Tag Archives: Team leader
What Are the Characteristics of Well-functioning Teams?
Team members at work
The purpose for teams is to combine a group of members to work together to accomplish certain goals that cannot be achieved effectively by an individual. Do you wonder why I keep repeating this? It’s because sometimes teams can get off-track like an elementary school student who starts reading an encyclopedia entry for a class and ends up following a cow path far from the subject because he loses focus.
Characteristics of a Team
Sense of unity
Having spent a lot of time talking about That Leader we are now going to turn to the characteristics of teams.
Regardless of the size of the team there are certain characteristics of a team for it to meet the criteria for being a team at all. Any group of people that gets together for a meeting is an example of a group of people together who may not be members of a common team.
Leadership Teams
Team work
A team is a group organized to work together to accomplish a set of objectives that cannot be achieved effectively by individuals. That Leader knows that a key to successful planning and implementation of any goal is the development of teams. He also decides which type of team he needs of the three types we are going to look at.
15 Causes of Poor Communications
Communications
Poor communications styles are the results of many factors. Here are some of the most common barriers.
- The sender has a poor knowledge of the subject or is inadequately prepared. We all remember the poor substitute teacher who doesn’t know the material she is asked to convey. Often the students would wind up teaching the “teacher”.
- The sender does not believe in the message or support the policy behind it. It is very hard to be enthusiastic about something you don’t believe in. That will be communicated with more clarity than the subject.
Conflict and Collaboration
Collaboration
Conflict occurs when a team member or even the entire team are not getting what they need or want and seek their own self-interest. Often the individual is not aware that he has a need and acts out unconsciously. Other times, however the individual is very aware of his wants and actively works at achieving the goal.
After the team leader has seen the beginnings of the conflict through looking at conflict indicators and has determined if the conflict is destructive or the leader can turn it around into a constructive conflict and has done what he can to resolve the conflict, That Leader might propose a new way of reaching consensus—that of collaboration.
The Causes and Cures of Team Controversy—What That Leader Knows
Cause of Anxiety
We have seen that the three underlying causes of conflict are emotions, anxiety and stress. You would think that differences in values, lack of communication, not understanding the entire project or even power plays would be the causes. But if you look at each of those you will see that beneath each are emotions, anxiety and stress. That Leader is aware of this and understands that some of the resulting conflicts create a few issues that mask them.
How That Leader Avoids or Resolves Conflict
Team members working together
Have you ever noticed how certain team leaders have effective teams even though there are sometimes conflicts? Sometimes is probably minimizing the problem. Any time you get a group of people together there are going to be conflicts of interest, in ideas of how a project should be done or personality issues, just to name a few.
What does That Leader do to keep the team focused on the project and not on the conflicts?
That Leader Knows When Conflict is Destructive or Constructive
Constructive Conflict Resolution
Just because conflict happens, doesn’t mean that it is always a bad thing. That Leader will know whether the conflict is destructive or is constructive.
How do you tell when a conflict is destructive?
That Leader will know that a conflict is destructive when the team is supposed to be working on goal setting and instead wind up in the middle of an argument that takes attention away from the purpose of the meeting. If someone is having a problem and decides that the meeting is the place to air it, That Leader needs to take control of the meeting back, offer to meet with the argumentative person later and return to the topic.
How That Leader Deals With Conflict
Team Conflict
Conflict happens.
It happens when individuals or groups are not getting what they need or want and are seeking their own interests. Like a child, sometimes a person is not even aware of the need and unconsciously acts out. Then there are the people who are very aware of what they want and actively work at getting it. It is That Leader’s task to get conflict resolved as quickly as possible for the good of the team.
Conflict Happens—How That Leader Spots It
Team Member Disrupting a Meeting
Every project, every team and every team leader on all levels are going to come in contact with conflict. What That Leader needs to learn is how to spot it in others in order to minimize, divert or resolve it as soon as possible.
What are some conflict indicators?
Probably the most obvious indication is body language. If the team member is unhappy about something, his body language will be guarded, turned from the leader, he will have minimal eye contact with the leader and even show micro-expressions of mocking or frowning. A leader in the midst of conflict will show the same either to his up-line team or to his team members. That Leader will study body language in order to become conscious of the meanings of what he sees, but even an uninformed leader will subconsciously be aware of the signs and know there is a problem, even if he is only aware of it in his gut.
