Effective Working Teams - Essay Example

Effective leadership is all about influence. In other words, leaders or effective team players have to possess skills that influence others to agree with their line of thought as a superior option than theirs. In such a case, personal skills play a huge role in influencing others. Skills are the ability of an individual to demonstrate their competency and knowledge beyond his or her peers (Plunkett, Allen and Attner, 468).For instance, a person with critical thinking skills, ability to listen to others diligently and fluency in a number of languages might be a highly skilled communicator.

Brilliance in communication is an ingredient in influencing others as one stands a better chance to present and defend their line of thought, hence convincing others to adopt it as a superior option to theirs. On the same note, persons willing to assume any responsibility and with the ability to make decisions and solve problems more aggressively do dominate others in working teams. Such persons do embrace more leadership roles compared to those who do not possess the skills. Therefore, personal skills are critical in influencing others effectively in teamwork roles.

In an organisation, for any group to qualify as a team, there are certain basic qualifications required. Plunkett, Allen and Attner (475) explain the most important qualification as development of a common objective for such a group to qualify as a team. Despite the roles of each member of the team, all team players have to work towards a common, shared goal, which is the common objective. Secondly, there has to be regular interaction and coordination between members of the group for it to qualify as a team.

Therefore, an effective team has to have all its members sharing and committed to a common goal. Furthermore, there has to be deeply rooted trust among members, with each member enjoying the freedom of expression in addition to participating in any role played by the team. Importantly, in team work, major decisions have to be made through consensus after evaluating the presented opinions. Problems in effective teams have to be solved based on their causes to develop lasting solutions. Lastly, there has to be growth and development of each team player for a team to be effective.

Work citedPlunkett, R. Warren, Attner Raymond and Allen Gemmy. Management: Meeting and Exceeding Customer Expectations. Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning, 2012.