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Even the best teams will sometimes have problems with the how the team is working together. These problems often are based upon the leadership and followership traits of the team members.
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Quick reference
Resolving Team Problems
Even the best teams will sometimes have problems with the how the team is working together. These problems often are based upon the leadership and followership traits of the team members. Teams and team leaders should strive to continuously improve by identifying and addressing these issues.
When to use
If the team is not functioning smoothly, consider the leadership and followership traits and apply a continuous approach to determine what is needed for improvement.
Instructions
Some problems on teams are team leadership or followership problems. The team leader should periodically assess their interactions to be sure they don’t fall into the traps of the top ten team leadership mistakes. In addition they should watch for changes in team member’s behaviors or followership styles and react accordingly.
Top Ten Team Leadership Mistakes
- Top-down attitude – instead of servant leadership.
- Dictatorship decision-making – not using the team.
- Dirty delegation – micro-management and attaching strings.
- Putting paperwork before peoplework.
- The absence of affirmation.
- No room for mavericks – stifling creativity.
- Communication chaos – infrequent, unfocused communication.
- Missing the clues of the corporate culture.
- Success without successors – not preparing the next generation.
- Failure to focus on the future, while living in the present.
Followership Styles
Team leaders should provide the appropriate leadership interactions based upon the characteristics of their followers. Independent critical thinkers need goals; dependent uncritical thinkers need tasks. Active followers need focus; passive followers need encouragement. Pragmatics followers will need a mixture depending upon the team circumstances.
Continuous Improvement
Whether it is leadership style, followership style, or other changes on the team and in the organization; the bottom line is that teams need continuous improvement to maintain a high level of performance. The Shewhart cycle of Plan, Do, Study, Act is an excellent approach for identifying and improving performance. Plan the change. Implement the change on a trial basis. Study the results to see if you are getting the desired performance. Then act to make it permanent or change and try something else.
Login to download- 00:04 Hello I'm Ray Sheen.
- 00:06 Some team problems are caused by the team leader's leadership traits, or
- 00:10 the team member's followership traits.
- 00:12 Let's take a look at how we can approach these issues.
- 00:17 Let me start with the top 10 mistakes that team leaders make.
- 00:20 Chances are, you'll have a tendency toward several of these.
- 00:23 As I review them, do a self assessment and see if they might apply to you.
- 00:27 Top-down attitude- instead of servant leadership.
- 00:30 In this case, the leader views the role of the team is to make them look good
- 00:34 rather than viewing the role of the leader is to make the team members look good.
- 00:39 Dictatorship decision-making- not using the team in the decision making process.
- 00:43 The leader makes all the decisions without input from the team.
- 00:47 This of course will mean very little buy-in by the team in the decisions.
- 00:51 Dirty delegation- micro-managing and attaching strings.
- 00:55 Telling team members that they have responsibility for an action and
- 00:58 then overriding them or doing it for them.
- 01:01 This will discourage a team quickly and
- 01:03 make it more difficult to get them to take responsibility for future actions.
- 01:08 Putting paperwork before peoplework.
- 01:09 Not staying connected with the team members but
- 01:11 rather focusing on administrative or management activities.
- 01:15 The absence of affirmation.
- 01:17 The failure to provide feedback to team members or thanking them for
- 01:20 the work that they have done.
- 01:22 Even the common courtesy of thanking goes a long way to encouraging others.
- 01:27 No room for mavericks- stifling creativity.
- 01:29 A heavy-handed leadership style that requires team members to only do what
- 01:32 they've been given the authority to do and to only do it in the authorized way.
- 01:37 Any suggestion for improvements are discouraged.
- 01:41 Communication chaos- infrequent, unfocused communication.
- 01:44 The team members do not know if they are doing things correctly.
- 01:47 They do not even know if anyone cares what they do.
- 01:51 Missing the clues of the corporate culture.
- 01:53 The organization and the team have norms and expectations based upon traditions and
- 01:58 history of the organization.
- 02:00 Ignoring these unnecessarily offends team members.
- 02:03 If they must be changed, talk about why.
- 02:06 Otherwise, leverage them.
- 02:08 Don't fight them.
