Leadership & Motivation for Team Performance - Essay Example

Leadership & Motivation for Team Performance of Overview The underperforming team discussed within Module M2 was a 5 member group that was a traditional team in the sense of team structure and functioning. The team was culturally diverse and had a good representation of both men and women. Each member worked in proximity of the other and there was a very high degree of information sharing. The team was completely aligned with the company objectives through efficient management and high levels of information sharing. Group decision making underwent the norming, forming, storming and performing stages where each member shared their views and opinions and accepted their roles and responsibilities well. The leadership was strong as the group members understood their tasks and duties and performed as per the guidance of their leader. However, it was felt that despite all the positives, the team was ineffective in few major areas. Communication within such a team was not very effective and the members were not motivated towards group performance. Here individual success and attainment proceeded over the group motives. This needed improvement. Also, the teams within the company resisted big changes within the company. This is because they did not see organizational development as a development of their personal well being. The staff was highly discouraged for undertaking huge tasks and allowing big organizational changes. The paper is aimed at building a strategic team management process that shall enhance team effectiveness and functionality by developing a plan that shall assist the leaders within the team to motivate the members of the group, enhance decision making process and also introduce ethical conflict resolution processes within the system. Power Influences and Decision Making Power and Social Influences The social influence within the group comes from the motivation to make money through increased work and aligned benefits. The team members are in competition to make more money and be in an influential position through individual high performance rather than working with the group. This brings in reduced organizational performance when the team members are not motivated to take the opinions and views of other team members in a trusted manner (Ferrell & Fraedrich, 2014). Social influences also work in terms of works positively in the group effort towards the attainment of the short term organizational objectives. Each team member contributes towards the short term goals by fulfilling his/her part of the task and allowing and assisting the other members towards the attainment of their respective parts of the work. This brings in collective efforts in short term task attainment. Power influences within the organizational context comes from assertiveness, trust and reliability (Harrison, et. al., 2000). Such power influences within the group context discussed in the paper comes through knowledge and experience in the workplace. Those with higher degree of experience and higher levels of knowledge are deemed to be the source of power influences. Power comes through trust and reliability among the members over issues pertaining to clarification of instructions and directions presented within the assignments and also in the form of being the knowledge source for the way in which the task should be carried out most effectively and efficiently. With a view to sustain positive influences and eliminate the negative ones, I order to sustain healthy group dynamics, it is suggested that the 1. Group communication and solidarity with the group members is increased such that the group objectives are comprehensively realized and the individual objectives are transformed into group objectives (Elias, 2008). 2. Power influences that act as a guidance and connecting force are used to provide leadership to the group over successful and efficient attainment of tasks and also bringing in group cohesion. Decision making process and Problem solving Decision making in the group task was based on group dynamics with proper norming, forming storming and performing process. Each group task was undertaking with great enthusiasm and teams were built as per direction. Such teams sat together in physical contact as a traditional team formation process. The team members presented their views and opinions over the issue and took little time to get acquainted and used to each other. This is because the employees had already built good and strong relationships with each other. Differences within the group were resolved by means of group opinion taking precedence over individual opinions (Adair, 2013). Problem solving in the group context was highly systematic and advances. The issues at hand were listed and each problem was discussed in team meetings. The views and opinions of each team member were taken and once the possible solutions were arrived at, the best one was chosen taken the group vote. Such a systematic process allowed for least degree of chaos and the highest degree of efficiency in decision making. None of the members felt let out or violated through active involvement of each member and hidden voting process. Adequate representation allowed for free flow of ideas and innovative thinking. This in turn builds group trust and mutual solidarity (McMurtry & Humphrey, 2000). For daily operation of the team, it is suggested that the decision making process that anonymity in decision making process is maintained and kept confidential in order to retain group trust in the decision making process. For maintaining motivation within the team, the group should ensure that each member