Effective Team Builder and Leader - Term Paper Example

Organizational Behavior and Interpersonal Skills (MHR 405) Organizational Behavior and Interpersonal Skills (MHR 405) Buildingand Leading Teams The task of building and leading teams is paramount in getting work done and having quality performance and results. In building and leading teams to achieve exemplary performance, I ensure that the people I am working with are cooperative and effective in their efforts to realize individual and organizational goals. I make these possible by having committed people who have complementary skills and have performance goals with a common purpose and who have a mutually accountable approach. To achieve superb results and to be an effective team builder and leader, I need to apply my three essential competencies. These include my ability to facilitate effective interaction and interpersonal communication among members of the team in order to ensure best problem solving, coordination of effort and decision-making. I also comprehensively promote the understanding of teamwork, shared goals and each person’s contribution to the team. I also ensure adequate knowledge to the team to achieve desired goals (Singh, 2012). I truly enjoy working in teams and being an effective team leader and I like to encourage a high level of collaboration and interdependency across all levels of the team. As a team leader, I provide the necessary support and structure for my team by putting together the right people to perform assigned tasks. I select team members by assigning them tasks with their natural skills in mind since I understand that not every person is capable of doing every job. I ensure that the team has the training and resources vital to build up the skills desirable to do their work. This includes cross – training which gives members of my team a greater responsiveness of how their jobs are increasing the team’s flexibility and interdependence while improving response time. I also ensure that I do receive feedback from my team and customers and act on them promptly to meet their needs within the shortest time possible (Singh, 2012). I am aware that receiving timely feedback is crucial to the effectiveness of the team. I also ensure that feedback reaches the entire team on its metrics and goals and each individual team member. This feedback ought to be received in time to make corrections and adjustments as it is also useful for future planning. I am aware that for me to be a resourceful manager, I need to provide direction, mentor staff, support their training and co-ordinate work. I also must be in touch with the ground issues, act on feedback, be a motivator and continually update my own skills (Singh, 2012). My BIG 5 Personality Test The purpose of the BIG 5 Personality Test is to formulate the psychological theory types that are useful and understandable in people’s lives. It is a self-inventory test designed to identify a person’s personality type, strengths and preferences. My BIG 5 personality test results show that I am an Extrovert (61%), Agreeable (36%), Conscientious (88%), Neurotic (9%) and Open to Experience (19%). This shows that I am a people - focused individual living in a world of people possibilities and do have excellent people skills. My BIG 5 Personality Test also shows that I am an extrovert who shows concern with other people’s needs. It shows that I am a person who sets clear goals and ultimately pursues them with zeal and determination. People often regard me as a hardworking and a reliable person. This works very well with me as a team leader. I am also exceptionally calm, unflappable and composed and I do not react with intense emotions, even to situations that most people would describe as stressful. I also like thinking in plain terms and not in complexities. People consider me as conservative, practical and down-to-earth. This is ideal for my team as I am able to mingle and work well with other members to achieve good results. Integration As an extrovert, I am highly energized when I am around other people since I am friendly and outgoing. I achieve my targets fully when I work with people, which is in line with my extrovert personality. I also have a preference to intuition meaning that I am open-minded and I can accommodate a lot of information and people to achieve the preeminent results. Since I am dealing with people, I am very much mindful of my feelings towards them. This works well for me as a team leader because a team only achieves exemplary results if they feel valued. I am very much skewed towards their feelings, giving them a sense of belonging. This also works effectively in achieving excellent results. I do have the people skills, which is extraordinary in making people perform what I desire them to. I understand and care about people and I do have a special talent of bringing the best in others which is ideal for a great team leader like me. My main interest in life is show support, love and a high-quality time to other people. I am focused on understanding, supporting and encouraging others to work towards the realization of their goals. I make things happen for people and get my best personal satisfaction from this. I get my best satisfaction from serving others. Since I am a team leader, I am a people’s servant and my exceptional intuitive awareness of people makes me able to draw out even the most reserved individuals in the team. My personality is very much in line with my present career and life goals of being a remarkable leader in both my career and in leading people. I strive on being a people’s leader and not a people’s manager (Singh, 2012). How Good Are My Listening Skills? I have good listening skills, which I rely on to ensure that workers are more productive. My good listening skills have enabled me to better understand my team of workers and to know what is expected of me as a team leader. It helps me to build a rapport with my team and my superiors. Since I work better in a team-based environment, my listening skills have enabled me to show support, resolve problems with my team, answer questions correctly and find underlying meaning in what others say. I have tips that enable me to listen well which include maintaining eye contact, being attentive, nodding my head, leaning towards the speaker, never interrupting the speaker, always replicating instructions and soliciting suitable questions when the speaker has closed his address. As a good listener, I know that being attentive to what the speaker does not say is as important as being attentive to what he does say. I also look for non-verbal cues such as facial expressions and posture to get the full glimpse of what the speaker is telling me. I know I am a good listener since I know how to minimize external distractions in order to concentrate fully on what I am being told. I respond fully to the person speaking to me and focus solely on the main topic under discussion with an open mind to draw sufficient information from what is being said. I never take offense or become defensive even where the speaker criticizes me. Instead, I do take