Being the team leader, one of the most important things I had to do before the brief was to be well prepared and to plan and organise what I wanted to say. I would obviously not be able to put across the points in an effective and proper way if I did not know what was to be said. Hence, preparation and planning and organising the points that I wanted to say helped me to divulge the necessary information to the group. This is one of the cardinal rules of communication.
I Identified and defined the goals of the team and ensured that members focused on fulfilling them without necessarily looking at their interpersonal issues. Of course, a team that does not have clearly defined goals usually tends to stray away from task-related issues, into personal ones. When teams think about achieving the ultimate goal, they attach more importance to their work and hence remain more united for that purpose.
If the team goals were poorly defined and if members did not know what the goal was, it will be almost impossible for them to achieve it. The last thing I wanted to do was to leave everyone confused and working in the wrong direction.
Whenever a team member spoke to me, or asked me a question I would always try to give them my complete attention, and I attempted to show my attention and be genuinely interested in their ideas and feelings. I thought that this might be a good way of showing them that their ideas were and would be valued, even if at times I went on to dismiss their advice.
I suddenly realised that my team members were taking everything I said into account, and that anything I said out of tone was picked taken notice of. Thus the pressure came surmounted onto me to make sure that I didn’t speak out of tone, but that I did my best to talk slowly, loudly and calmly in order that they would fully comprehend what I was trying to get across. As the task went on, I felt that I generally managed to relax and improve they way that I spoke to them as the atmosphere became a lot less tense and more friendly and relaxed.
When talking, I tried to show and use lots of eye contact. It also showed that I was listening to what they were saying. Whilst standing I may have appeared to be somewhat intimidating. I could see that they were all looking at me, and were assertive towards me when I spoke; I think some of this was down to my skill of using appropriate eye contact. This was an effective method of getting everyone to take part in the interacting because I looked at everyone in a way that showed them that I saw them all as equals. I did allow the team members some freedom in making decisions as to what was to happen but I was responsible for making the final call and thus disregarded many of their ideas.
I tried to avoid being seen as domineering or belligerent throughout the interaction which I would like to think had a contributing factor towards them remaining enticed throughout the whole activity. As a result of this I not only felt comfortable when giving instructions but I gave them in such a way that the group would not feel overpowered by my position. I believe that this worked successfully because when the task strayed, I got the group back into the swing of things without the need to become more autocratic or aggressive. I also gave encouragement to the team to compete with the other teams attempting the task and there seemed to be was a healthy level of competition within the group.
Because I was interacting with a group of five, I sometimes found myself interrupting their work upon noticing that the task was not moving on as effectively as I thought it could. I felt that I may have appeared to be a little rude at one point and maybe at times gave the impression that some member’s opinions were not as valued as others. In retrospect this could have had serious consequences to team members feeling that they were not valued and therefore they would become angry and frustrated. This is something I will need to address for the next task.
However I could argue that without my constant cajoling of the team, the project may never have progressed. And although I may have seemed relentless in keeping the other team members on track, I still attempted to maintain a positive relationship with them.
My team was established by our programme leader, hence members were not chosen initially for their qualities and therefore there were a mixture of roles. By and large I did encourage team members to recognise each others strengths and weaknesses and consequently divided their tasks accordingly to produce and work most effectively as a group. I tried to make sure that each member of the team had a specific focus as I did not want to leave everyone doing their own things and not following clear goals.
Some roles were more apparent than others and despite encouraging all team members to participate in the formation of the project roles, I realised at one stage that my job was to do everything and throughout the task I did lead by example and actively took the role of solving the problem. Naturally team members will be more willing to follow and respect my lead if they can see that I am willing to participate in the workload.
Looking back I believe that I should have met more effort to trust them to accomplish their roles without my constant interruptions however it was difficult to build trust within my interactions with them as there was a limited amount of time in which to complete the task and this was our first task since the team was formed.
