Each question half page with 2 references
Q1
What makes an organization a team-based organization is management delegation. Despite hiring bright minds and able hands, managers often find themselves overburdened and overloaded with tasks (Nawaz, 2020). All the duties of a company shouldn’t fall solely on the manager of the company. Every member of the organization should be trained up and be able to contribute to the group so everyone else on the teams job is sucessful. What also makes an organization a team-based organization is motivated team members. Research shows that a motivated, engaged and responsive workforce is substantially more productive than an unmotivated, apathetic group of employees (Motivating Employees in the Workplace, 2019). Motivated workers on different teams in an organization would want to go over and beyond in order to get the job done and help the company be more successful. This would also be a specific leadership and management style that would work best in an organization as well. Workers that don’t want to come to work and aren’t motivated usually don’t perform as well as others that are motivated and they will bring the others down. Also a transformational leadership style works well in a team-based organization as well. A transformational leader challenges and communicates with his employees. I picked these two because employees need to be motivated sometime and leaders should always make sure that they are communicating properly with their team and motivating. Team based settings effect leadership and management power and influence the organization by being able to create internal controls and making sure that they are being completed by the people they are assigned too. The presence of leadership impacts the power within a team by putting someone in charge to hold employees responsible if they are doing their job or not doing their job.
Q2
The reason why the organization is based on the team lies in the clear division of labor and team goals. At the same time, each member always understands the work of the team and is responsible for it. Most teams have great adaptability, can accept new ideas and new working methods, but this requires managers to have a sense of advance and preparatory work, “the task of leaders, in essence, is to achieve the goals of the organization through others and make others and themselves together.” (Julie Bevacqua, 2019). In the organization, they should not only do specific work in person, but also entrust others to work, and spend a lot of time and energy on planning, organizing, leading, inspecting and controlling team tasks.
At the same time, the team leader should also play a great role in promoting communication, so as to improve the flexibility of the organization, so that employees and leaders can get along with each other like friends and trust each other. Employees will be willing to try some innovative ideas and risk-taking behavior, and have a high sense of belonging. This leadership style can not only enhance organizational cohesion, but also apply to a variety of business environments.
I think the influence of leaders and managers on the organization mainly comes from team rules and ideas. The idea here refers to the unique mode of thinking and philosophy for team work, and the unique judgment for complex problems. Under normal circumstances, the influence of managers on the organization is to set a good example for others to learn, which requires the formulation of team rules. Incentive measures are also an important means for leaders to influence the organization, which is conducive to stimulating and mobilizing the enthusiasm of employees. This has a good effect on improving labor efficiency, and can promote the coordination of internal components.
Q3
Based on the literature provided in this course, it becomes clear that a team is more than the sum of its parts. In other words, it is to me evident that, although individual members and their respective contributions are significant, the team itself is a coalescence of these individuals and contributions. It is much easier to have individual team members simply delegated to by a centralized leader, but Nawaz (2020) points out that this rudimentary method, characterized by a one-size-fits-all philosophy, is both ineffective and unsound, to say the least. Furthering this train of thought, Wallace (2020) emphasizes that we in teams must have trust networks built up, an awareness of individual interests and perceptions, and a willingness to embrace diversity. With the recent proliferation and ubiquity of remote work, the need for this understanding to apply beyond the traditional scope of what comprises a team has increased (Gleeson, 2020). I found it of particular note that, throughout the readings, empathy, understanding, and flexibility are highlighted as key components of teams. A team-based organization then is one that accounts for these realities and embeds them into their procedures, decision-making processes, and their organizational identity.
To me, it seems that no one specific leadership style is a best fit for team-based organizations; rather, it becomes apparent that, through Zhuos (2019) and Nawazs (2020) writings, flexibility and a willingness to adopt a variety of styles is a key to success. As team-based organizations have considerably shifted towards new ways of thinking and operating, and with the possibility that teams may shift in size and diversity, being cognizant both of so-called best practices as well as what is best for ones specific team is crucial. That said, McNulty (2020) points out that, whatever leadership style, it is vital that the team focuses on working together collaboratively and in a way conducive to each members style of work. McNulty (2020) calls this a human-centric, bottom-up approach (p. 1). Engaging with members of the team on their level, respecting their opinions, expressing empathy, and meeting the needs of these members that best allows them to flourish in their positions should be a part of any leadership style adopted in the organization, even though I am hesitant to put a label or title to that style.
As Zhuo (2019) illustrates, team-based settings shift the optimal management style from direct to indirect, particularly when the team is large and diverse: by empowering the employees to perform and trusting them, rather than micromanaging and directly supervising them, the leader can better perform their own tasks while affording autonomy to their employees to best serve the organization on a grander scale. Additionally, Zhuo (2019) asserts that team-based work shifts the focus to people-centric skills over so-called line manager skills (Snell, Morris, & Bohlander, 2016). Success as a leader is defined then as mastering a few key skills: hiring exceptional leaders, building self-reliant teams, establishing a clear vision, and communicating well (Zhuo, 2019, p. 6). Managerial power, in a way, should then be dispersed and provided where appropriate rather than merely centralizing it. That way, influence can be felt in all aspects of the organization without the need to micromanage and reduce ones role to delegator: to me, that means being a facilitator instead.
By so doing, empowering team members to advance themselves and the organizations mission and operations is facilitated. The key difference then between a leader who successfully performs this task and one who only half-heartedly does is motivation. Empowering employees means motivating them always, giving employees what they need and want and meeting them where they are, training and developing employees so that they are prepared to rise to the occasion, and utilizing positive encouragement and open communication and dialogue (Adecco, 2019). In a word, power is enabled and facilitated by the ways in which leadership chooses to motivate and to the extent that power is given and the ways in which communication occurs across teams (Hill& Bartol, 2018; Riedl & Woolley, 2020).
In conclusion, teams are vital to an organizations success, but only insofar as leaders serve their appropriate purposes and teams are both empowered and utilized appropriately.