- 02:09 Success without successors- not preparing the next generation.
- 02:13 If the team is a functional team, expertise needs to be built up across
- 02:17 the team members so that the team is more versatile.
- 02:20 If it is a project team,
- 02:21 you should be helping the team members learn how to run their own projects.
- 02:25 Failure to focus on the future, while living in the present.
- 02:28 The team should be striving to be successful both in the short term
- 02:31 and the long term.
- 02:33 The culture and technology are constantly changing.
- 02:35 And the team needs to be changing with it or it will be left behind and
- 02:39 become ineffective.
- 02:41 So maybe you have seen yourself in some of these mistakes and
- 02:44 you decide that the change is in order.
- 02:46 Even if you don't recognize yourself, change is coming.
- 02:49 For instance, new team members may require a different way of communicating.
- 02:53 Technical and personal relationships among the team members change
- 02:57 which can change how they interact.
- 02:59 Business conditions regularly change.
- 03:01 New goals, new metrics, new systems,
- 03:03 new requirements, all can impact how the team should operate.
- 03:07 And people change, team members will get new skills or
- 03:10 training that changes their capabilities.
- 03:12 They'll take on new responsibilities in their family and
- 03:15 travel may no longer be interesting.
- 03:17 They have health problems.
- 03:19 Many things can occur which will impact how the team operates.
- 03:22 So whether it is changing your leadership style or accommodating changes in team
- 03:26 members, the team norms and routines will need to undergo periodic changes.
- 03:31 When that is the case,
- 03:32 use the improvement cycle made famous by Professor Shewhart Plan, Do, Study, Act.
- 03:37 Plan the change, try the change out for a short time, study the impact and
- 03:41 results in team dynamics and team performance, then act to either accept and
- 03:46 adopt the change or to reject it and try something else.
- 03:50 There's one last perspective to talk about when discussing team problem solving.
- 03:54 That is understanding your team members or
- 03:57 as I will call them on this slide the followers.
- 04:00 We can divide them into different groups using the attributes of whether they're
- 04:03 active, that means doers, or passive.
- 04:06 The second attribute is whether they're Independent, Critical Thinkers who think
- 04:10 through the consequences of actions or if they are Dependent, Uncritical Thinkers.
- 04:14 Let's look at the different types of followers.
- 04:17 The first category is the passive critical thinkers.
- 04:20 They're often viewed as Alienated Followers.
- 04:23 They no longer want to work with the team, so they think through every decision and
- 04:26 action to find the flaw.
- 04:28 Even if it is remote, they're quick to point it out.
- 04:31 Next is the passive dependent thinker.
- 04:33 They are the sheep that are easily led.
- 04:35 They will go wherever the shepherd leads.
- 04:37 But if the shepherd does not lead, they will wander away and get lost.
- 04:42 Next is the active dependent thinker.
- 04:44 This is the Conformist Follower.
- 04:46 They're the yes men who are ready to run as fast as they can in whatever direction
- 04:51 they think the leader is going even if there are some obvious fatal flaws in
- 04:55 what they're doing.
- 04:56 And next is the active critical thinker.
- 04:59 These are Exemplary Followers and
- 05:01 a team leader can rely to them to be peer group leaders.
- 05:05 They think things through and they take action.
- 05:08 Finally, there's the group that is a little bit of all four.
- 05:12 We refer to them as Pragmatic Followers, sometimes active sometimes passive.
- 05:16 Sometimes they're Independent,
- 05:18 Critical Thinkers and sometimes they just go along with everyone else.
- 05:22 So why do we care?
- 05:23 Well, because as team leaders we need to provide different kinds of interactions
- 05:26 depending upon our team members' followship styles.
- 05:29 Independent, Critical Thinkers need goals.
- 05:32 Dependent thinkers need specific tasks so they know what to do.
- 05:36 Active followers need focus or they start bouncing around from one idea to another.
- 05:42 Passive followers need encouragement to get things done and to keep them going.
- 05:48 Team leaders need to be ready to change their leadership style.
- 05:51 Whether it is their own leadership mistakes, changes to their team or
- 05:55 reacting to their followers, good team leaders are constantly improving.
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