This Essay Will Examine Two Different Areas Of Teams And

Katzenbach and Smith (1993a) recognise teams as the basic units of performance in organisations and identify a team as '...a small number of people with complimentary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.'

Leadership- should reflect the team’s stage of development. Leaders should motivate, facilitate goal setting, educate and evaluate achievements.

In today’s complex and ever changing environment, organization continue to experiment with new forms of team development. Some of the most successful teams bring together employees with different talents and perspectives. In this research report, my aim is to have a clear and deep research on teamwork and how it affects businesses so that I can help Tina and Frank who is coming back from overseas to start their own business. Before could anybody start their business, it is very important to learn certain aspects. Team work is one among them. I have included some of the important information I collected through my research in order to help Tina and Frank succeed in their business.

In team leadership, the Hill Model is stated by Northouse (2016) as “to simplify and clarify the complex nature of team leadership and to aid leadership decision making for team leaders and members” (p. 366). This model has several key concepts and practices that this paper will look at and exploit the aspect of influence and processes that people in a groups or teams interact and the force within the group acting to unit all the members or leadership functions. Whether traditional leadership of teams or groups with a formal leader or a self-directed group with no specific leader all benefit from an shared leadership with the attention and focus of all members on the groups process dynamics. This is more so the case in virtual teams benefiting from shared leadership. Team-based structures in organizations have several positive characteristics and are capable of increasing production, allocation and use of resources, effective on making decisions and problem solving, increased quality and services as well as, fluent innovation and creativity, as listed by Parker (as cited in Northhouse, 2016, p. 364).

Virtual-based business have great benefits but can have downfalls as well. Even though it would seemingly cost less money, the headache in communication would weigh out the same. In a regular office, everyone is right there in the same building. Meetings held in person are more engaging and easier to understand. Even though there are many

Teams are an integral component of organizational success. They take on many forms and functions and can have various structures. Teams also conduct a wide variety of projects with goals of innovation or mitigation. An example, from my experience, of a project that required the execution from a team was the establishment of a finished goods inventory program within a paper manufacturing company. A project of this magnitude required that a diverse and multifaceted team be assembled.

Executives refer to business as a team sport for a variety of reasons. First, many business organizational structures arrange departments either in cross specialty teams or task oriented teams based on operational design and expected outcomes. These teams are designed with members who are assigned roles that increase overall team productivity. The team members bring talents, knowledge and a skill set that uniquely contributes to collective intelligence and resourcefulness. Through collaboration and team work, Successful teams achieve synergy, or “exceeds the sum of each individual’s contribution”.

Is anyone out there? A Guide to Virtual Team Working and Leadership’.Training Reference, viewed October 2011

This fable was a great way to promote the importance of a team and its functions. This book had many highlights throughout the context and I would highly recommend it to leaders of a corporation or of that of a team like setting. This book offered many great implications of the model and how to use it in many diverse settings when trying to build and manage successful teams.

Transcat’s weaknesses are human resources, leadership, and training and development. First, Transcat’s human resource department should develop some incentives and rewards that encourage team leaders and team members to collaborate and help make virtual teams successful. Second, Transcat’s top management should have a meeting to talk about the importance of virtual teams (how they have a direct impact on competitive advantage and success of the company), whether there is buy in from the leaders regarding how important virtual teams are and what they need to do to support this concept, and how they should be modeling the behavior they need to encourage their followers to demonstrate. Lastly, Transcat should develop and provide formal training in regards to mastering virtual teams and ensure team members have access to continued online training and technical support. This will allow team leaders and team members to improve their team skills and experience or refresh their knowledge, which will make them more effective team

Without leadership, a team lacks direction and cohesion. Leadership is there to solve challenges associated with teamwork and to insure the attainment of the main objective of the team effort. Leadership reduces the risks associated with a project. This happens because the person or team providing direction for the project do not get involved in detailed implementation freeing them to see the big picture from which they identify and reduce or eliminate risks. Leadership increasingly means the difference between a successful project and a failed one despite the availability of resources. This is because of the role leadership plays in the effective allocation of resources to achieve the projects objectives.

I should set the vision and clarify the team path throughout the course. I was now forced to speak and express myself and retain the balance between seriousness and feelings, expectations and challenges, opportunities and relationships. Leading a virtual team is intricate compared to traditional team. It required you to read what is hidden between the lines and the unspoken language. It forced me to change from a regular silent voice in the team to be the spoken voice. The highest challenge for me during this case study is to deal with “vague communication”. In traditional face to face team you can read the members facial expression that could give you a hint of their unspoken word, however in a virtual team the unspoken language is difficult to be grasped. Furthermore, because of my tight schedule, I found it very annoying to wait not only for hours to get a reply from the team but sometime I waited many days to get a response for a massage or an email. This was the most annoying thing as you don’t know the other members situations and excuses. According to Sheila Heen,” Difficult conversations are difficult because they can change the way people see us and the way we see ourselves, we want to be perceived as agreeable, but we aren’t always agreeable. And that’s

Ebrahim, A., Shamsuddin, A. & Taha, Z. (2009). Virtual Teams: A Literature Review. Australian Journal of Basic and Applied Science, 3(3), 2653-2669.

Having good leadership of any project team is undoubtedly essential for the success of the team. It is thus imperative for virtual, cross cultural teams to be led properly and carefully so that their cultural diversity and virtual presence does not become a source of conflict and eventual failure.

Despite the advantages associated with a shared leadership approach, some disadvantages also exist. One disadvantage originates from individual interpretations of teamwork (Baghai & Quigley, 2012). In other words, not all people in a work environment view working together the same, posing a leadership challenge to clearly delineate the organization’s concept of team. Other disadvantages arise when workers chose to bypass or overlook some team members, or when an individual lacks the confidence to exhibit leadership skills resulting in organizational loss of leadership potential (Pearce, Wassenaar, & Manz, 2014).