criticism positively and totally engage myself as I seek clarification (K Singh, 2012). My Main Motivation Motivation is the reason for my actions. Motivation is the feelings and thoughts that make us covet to do something, persist in wanting to do it and turn our wishes into action. A number of factors that motivate me include money, bonuses, future promotion, my job, good working relationships, job security and a favorable working environment. I also do get a lot of motivation when I see satisfied team working under me and happy customers. I thrive in meeting my given deadlines and surpassing my targets. An enabling environment is essential to achieve desired goals; given that environment, I can and do surpass almost any work related target placed before me (Singh, 2012). Team Preference Roles On the team preference roles, I am both a gatekeeper and a moderate encourager since I have a strong tendency of encouraging my team members in participating in discussions to achieve exemplary results. My BIG 5 personality concurs with my role in the team. I also support ideas of my team members and I do praise them for a job well done. I show solidarity and warmth to my team. I am also a harmonizer who has a moderate preference to mediate intra-group conflicts and reduce tension within the team. I am also a moderate initiator in indentifying goals for a meeting including ways to work on those goals. I do have a tough tendency to maintain track of what was said in the meeting, making me a strong summarizer who is highly likeable by my team members (K Singh, 2012). I am also above average on the need for achievement, meaning that I am motivated on taking on a challenging personal goal and achieving it. This includes an above average desire to perform better than others do and to reach my potential. In terms of the need for social approval, I am average showing my average motivation in seeking favorable evaluation from others (K Singh, 2012). The Core Elements of Organizational Behavior I fully understand that the organization’s foundation strictly depends on the management’s philosophy, vision, values and goals. This is what drives the culture of the organization, which comprises the social environment, informal organization and the formal organization. The culture ultimately determines the group dynamics, communication and the type of leadership. As a worker, I recognize this as the work life quality, which then directs my motivational degree. The results of these are my individual and team’s satisfaction, excellent performance and personal growth and development. All these factors coalesce to build the organization’s framework or model. I know that there are five key multidisciplinary natures of organizational behavior, which include: Political Science, Sociology, Psychology, Anthropology and Economics. Organizational behavior can be divided into four processes, which are Individual processes, Interpersonal and team processes, Organizational processes and finally the Change process (Singh, 2012). The following factors are found in Individual processes – personality, perception, learning and reinforcement, attitudes and values, work motivation and work stress. In Interpersonal and team processes we find organizational communication, group management dynamics, leadership, managing conflicts and productive negotiation approaches. Organizational processes mainly concerns decision-making and problem solving, organizational structure and design, power and political behavior in organizations and organizational culture. Finally, change process is concerned with the nature of planned organizational change and approaches to planned organizational change (Singh, 2012). My organizational behavior and interpersonal skills approach strongly emphasizes the organization being a social system that is people oriented as opposed to a mechanistic and alienated system. This strategy gives a lot of significance to human relations since it is a behavioral science approach. My Task-Facilitating roles are enhanced by my ability as a gatekeeper and a moderate encourager. Since I am able to assign tasks to individuals who are best suited to handle them, my facilitation becomes very effective. My relationship-building roles are equally successful in achieving my team roles. My behavioral leadership style is more people-oriented than task driven. Behavioral leadership is a theory that tries to understand leaders and categorizes them in various styles according to the methods leaders use to achieve their goals and the action they take. Behavioral leadership explains why a type of a leader exists, categorizing them into either bureaucratic, situational, transactional or a transformational leaders. A Task-oriented leader is one that focuses on the job or a series of tasks, including all procedures essential to achieve the task. A leader who is task-oriented is not concerned with the thought of caring for the employees and is more apprehensive with finding systematic solutions for achieving specific goals. People-oriented leaders use their employee’s talents and strengths to achieve specific goals. They place people in certain positions in order to tap on their positive characteristics. These leaders inspire people and are the main reason why employees remain loyal to an organization. I am a people-oriented leader from my analysis because people do trust and look up to me for their inspiration (Singh, 2012). Conclusion As a team leader, I understand the role of being an effective team leader who brings people collectively to encourage creativity, get better performance and shore up collaboration to deliver consistently sturdy results and soaring engagement levels. I understand that my attitude and behavior is likely to be reflected in my team and in their performance. I allow my team members to do their work because I believe in their ability to deliver the desired results. This shows that I do have confidence in my team. I am open to ideas, suggestions and contributions from my colleagues since am a strong believer in a two-way constructive discussion that involves feedback. I duly recognize that organizational behavior plays a critical role in the organization’s systems, contingency, productivity and human resource. It is an interdisciplinary field that is enthusiastic to the better management and understanding of people at work. At the core of any organizational culture, there are sets of key characteristics collectively esteemed by the organization’s members. Recent research shows seven elements of organizational culture used to describe contemporary organizations. These are innovation, stability and orientation towards people, result orientation, easygoingness, attention to detail and collaborative orientation. Different sets of core values are reflected in the cultures of different organizations. Elements of organizational culture propose that the culture of an organization comprises basic assumptions, artifacts and values (Singh, 2012). Reference Singh, K. (2012). Organizational Behavior: For Chaudhary Charan Singh University. New Delhi: Pearson Education India. Read More