Team Working and Team Leadership Are Idealised Managerial and Orthodox OB Textbooks Aspirations - Assignment Example

? Team Working and Team Leadership are just ‘idealized’ managerial and orthodox OB textbooks aspirations. What, in reality, management end up with are work groups and frustrated group leaders. Critically discuss this statement with examples drawn from your own experiences of work and/or from reviews of academic case studies on team working and team leadership. Introduction: “The success of an organization is reliant on the leader’s ability to optimize human resources. A good leader understands the importance of employees in achieving the goals of the organization and that motivating these employees is of paramount importance in achieving these goals” (Hayward 2005, p. 16). According to Mullins in Original Emphasis, leadership is defined as ‘a relationship through which one person influences the behaviour or actions of other people.’ Mainly, there are two schools for the leadership, while one states that “good leaders are made not born” and the other states that “good leaders are born not made.” The two schools have their own supporting cases to claim that they are right. But in any situation the most important element of leadership is communication. Proper communication through any mode between leader and followers will make the process easy. The leadership is a quality achieved by desire and willpower. Endless process of self-study, education, training and experience is necessary for effective leadership. Here is one best example from an academic review about effective leadership. It states that “leader should primarily work through and with other people. In addition, effective leader should also help in establishing the conditions that enable their subordinates to be motivated and effective part of the organisation and the society. Aside from this, it can also be said that an effective leader should also credible. Credibility should always be considered as the foundation of leadership. A leader should be credible for him to lead. Furthermore, to become a good leader, one must be honest, competent, aspiring and have the quality of having forward-looking approach. In line with the political and business view, effective leadership proves to be quite beneficial. Effective leaders aids in efficiently meeting job-related demands. In addition, it also helps in creating higher-performing teams, as well as fostering renewed loyalty and commitment among the subordinates. However, this so-called effective leadership is not that easy to achieve. Effective leaders entail a lot of hard work, dedication, and other factors to mould an individual to become an efficient leader and to become a greater part of the success of the organisation” (Leadership Case Problem – Latham’s Leadership Lessons Leadership & Management 2011). Some leaders are getting best results from their team members or from the followers while some of them getting poor efforts. This is happening not only because of the poor employee skills, different kinds of leadership techniques and styles also have a part in it. These are the all things that we can understand from the orthodox text book aspiration of the Organizational Behavior Studies. But in reality, the management is always ends up with dissatisfied work groups and frustrated team leaders. Problems in Team Working: The main reason behind this is individual dysfunctional conflicts which decrease the creativity as well as productivity of the company. Working under poor leadership can be too frustrating and intimidating. If the team members are not confident about their leader what they should do? Certainly they will not be motivated or inspired by the leader’s activity. The important dysfunctional activities found in corporate are defensiveness, reluctance, romantic idealism, loss of confidence and disrespect. Some other problems in Team work are, Self Centeredness: Self centeredness is nothing but selfishness. These people always think about themselves only and that damages the interest of team. The solution for this problem is selflessness. The solution is not easy for implement, but as being this is the only solution this should be implemented. Half Heartedness: People in this kind have no interest in the aim of the team and they may doubtful about the achievement of team. The solution for this problem is dedication. When implementing to the team people who are passionate about their jobs that should be included. Uncooperative: Competition is good in achieving the goal. But too much of competition lead uncooperativeness within the team and it finally destroy the team working. The solution for this problem is collaboration. Stubbornness: Some people show resistance to accept new ideas and methods due to their conventional thinking. This is considered as major problem in team working. Team members who resist new process and procedures will destroy the team spirit. The solution for this problem is flexibility of the introducer of the particular idea and the other members. In an organization the place and value for the term leadership is very supreme and high. Effective leadership and well talented leaders can definitely manage and lead teams and organizations and certainly could achieve the organizational goals. Another main thing to discuss about is Team leadership; team leadership has a significant role in organizations. Leaders are responsible to built team leadership in their respective organizations. It is the responsibility of a team leader to build a situation tilting to faith, communication, innovation, and solid team attempt. A team leader has the responsibility to lead a group and show them the path to reach victory, so that they can ensure the victory of their organization too. Researchers have developed a number of leadership and team leading theories over the years. These can be categorized into four main types, they are Trait theories, Behavioral theories, Contingency theories and Power and influence theories “Within all of these theories, frameworks, and approaches to leadership, there's an underlying message that leaders need to have a variety of factors working in their favor. Effective leadership is not simply based on