Running head: CREATING AND LEADING EFFECTIVE TEAMS

Creating and Leading Effective Teams

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Creating and Leading Effective Teams

The current business environment compels organizations to use teams as a business

culture to improve productivity. The most successful organizations have invested more in

developing effective teams that shape the business's purpose and goals. Best teams understand

how to translate their purpose into individual performance goals, successfully pitching in to

become accountable with and to their fellow teammates. Optimizing the team’s productivity is

essential in understanding how to use teams across all levels of the organization to respond faster

to the rapidly changing market environments, globalization, and communication technologies

that promote collaboration of dispersed people (Polzer, 2003).

The initial step when creating a successful team entails diagnosing the interdependence

between the task, behaviors, and/or their outcomes ((Polzer, 2003). Teams must be aligned into

different categories to meet the organization's desired output, improve its quality, members

increase their capacity to working together efficiently over time and meet the members’ desires

for fulfilling the work. Diagnosing the team entails identifying a task that is appropriate to the

team, availing resources for maximizing the team’s chances for success and recruiting the right

individuals for the task. The plan needs to include aligning the teams into different groupings.

For instance, the organization can use the already existing power hierarchy system. The

emerging teams could be task forces or project teams, functional teams and those that oversee

significant functional processes or activities. Managers are thus required to understand where to

establish and sustain real teams within the organization.

Secondly, special considerations for the team’s primary context and structure before the

team launch (Polzer, 2003). The potential for team success exists across the organization's

structure and any boundary limits its performance. Trust among the team members is key to the
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success of any organization’s team. Building trust is a process which allows the members to be

open to each other, make favorable and satisfying impressions, while debating on the merits of

the structural and team tasks. However, if these impressions are incorrect and unrealistic, the

team might build mistrust among themselves. Members also attempt to convey information about

their identities. Focusing on achieving collective goals is also an important factor when leading

teams. The leaders need to strive towards making sure that all the team members agree to the

mission of the team and assume collective responsibility for the success of the assigned tasks.

Teams are composed of people from different backgrounds and areas of expertise. During

the interactions, there is a need for the development of norms including patterns for information

sharing, communication and conflict management strategies along with decision-making and

enactment of leadership roles. Interpersonal relationships play an important role in determining

the team's success. Each individual within the team brings a unique set of values. Therefore,

embracing diversity views helps develop a strong team with commonly shared goals. Embracing

divergent views becomes beneficial for teams to achieve synchronized goal efforts. Another

important factor is the team recruitment process. Selection of team members should be based on

specific skills and matching these skills to the project tasks. More focus should be on the ability

to work with others and communicate appropriately as well as the ability to establish rapport

quickly.

Considering the influence of executive on the team is critical when planning effective

teams. Leading teams at the executive level require organization's leaders to remain cautious to

prevent overshadowing other team-members from lower ranks. However, dealing with these

individuals need one to consider team building and leadership skills. Individual members need to

show interdependence and competence in areas of specialization. Rivalry among the senior team
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members should be considered. Individuals with strongly divergent views are hard to handle

similar tasks. To avoid conflicts, these individuals should be controlled to ensure that they will

not negatively influence the team’s outcome. The teams need to constantly engage top executives

in developing a proper leadership strategy that actively guides them in leadership development.

This is supposed to align leadership strategies with business goals. The main focus should be

developing leaders at all levels of the organization, challenging them to think globally and

building a succession mindset. Key aspects considered include communication between the

potential team members, diversity, purpose of the team, integrity of the members, orientation of

the members, commitment, collaborative, and result-oriented abilities.

The fourth important aspect will be finding the right members for the teams and ensuring

a successful team launch. The process is guided by individuals’ previous relationships, mutual

friendships, reputations, or shared memberships in groups outside the team that should be

considered when diagnosing the interaction norms likely to form (Polzer, 2003). Looking at the

team dynamics is also an important step in planning for successful teams. Even under better

situations, teams come across forces that influence the direction of a team's behavior and

performance. These factors might prevent effective collaboration in their daily activities.

Important factors to consider would be communication networks and an environment that fosters

effective communication. Periodic assessment of team member’s works processes and

integration patterns considering the progress towards achievement of desired goals is important.

Clear structured formal interactions are essential. Teams may hold periodic weekly team

meetings to organize their purposes (Polzer, 2003). These approaches allow information

processing within the teams and building trust among the team members. Conducting regular

performance reviews ensures an understanding of skills, knowledge, and experience gap needed
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for optimal performance. This is essential in evaluating functions and productivity by measuring

the ability to complete job roles within the teams.

Compassion is an important attribute for team empowerment. As a leader, I will ensure

that the composition of the teams embraces diversity across the departments. I will ensure that

each department is represented in the teams formed and the principles of equality apply in all

levels of decision-making. Diversity and equality will ensure the achievement of a common goal

that benefits the organization.

Reference

Polzer, J. T. (2003 February). Leading teams. Harvard Business School Publishing.