Running head: Team Development Experience

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Team Development Experience Judy Rudy CMGT530 February 8, 2013 Bridgett Hardy

Team Development Experience Team Development Experience Teams Within the course of my career I have participated in various teams due to different functional changes within the company. A majority of the teams are well-functioning units and work cohesively towards common goals. For teams to be successful the members must identify and consent to the mutually dependent environment of their connection with each other to meet the common goals. Each of the attributes in the list below is critical to function in a meaningful and well-functioning team:
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“Purpose: Members proudly share a sense of why the team exists and are invested in accomplishing its mission and goals. Priorities: Members know what needs to be done next, by whom, and by when to achieve team goals. Roles: Members know their roles in getting tasks done and when to allow a more skillful member to do a certain task. Decisions: Authority and decision-making lines are clearly understood. Conflict: Conflict is dealt with openly and is considered important to decision-making and personal growth. Personal traits: members feel their unique personalities are appreciated and well utilized. Norms: Group norms for working together are set and seen as standards for ‘everyone’ in the groups. Effectiveness: Members find team meetings efficient and productive and look forward to this time together. Success: Members know clearly when the team has met with success and share in this equally and proudly. Training: Opportunities for feedback and updating skills are provided and taken advantage of by team members” (Author Unknown, n.d.)

Leadership Each of the teams within our organization always bubble up to a leader. Some leaders are very involved in the team’s well-being. They work closely with the team to meet personal and corporate goals. Others within the company are fixated on their projects and nothing else.

Team Development Experience “There is clearly an important role to be played by the leader as a facilitator of team reflexivity and in the use of this to build up collective efficacy by integrating performance feedback into the self-correcting cycle” (Lynn, Banks and Riga, 2010, p. 64) Effective Team. A recent encounter with someone in leadership had time management issues. Many appoints were cancelled, micro-management of team members, temper tantrums, discussions with her leader, and eventual retirement due to her ineffective leadership. Team members had a voice in skip level meetings to improve the atmosphere. The team is back to the forming stage to grow into a more cohesive group as new leadership joined the group within the last month. The new leader’s effectiveness level is a vast improvement which places the team at east.

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Group Behavior. The Fiedler contingency model indicates “group performance depends on the proper match between the leader’s style and the degree to which the situation gives the leader control” (Robbins and Judge, 2011 p.381). This is exactly on target with recent experiences above. This could benefit both the leader and team members when the company considers the match-up of leaders’ styles along with employees that meet that type of style. The organization may consider offering an assessment such as the least preferred co-worker (LPC) questionnaire to assess if the employee is more task-oriented or relationship-oriented will help the leadership team to appropriately align leaders/employees.

Team Development Experience References Author Unknown. (n.d.). Leadership and teams. In Leadership Teams. Retrieved February 8, 2013, from http://www.nsba.org/sbot/toolkit/LeadTeams.html Lynne, J. M., Banks, A., & Riga, K. (2010). Effective self-regulating teams: A generative psychological approach. Team Performance Management, 16(1), 50-73. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/13527591011028924

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