benefit from open communication, personal as well as professional growth. I have appreciated the capacities of authentic leaders like Rudy Giuliani and Martin Luther King Jr in shaping the behaviors, attitudes and morale of people learning about them now and in the future. I learned that communication and feedback are significant to leaders in diverse aspects of life. Followers desire leaders who communicate effectively and have a good response through feedback. Effective communication at the workplace has enabled me to know that conflict resolution, productivity and healthy relationships are easily solved. I also learned that giving example express to what is expected to lower the possibility of misunderstanding. Also, when support-ask questions are offered, they gain a better understanding. Besides, being appreciative in expressing gratitude is a crucial aspect of providing feedback. I learned that it is critical to recognize someone’s cultural background which is significant in giving feedback. I would like to practice from the lessons especially from the Summers Group that effectively gain listening skills I need to face the speaker, maintain eye contact and reduce external distractions. I also need to respond appropriately to show misunderstandings. I will focus solely on the subject. I now know that there are grave consequences of leaving conflicts not managed. Decision making is delayed. Anger and hostility gets misdirected, and activities become unproductive. It is now my duty to be an active listener where I encourage people to talk about their feelings and accept their statements as valid. I will now understand social identities like mix up teams, group talk and conflict of identities. I will learn to issues before during and after the conflict. I will never forget the saying that smallest action speaks louder than the loudest voice. I will practice and learn it daily. Works Cited George, B. “Truly Authentic Leadership”. U.S. News & World Report, New York: Allan and Wayne. 2006. Print Northouse, P. Leadership. SAGE Publications, Inc. 2013. Print Read More