and each view is adequately represented so that group members are motivated to present their views and opinions knowing that their views shall also be considered in group decision making process (Widman & Warner, 2000). For conflict resolution the team should consider appointment of a team leader and moderator for conflict discussion and resolution process. This shall facilitate smoother discussion and faster conflict resolution through involvement of a neutral party for conflict resolution. Cultures and Diversity Motivation might get overlooked at times when the work takes up the priority in a diverse work setting. It is crucial to understand that power influences has impacted behavior in the context of motivated workforce. However, managers have to understand and comprehend that no kind of motivation strategy can work well without understanding the values and principles of the workforce involved within team processes. In the context of our team of 5 members who have a good mix of gender as well as culture, people become highly sensitive to such values and attitudes owing to cultural differences. In order to ensure smooth team functioning and successful attainment of organizational as well as team goals, the managers have to understand the cultural values of the people involved and their fundamental attitudes towards their work. Team diversity contributes towards motivation and team productivity. This is possible only when one understand the role and importance of communication in the management of cultural diversity. It is important to communicate among team members as well as the management in order to build trusting relationships and mutual cohesion in the workplace. The workplace should be equally available and accessible in all terms to each one of the members in order to promote equality. Such relationship building and equality promotes sharing of experience, knowledge, and skills which in turn adds on to the smooth adaptation of team members within the workplace setting. Hence diversity in turn becomes strength towards building team effectiveness and promoting innovation and creativity at the workplace through increased communication and promotion of equality (Ginsberg, 2010). Successful cultural and diversity management calls for a general mindset that encompasses the different aspects of cultural diversity and differences. Insufficient teamwork, ineffective communication systems and inadequate alignment of group efforts is a result of failure of team members to build a strong trust and a deep relationship. This in turn hampers the operating processes of the business and such an impact could be profound in the business context. The disagreeable situations may also include failure to meet targets, schedules and goal. The attitudes and values of employees influence the work situation strongly, and thereby impact employee motivation. Such value systems vary between the young employee and the older employees and also between the men and the women. Similarly, a team member’s attitude towards his work can affect their reaction and effort towards the particular task. If the team member views the assignment to be unimportant and too flimsy for his effort, he shall not be motivated to dedicate his efforts into it. Lack of effort from one team member shall in turn influence the attitudes and work efforts of other team members and hence the overall objective of providing high quality work shall be affected. In a similar scenario, cultural difference might view an incentive to be highly beneficial for one group of employee while the other group might not weigh it as well (Ginsberg & Wlodkowski, 2009). In order to manage such differences and maximize on team productivity, motivation, innovation and creativity, managers have to ensure that they address the issues related to intercultural differences and diversity at the workplace. This can be done through the following ways. Training and development of employees towards skill building and personnel development Such training should ensure that the employees are open to new ideas and also undertake the promotion of equality at workplace. Such training can be done as a part of integrated work processes or in the form of a development meeting with coaching at regular intervals and sessions that are aimed at such development. Communication Communication plays a key role in building skills that are important for absorption of different approaches to a particular work situation, sharing of ideas, interacting with the colleagues and understanding patterns of working. This sort of communication allows for framing a general team mindset that disregards cultural differences and diversity in building stronger team roles. Team members become more aligned towards the particular issue being addressed and also discuss potential outcomes, issues and include inputs from each member of the team such that equality is promoted. Communication helps a team to understand and comprehend that they are together in a particular work and each one of them is accountable for the outcomes of the situation. In the event of inappropriate communication of the instructions of the task, the team members fail to attain the objective of the assignment. Communication with peers alone can help in straightening confusion about instruction sets and assignment deadlines. Importance of Continuous Leadership Companies that have been looking to implement large improvements in their processes and want to implement some major changes within their work system have to undertake uncomfortably large steps towards bringing in such programs of change. This might involve a lot of physical, emotional and intellectual