a set of attributes, behaviors, or influences” (Leadership Styles: Using the Right One for the Situation 1996). Team leadership is not different from these, but it has more to do with team work and leading. Everybody in a group would not have leadership skills, only few would have leadership qualities and they are assigned to lead particular groups in an organization. Required training would be given to these leaders. A team leader should encourage and motivate team members. Definitions in OB textbooks are good to learn and it may give aspirations, but the fact is in many cases these learned theories are not at all working and are not practical. They are becoming just textbook theories. There are many examples regarding this; in many organizations the leaders are facing failure to do their assigned duties. They may be good at learning theories but some of these leaders are totally getting unsuccessful to implement those theories in their real official life. A leader can be controlling or self-governing, to be a success, duty is a must; Textbook theories cannot make an effective leader. By learning management and leadership theories a person can understand the advantages of leadership and management, but to implement these theories effectively in an organization a leader must need talent and skills. We have discussed about how a leader is made or born, still that discussion is pursuing. The method a team is guided will have a most important brunt towards the victory or else of the team. While asking the team members what they require from the team leader, they reply various values and beliefs they are expecting from their leader, like the Dedication to group in addition as duty is the primary important aspect. Leading the group from the front and giving support to the group members, Motivating the group members by encouraging them in an appropriate way and To set this group as a strong team and building them to achieve organizational goals and victory too. Team members are expecting these kinds of things from an efficient team leader and team leadership. “An effective leader will ensure that the organization survives and thrives. An ineffective leader could mean the organization fails” (Winning Teams: Effective and Ineffective Leadership n.d.). Many people who are assigned as team leaders would have high academic skills in management and leadership theories. But the fact is majority of these so called leaders are failed in their mission to lead a team or group. Theories are made to implement in real situations and make it practical. But in this situation, some team leader are failed to apply these theories and failed to make leadership theories practical. Actually in such situations, the management should give more focus to well talented managers who are efficient to implement such theories and make these practical. Experience is an important factor; inexperience may lead to stress and failure. The best way to avoid such situation is by finding the best person who has the real leadership skills and who can implement leadership theories in real life. Theories in textbooks alone cannot make any difference, there should be someone to practically use or implement these leadership and management theories. Leadership Style: Many types of leadership styles are practicing by leaders. That may depend on individual attitude and characteristics. But some organizations have the particular policy to adopt leadership style. The theory says the leadership style may adopt by their behavioral aspects. Some of popularized leadership styles are autocratic leadership, bureaucratic leadership, charismatic leadership, democratic leadership, laissez-faire leadership, people oriented leadership, servant leadership, task-oriented leadership, transactional leadership and transformational leadership. While considering the autocratic leadership, it is a stand on the top of the workers. That means absolute power flows to the person who leads. And the workers or followers have not any power to take decision and less opportunity for suggestions. This style may practice high level in the early periods but now the situation has changed. The leaders have to keep in mind the subordinates’ suggestions. Autocratic behavior is not suitable for the modern corporate world. Autocratic leadership has smoothened to the staffs. Bureaucratic leadership keepers are very conscious about rules and regulations. They may work only by the books. They must ensure the subordinates follows procedure. These leaders are very conscious about work safety and financial matters. But now a day the leaders in practice are not much conscious about such things because of their working atmosphere and organization policy may not apt for the style. Same organization gives more safety but it is the part of the working policy. Next type of the leadership style is charismatic leadership. “A charismatic leadership style can seem similar to transformational leadership, because these leaders inspire lots of enthusiasm in their teams and are very energetic in driving others forward. However, charismatic leaders can tend to believe more in themselves than in their teams, and this creates a risk that a project, or even an entire organization, might collapse if the leader leaves” (Leadership Styles: Using the Right One for the Situation 1996) these types of leaders are emerged in the corporate. The management and employees relations are improved by only this type of leader’s involvement. In the current situation, charismatic leaders apply their own style of management and it has smoothened business operations. People oriented leadership is another type of leadership. The leaders must focus on the development of their team. They totally focus on the plan organizing, supporting the employees who are in their team. This type of the leaders believes in team working and having creative collaboration within the team. This is also called relation oriented leadership. But in the practical view the leaders are not able to concentrate on the team work and team members’ development. Because for them business development is the ultimate aim. It may not faire for the staff’s individual development. Participative or Democratic leadership have made “the final decisions; they invite other members of the team to contribute to the decision-making process. This not only increases job satisfaction by involving team members, but it also helps to develop people's skills. Team members feel in control of their own destiny, so they're motivated to work hard by more than just a financial reward” (Leadership Styles: Using the Right One for the Situation 1996). Present situation may not fully allow this policy because the management has their own strategy to operation. So employees may not get full platform to decision making process. Like this, other styles of leadership are also practically different from its theory. The theoretical part may not applicable for the real life. It is about the personnel behavior and other characteristics. A leader must keep running to achieve organizational goal. So they are compelled to stay away from theories. Team work and the team leadership are widely discussed topic in the social psychology and organizational psychology. The team work and team leadership are the important concepts of organization behavior. The team leadership is always considered as a success of the organization. The leadership has been valued mainly on the values and the ethics in an organization. The leadership can be focused to various external factors like the cultures, traditions and the norms. A team is an essential and the much significant one of the organization. The tem work can contribute much incredible task to mere success within the organization. “As the current popularity of teams is considered the organizations have restructured themselves to compete more effectively and efficiently, they have turned to teams as a better way to use employee talents. Management has found that teams are more flexible and responsive to changing events that are traditional departments or other forms of permanent grouping” (Organizational Behavior 2009, p. 349). The building up of the team is supported by the organization and any of the organization will have certain specific functions in grouping the people according to the responsibilities and the functions of the firm. The team work or the formation of team itself is considered as the combined work which can contribute to the success of the firm. “There is a need for more high quality evaluations of the effects of teamwork interventions across care settings and geographic locations. Preferably these evaluations should adopt a mixed methods approach in the form of RCTs with complementary strands of qualitative and economic data. More thought needs to be given to generating a wider range of the effects of teamwork interventions across care settings and geographic locations preferably these evaluations should adopt a mixed methods approach in the form of RCT’s with complementary strands of qualitative and economic data” (Reeves et al. 2010, p. 142). To site an example of team work, the Starbucks is the best example. The Starbucks coffee brand, which is one of the world wide hospitality chain is the much well known for their capability to maintain in a well built manner and to be important for the minimum turnover rate. In this context, team work is given utmost importance and is considered as an eye opener for success. The mangers of the firm refers to the employees for the success achieved and the people in the working are considered as the ‘partners’ rather than the employees or the workers. The mangers show no partially towards the employees. The feeling of oneness is created for every employees and the high satisfaction is found as the result of the one which is a success factor of starbucks world wide. The shift system is also there in the organization, the managers are at the liberty of changing the shifts of the employees by considering the religious and the personnel necessities. The cultural barrier should be avoided in the organization, and they create dynamism in the organization. “Diversity can both help and hinder team effectiveness, diversity can be a source of creativity and innovation that can create a competitive advantage and improve a team’s decision making. Innovative companies intentionally use heterogeneous teams to solve problems; on the other hand diversity can also create misunderstanding and conflict that can lead to absenteeism” (Philips & Gully 2012, p. 404). The firm’s capability in dealing with all these kind of the barriers are much appreciable. Moreover, the team is again sub divided into smaller teams, where there is a feeling of oneness in the organization and the good time to spend in the organization. In short, the managers and the respective authorities should try to know the advantages of teamwork and to recognize the need to promote the same activity. “The work of teams largely proceeds through the meetings, whether they are regularly scheduled or called out of need, effective meeting management is a key to success” (Thompson 2008, p. 401). Reference List Hayward, BA 2005. Relationship between Employee Performance, Leadership and Emotional Intelligence in a South African Parastatal Organisation. Master of Commerce. Department of Management. Rhodes University. Available at [Accessed on January 11, 2012]. Leadership Styles: Using the Right One for the Situation.1996. Mind Tools. Available at < http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_84.htm> [Accessed on January 11, 2012]. Leadership Case Problem – Latham’s Leadership Lessons Leadership & Management. 2011. Thinking Made Easy. [Online] Available at [Accessed on January 11, 2012]. Organizational Behavior. 2009. Dorling Kindersley. Pvt. Ltd. Available at [Accessed on January 11, 2012]. Philips & Gully 2012. Organizational Behavior. Available at [Accessed on January 11, 2012]. Reeves et al. 2010. Interprofessional Teamwork for Health and Social Care: Partnership Working in Action. Wilry-Blackwell. Available at [Accessed on January 11, 2012]. Thompson, LL 2008. Making the Team: A Guide for Managers. 3rd Edn. Pearson Education, Inc. Available at [Accessed on January 11, 2012]. Winning Teams: Effective and Ineffective Leadership. n.d. Narcissism: Behind the Mask. Amazone.co.uk. Available at < http://winning-teams.com/leadership1.html> [Accessed on January 11, 2012]. Read More