Leading and Building Effective Teams - Essay Example

Leading and Building Effective Teams al Affiliation Developing diverse teams to improve performance in the organizational setting is very significant as far as organizational health is concerned. Current trend toward globalization has hugely has triggered the need to consider diverse team building a vital issue to be addressed in most organizations because it involves team diversity and team performance. There are diverse teams of highly educated specialists and therefore assembling the knowledge and extensiveness to pull off many multifaceted tasks in organizations requires team building. However, there are many issues such as ethnicity, race, age, work experience, aptitude, and values that hugely interfere with the team’s capabilities hence making it hard for them to get things done implying that the qualities that that trigger success also undermines success. The objective of this article is to examine the importance of leading and building effective teams in a diverse range of organizational settings as well as exploring team diversity and team performance. “Managing the diversified team: challenges and strategies for improving performance,” by Agrawal highlights some of the significant factors that require close attention for successful management of a diversified team. The author aims at providing business managers and executives with an elaborate framework of how to ensure utilization and implementation of teams in the organizations in a manner that leads to maximization of both internal and external variety of skills. Agrawal believes that there are essential diversified skills present amongst team members that should be tapped to achieve the best out of a team. The author has dwelt on the existing literature to collect and synthesize the views of other authors on the issue of managing a diversified team. Agrawal carried out SWOT analysis in evaluating and analyzing diversified team as well as strong inclusion of both primary and secondary research to strengthen his views and opinions on the issue of diversified team. In conclusion, the author’s findings indicated that teamwork requires that members view themselves as a unit with common objectives for better results. This article has highlighted some of the vital information that leaders and managers may use in ensuring that diversity of team members is fully utilized to produce positive results. “Motivating and demotivating forces in teams: Cross-level influences of empowering leadership and relationship conflict,” by Chen et al., addresses team-level stimuli that include motivating leadership and relationship conflict as well as team member’s motivational states of psychological and effective commitment. The article has provided diverse issues about people’s motivation by focusing on what really affects team performance and the dynamics that motivate and demotivates team members. The authors have also focused on the role of cultural diversity and eventual motivational reactions in teams. The article has also examined the combined impacts of conflict, stress and other emotional challenges on team performance. It is apparent that the article has greatly tackled the issue of diversity among team members and other things that either motivate or demotivates team members. “Cultural Diversity and Team Performance: The Role of Team Member Goal Orientation,” by Nederveen Pieterse, Van Knippenberg and Van Dierendonck acknowledges the increase in workforce diversity and the effect of such diversity on the performance of the teams. The authors have established test theory regarding how achievement influences a team member’s goal orientation, which in turn affects diversity performance relationship. The authors observe that managing diversity is crucial for the performance of teamwork in an organization and that team member’s goal orientation plays a key role in ensuring that culturally diverse team benefits. The article claims that team member’s goal orientation elaborates on the enhanced pool of information and further allows building of theory by linking it to the effects of diversity. The authors have greatly handled the real effects of diversity in organizations and proper handling of the challenges in relation to performance improvement. “The influence of work motivation on emotional intelligence and team effectiveness relationship,” by Othman, Abdullah, and Ahmad recognize the importance of teams in organizations and inclusion of team role in work performance models. The article highlights the effect of emotions in team members’ performance as well as the role of team member’s intelligence to successful work effectiveness. The article has effectively addressed emotional effect on the team member’s performance. Emotional effect is one of the team motivators that can lead to success of any time provided team members have positive emotions. “Organizational Behavior Conference Paper Abstracts” has highlighted many aspects of diversity and their eventual effect on the team performance. Team cognitive diversity is one of the significant aspects that influence team performance. Many literature reviews were integrated in the article to provide evidence and previous authors’ opinions about diversity in the team and the best ways of handling them as well as the diversity’s ultimate effect on the team performance. Many things that motivate team members have also been examined. There are indeed important issues tackled in the article that highlights some of the team motivational determinants. It is also worth noting that unless team members are motivated and diversity issues addressed appropriately, team performance may not be desirable. “Human Resource Diversity and Performance within the Frame of Organizations, Teams and Individuals,” by Senichev addresses human resource diversity and performance in different organizational level including team. The article also, like other articles, appreciates the significance of diversity in workforce and team performance and the fact that diversity is very crucial in every organization. The article also examines how diversity influences human resource practice from both scientific and practical perspective. Moreover, it evaluates the effect of diversity on performance of the team. If diversity can be taken and handled positively by management and leadership of different teams, it is apparent that success is eminent. This is an important issue as far as diversity within the teams is concerned and the effect of diversity in motivating team members. “Exploring the Effects of Value Diversity on Team Effectiveness,” by Woehr, Arciniega and Poling analyses the potential effect of within team value diversity in line with team activities and task performance. The article has extensively considered and evaluated