Why Self-Managed Teams?

During the 1970’s, Dr Meredith Belbin and a team of researchers conducted research on a number of teams in an attempt to discover what aspects of a team’s dynamics can contribute towards the teams overall success or failure. They discovered that the success or failure of a team was not dependent upon the individual team members intellect but upon their behaviour. Following Belbin’s publication in 1981 of Team Role Analysis he concluded that there are nine key roles that are aligned to an individual’s behaviour that can contribute to the make up of a team. It is essential that as a leader I am able to understand the possible behavioural role that an individual may exhibit when

Within any successful team, you will find leaders, it need not be the manager, and it doesn’t have to be the same person all the time, you only have to look at any successful sports team to see that there are numerous leaders and within the team each person knows the role they have to perform at any set moment and can change as the situation needs. This has been well explained in the Belbin Team Architecture.

Leadership is a facet of management. It is just one of the many assets a successful manager must possess. The main aim of a manager is to maximize the output of the organization through administrative implementation. To achieve this managers must undertake the four functions of management: planning, organization, leading and controlling. In some cases leadership is just one important component of the leading function. Predpall (1994) said, "Leaders must let vision, strategies, goals, and values be the guide-post for action and behavior rather than attempting to control others". In some circumstances, leadership is not required. For example, self-motivated groups may not require a single leader and may find leaders dominating. The fact that a leader is not always required proves that leadership is just an asset and is not essential.

The team leader’s ability to manage and improve team performance will be limited by his or her own authority and ability to influence others. There may be restrictions in terms of organisational policy; there may be financial, resource, or time constraints, or team members themselves may be reluctant to participate and to accept change.

Leadership by the team leader, who has responsibility for the team, is critical for team

When teams are performing at their best, you are likely to find that each team member has cleared responsibility. You’ll also see that every team member needed to achieve their own personal goals in order for the team’s goal to be fully met to an adequate level. Dr Mereditch Belbin studied team work for many years and he mainly observed that people in teams tend to assume different roles within the team. He defined a team role as a “tendency to behave,

There’s a high dependence on the leader for guidance and direction. Everything is new and individual roles and responsibilities can be unclear. Leader must be prepared to answer lots of questions about the team's purpose, objectives and external relationships. Processes may sometimes be ignored. Leader directs (similar to Situational

My duties as an assistant manager included a lot of team work. The planning of an occasion meant that more people will have to work in close cooperation. These duties helped me in the developing of team-working skills. I have gone even further in improving my skills by engaging in tutorials which are based on team-work. I used Team Life Cycles to expand my observation and skills on team-working. The Life Cycle presents clear structure and directions on how teams ought to

Work Team development is a dynamic and often difficult process. Most teams find themselves in a continuos state of change and development. Eventhough, most teams never reach full stability, there is a general pattern that describes how most teams evolve. There are five stages of team development, the first stage is forming. In this stage there is a great deal of uncertainty about the teams purpose, structure and leadership. Members are testing the the waters to determine what types of behaviors are acceptable. This stage is complete when members began to think of themselves as part of the team. The second stage is called storming. In this stage there is much intragroup conflict.Team members accept the existence of the team, but there is resistance to the control that the team imposes on individuality. Conflict can arise from numerous sources within the team setting but generally falls into three categories:communication, factors, structural factors and personal factors (Varney, 1989/Townsley). In addition, there is conflict over who will control the team.

SMWTs consist of a team that shares power and mutually have the same titles and influence. Responsibility is found within all members in SMWTs. This type of team may not work for every situation, but is our team an example of situations where SMWTs can be useful and fit a team better than an identified team leader situation would. Does your team have an identified leader – if so, who is it and why? If not, why?

Empowerment is a simple idea, but often misunderstood or misused by many. "It means granting latitude of action for how the work is done to those who do the work.” (R.E Sibson, Strategic Planning for Human Resources Management). This paper will define, describe and discuss Employee Empowerment used in today’s team based organizations. The paper looks at how this concept affects the company's diverse workforce. I will discuss the potential impact of these practices and the performance.

A team leader’s role is to instruct a group of people, providing directions and guidance to the team in order to ensure the completion of tasks. A good team leader will motivate and inspire his team, solving problems and empowering others to do the same. A team leader should lead by example and be able to ensure the group work well together in order to promote team spirit. They should ensure that each member of the team receives the correct training in order to perform their duties. Each individual in the team brings their own skills and specialisms to the group. A good team

The personal style and personalities of each member in a group may be influence their team effectiveness. Individuals will tend to play an important role in a group and depend on their personality and working group style. To improve a team and effectiveness in project or working, each team member need to understand the role of every member in a group. With 3 contemporary theories of team roles to use in our group is:

As we begin to form our self-managed work teams this week for the final report and presentation due at the end of session, I begin to reflect on the situations where I have had to be part of a group. Accordingly, past experiences have led me to form a generally negative viewpoint with regards teamwork in both the education and workplace setting. In most situations, group work is facilitated by a single leader responsible for ensuring that all members complete their work to the required standard. Nevertheless, this has lead to situations where team members often become unproductive or dysfunctional. For one thing, conflict – whether it be task or relational – arises between team members and leaders when they begin to feel that they are subject to the leader’s authoritarian behaviour or scrutiny. For another, the leaders responsible for the management of the group begin to feel underappreciated or dissatisfied with the levels of task productivity generated by group members. In stating this, I have experienced both sides of single leadership team management – with mostly disastrous results – where negative team performance ultimately reflected on assessment grades.

To become a good leader, the person must be responsible, because no one wants an unreliable leader. The way a leader is responsible is by always being prepared and organized with all of the information needed on a moments notice for what is supposed to happen and also what might happen (Rich). The leader should be able to take notes on the directions that their boss told them and do the task without having to ask more questions; instead they would use their notes. It is the leaders’ responsibility to make sure that their team is on track with their project and that it is completed by its dead line