strength that shall invite a lot of resistance by workgroups within the organization. However, there is a way out to avoid such a lot of stress and also retain the group cohesion and performance while undertaking huge business changes and strategic development steps. In the context of the group under this study, any big change in the form of an advent of some large assignment would involve high work pressures and huge resistance by team members to meet shortened deadlines. The process change might involve increased work hours and also high efforts on the part of the employees. Such a situation shall bring in reluctance among the team members to work for long hours or put in extra effort for the attainment of the group task. People might not want to work overtime when they do not feel responsible and attached to the big change being implemented within the organization (London, 2001). Another example of a large change in the company could involve a significant training program being implemented within the organization that would need their time and also effort during their work schedule. Such training might increase work pressure within team members and some might not want to be a part of such training program at all. In such a view, it is important to understand that there is a need to have continuous leadership in place such that team management and motivation is facilitated. It is observed in the above cases that there is a general lack of communication within work groups and absence of motivation within the workforce in implementing the change process (Bell & Kozlowski, 2002). For managing such teams, it is important that leaders recognize the relevance of motivation and team strength building in implementing the change process. For the purpose, leaders have to bring in continuous leadership paradigm in place so as to facilitate the change process in a smooth and effective manner. For this, the managers have to 1. Priorities tasks and trust the team expertise This implies that the leaders have to make sure that the incoming new change is so implemented that important tasks are finished first and the less important ones are pushed back so that proper management and prioritization of goal setting is facilitated. This calls for proper communication between the leader and the team. Communication shall also act in a manner that the leaders allows the team to believe that there is some degree of trust in the expertise of the team and that the change implementation cannot be successful in the absence of the group efforts (Burns, 2012). 2. Motivate team members to look change implementation as personal development This requires that leaders make sure that the team looks at the incoming change process as a self development opportunity. This is especially true in case of the training project implementation. When employees believe that they shall have an added advantage with the training program on the personal front, the change process will be widely accepted and the team members shall be willing to take up the extra burden of work. Along with this, it is important that the management makes the team feel involved with the change process and with the development of the organization. With such solidarity with the company, the team feels motivated towards working for the organizational benefit (Dionne et. al., 2004). Conclusion The main conclusions that can be drawn from this report are that the management requires that the group increases solidarity with the members of the group such that individual objectives get transformed into group objectives and vice versa. Additionally, power influences are used for guidance and bringing in effective leadership within the group context. With a view to facilitate decision making, group members and the management is suggested to maintain anonymity in the voting process of decision making such that peace in the decision making process is sustained. Motivation within the team is built up through adequate representation and active involvement of group members and their views and a moderator is appointed to act as a neutral party to resolve conflicts more efficiently. For management to ensure that cultural diversity is well managed to sustain and benefit the group processes, the teams as well as the management should ensure that the tasks have been priorities and sequences properly in order to reduce chaos and ensure smooth transformation and attainment of larger tasks. The management should also motivate the team members to make them look at company development as a mode of personal development and thereby gain their support in introducing big changes. Lastly, it is important to have a good communication process and high levels of training and development such that teams facilitate management of cultural diversity and group cohesion. References Adair, J. (2013). Decision Making and Problem Solving. London: Kogan Page. Bell, B. S. & Kozlowski, S. W. J. (2002). A Typology of Virtual Teams: Implications for Effective Leadership. Group Organization Management, 27(1), 14-49. Burns, J. M. (2012). Leadership. New York: Open Road Media. Dionne, S. D., Yammarino, F. J., Atwater, L. E. & Spangler, W. D. (2004). Transformational leadership and team performance. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 17(2), 177-193. Elias, S. (2008). Fifty years of influence in the workplace: The evolution of the French and Raven power taxonomy. Journal of Management History, 14(3), 267 – 283. Ferrell, O. C. & Fraedrich, J. (2014). Business Ethics: Ethical Decision Making & Cases. Connecticut: Cengage Learning. Ginsberg, M. B. & Wlodkowski, R. J. (2009). 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