value diversity by examining all the important elements of basic human values. However, the findings indicated that value diversity among team members does not affect task performance but when diversity is viewed in terms of several value dimensions. Diversity hugely affect subsequent team level phenomena something that prompts the authors to advise the leaders to analyze and discuss the combined team values. The article is very useful in addressing some of the things that hugely affect team performance. “Developing diverse teams to improve performance in the organizational setting,” by Yeager and Nafukho examines the significance of diversity in team building. The authors have tackled the issue of the relationship between team diversity and team performance through theory and empirical research. The article has considered the elements that make up team diversity such as age and education by reviewing various theories including social identity theory, mental models, inter contact theory and chaos theory. Generally the issue of setting aside team members’ diversity is very crucial as far as far as team performance is concerned. Shared team cognitions also hugely affect team performance while it is worth noting that team conflict and dysfunction is triggered by many factors including overgeneralized view of invalid stereotypes. Overcoming diversity barriers and concentrating on core values and other similarities while positively addressing team diversity is essential in promoting team performance. Whereas Agrawal highlights aspects that need to be addressed in managing diversified team and believes that there are essential diversified skills present amongst team members that should be tapped to achieve the best out of a team. Agrawal’s arguments are similar to Chen et al. who provide diverse issues about people’s motivation by focusing on what really affects team performance and the dynamics that motivate and demotivates team members. All the authors admit the fact that diversity within organizations have hugely increased. Agrawal and Nederveen Pieterse, Van Knippenberg and Van Dierendonck acknowledge the increase in workforce diversity and the effect of such diversity on the performance of the teams. However, Nederveen Pieterse, Van Knippenberg and Van Dierendonck observe that managing diversity is crucial for the performance of teamwork in an organization and that team member’s goal orientation plays a key role in ensuring that culturally diverse team benefits. Another similar article is “Organizational Behavior Conference Paper Abstracts” which highlights many aspects of diversity and their eventual effect on the team performance as well as the diversity’s ultimate effect on the team performance. Woehr, Arciniega and Poling analyses the potential effect of within team value diversity in line with team activities and task performance. Contrary to other authors, Senichev addresses human resource diversity and performance in different organizational level including team and examines how diversity influences human resource practice from both scientific and practical perspective. Similarly, Yeager and Nafukho examine the significance of diversity in team building and the relationship between team diversity and team performance through theory and empirical research. Disagreeing with other authors, Chen et al have examined the combined impacts of conflict, stress and other emotional challenges on team performance. Othman, Abdullah, and Ahmad have effectively addressed emotional effect on the team member’s performance. It is therefore apparent that some authors have presented every theme differently while other authors seem to share similar approach regarding their specific themes. All the literatures have proved that establishing a vision and strategies to building effective teams in organizations. Factors such as education, communication, and technological knowledge may serve as internal factors affecting group performance. Motivation and hardworking also play significant role in the performance of groups. For effective performance of a team, there must be formal structure or direction within mission and vision statements that provide the team with decisions and activities. Looking at the external factors such as political, ethical, racial, or socio-economic factors may interfere with the values, attitude, and objectives of the team. Reasonable treatment practices of team members’ diversity are considered as important aspects in catapulting team performance. It is indeed evident that there are many issues such as ethnicity, race, age, work experience, aptitude, and values that hugely interfere with the team’s capabilities hence making it hard for them to get things done implying that the qualities that that trigger success also undermines success. It is therefore important for managers and leaders to contribute to team building and identify team characteristics that if present, may improve performance of the team. References Agrawal, V. (2012). Managing the diversified team: challenges and strategies for improving performance. Team Performance Management, 18(7/8), 384. doi:10.1108/13527591211281129 Chen, G., Sharma, P. N., Edinger, S. K., Shapiro, D. L., & Farh, J.L. (2011). Motivating and demotivating forces in teams: Cross-level influences of empowering leadership and relationship conflict. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96(3), 541–557. Chou, H., Lin, Y., & Chou, S. (2012). Team cognition, collective efficacy, and performance in strategic decision-making teams. Social Behavior and Personality, 40(3), 381–394. Nederveen Pieterse, A., Van Knippenberg, D., & Van Dierendonck, D. (2013). Cultural Diversity and Team Performance: The Role of Team Member Goal Orientation. Academy of Management Journal, 56(3), 782-804. doi:10.5465/amj.2010.0992 Othman, A. K., Abdullah, H. S., & Ahmad, J. (2009). The influence of work motivation on emotional intelligence and team effectiveness relationship. Vision: The Journal of Business Perspective, 13(4), 1–14. Organizational Behavior Conference Paper Abstracts. (2010). Academy of Management Annual Meeting Proceedings, 1-171. doi:10.5465/AMBPP.2010.54503774 Senichev, V. (2013). Human Resource Diversity and Performance within the Frame of Organizations, Teams, and Individuals. Business: Theory & Practice, 14(4), 337-345. doi:10.3846/btp.2013.36 Woehr, D., Arciniega, L., & Poling, T. (2013). Exploring the Effects of Value Diversity on Team Effectiveness. Journal of Business & Psychology, 28(1), 107-121. doi:10.1007/s10869-012-9267-4 Yeager, K. L., & Nafukho, F. M. (2012). Developing diverse teams to improve performance in the organizational setting. European Journal of Training and Development, 36(4), 388-408. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/03090591211220320 Read More