I did make clear what each persons role within the group would be and as the appointed leader, I was looked upon to provide the lead and achieve the best possible result for all involved. Furthermore I did feel as though each member knew how critical the leader's role is in promoting communication among other members and the majority of my instructions were carried out with little or no conflict.
A leader needs to be influential and be able to talk their way into the minds of the team members and persuade them to agree with their ideas and plans. This is much easier if members actually like their leader. I would like to think that my leadership was exercised on a charismatic basis rather than authoritarian one although I must conceded that at times I was rather dominant and authoritarian. However, becoming overly amicable with my team may have been seen as weak leadership and the team may have lost some of its direction. This could have lead to internal challenges for my leadership.
At the end of the task I was open to suggestions to improve performance in the future and criticism of my leadership and readily accepted them gracefully. As a result of this my observer, as well as my other team members, will in future feel assured that their criticism will be received in a positive sense.
I considered myself to have been honest and straightforward with my team. And when things were going badly I admitted it. My team members appreciated the honesty and the courage needed to make that assessment openly which also allowed me to adjust my approach to the evolving situation. By the same token, if I had continued with the plan when it is evident that it no longer met the needs of the situation would have been purely foolish and time-wasting. Any team would rather have an improvised plan that at least tries to meet the new realities than blind adherence to an original plan that is no longer relevant.
Looking back I must conceded that I should have taken all ideas into consideration, regardless of whether they seem right or not. Another benefit is that many heads are better than one for thinking about how to solve problems and to defeat threats, friction and resistance. No one individual has the ability to deal with every possible situation.
I should also have planned for certain situations that arose unexpectedly by adding extra time to the schedule. In doing this, I would not have had the stress of feeling overwhelmed with not having enough time to complete the task. Another way that I could have better reduced the amount of stress I felt would have been to assign the workload equally to members rather than trying to accomplish it almost alone.
However I do believe that having a strong input in all matters related to the task affected performance positively as team members who lack certain skills can watch others and pick up new skills and techniques. I attempted to be fair across the board and did not show favouritism to any one team member over another as this may have created division.
There were times of minor conflict within the group but as it did not immediately pose a threat to the team’s main objective I avoided dealing with it appropriately as I feel that it was in the group’s best interest to move on. However, if I was not restricted to such a tight deadline I certainly would have addressed it and attempted to manage it constructively as it could well have escalated.
In future I will be more prepared to answer more questions about the team’s purpose, objectives and relations rather than setting the plan of action out so strictly as these are all new to the team. Furthermore, as a result of my delegation of roles not all of the team were working together. Despite taking ownership of the project I should have seen that each member’s ideas were accepted into the process.
I also noted that my approach led to team members relying too heavily on my lead. In future I will attempt to shift some of the responsibility on to other team members. I could also have helped to ease the stress of other members by organising the project into smaller more manageable chunks. By focusing on smalls portions of the project at a time, the discussion would have been much more focused, allowing for a better understanding of each part of the process.
‘You must make the conscious choice to accept the leadership role. It is not enough to occupy a position of leadership. In fact, many people have made the choice to lead, exercising vast influence, without being in a so-called "leadership" position. In making the choice to lead, you take responsibility for yourself first, which means you must commit to working on your own development. If you cannot, or will not, lead and develop yourself, you cannot lead and develop others. You must recognize that you will take some hits in your visible leadership role but you must also not shy away from them. You must realize that your decisions may not always be popular, but understand this comes with the territory.’
Bibliography
Adair. J, (1987), ‘Effective Team Building’, Pan MacMillan, London.
Belbin. M, (1981), 2nd edn, ‘Management teams: why we succeed to fail’, Butterworth Heinemann, Oxford.
Dyer, W.G, (1977), ‘Team Building: Issues and Alternatives’, Addison-Wesley, Boston.
McShane. V.G, (2002), 16th edn, ‘Organisational Behaviour’, McGraw-Hill, Boston.
Dyer, W.G, (1977), ‘Team Building: Issues and Alternatives’, p.142
