Twelve Rules for Team Leadership
Providing the team leadership that transforms groups into
teams does not require the Wisdom of Solomon, the Willpower
of Ulysses and the Strength of Hercules—but it helps.
By Murray Johannsen, Feel free to connect with the author on Linkedin or by email
Here
are twelve leadership principles to keep in mind when playing the role of team leader.
Team Leadership Rule 1: Understand
the Phases of Group Evolution
Teamwork does not happen overnight. Just
like kids and families, groups lurch through different
developmental stages. One of the more widely known approaches
is Tuckman's forming, storming, norming and performing
model. A fifth stage called mourning is sometimes added
when teams break up. A key challenge for those in leadership
roles is to use methods that bypass the destructive conflict
characterizing the storming phase.
Team Leadership Principle 2: Grow Leaders
if You Want to Build Teams.
Most of what is called a "team" in
corporate America, really are mislabeled groups. For
example, in the early days of Total Quality Management,
one person related to me that upon coming back from vacation,
he no longer had a department, but now had a team—he
was no longer a supervisor, but was a team leader. While
he was given the label of team leader, he was never given
the leadership training on how to lead.
At the c-level, we see a similar phenomenon, CEO's calling their group a team. In fact, some leadership experts believe that getting executives to work together as a team is even more difficult than seeing teamwork in the ranks.
Team Leadership Rule 3: Provide Human Relations
Training To Group Members
The above story illustrates a common leadership
issue: management typically does not provide training
"soft skill" traning. Having real teams,
not the make believe variety, requires new knowledge
and new behaviors. Companies must invest
in developing people skills for teamwork to flourish.
Team Leadership Rule 4: Teams Need Continuous
Support From Executives
Team building classes are ultimately an
exercise in futility for the trainers and the participants
if executives fail to support their teams. Many teams die, killed by the very executives who say they want them to flourish.
The "flower principle" applies.
Teams are not weeds that grow unchecked in the corporate
structure. The are more like a rare flower that will
quickly die when neglected or sabotaged.
Team Leadership Rule 5: Establish a Team
Identity
Teams have an identify, groups do not.
It's next to impossible to establish the sense of cohesion
that characterizes teams without this fundamental leadership
step.
Team Leadership Rule 6: Increase Cohesion
Many words have described the shift in
relationship that occurs when leaders get teams to "gel." The
military services often use the term espirit de corps
to describe this bonding and sense of camaraderie. This
sense of caring for others starts when individuals begin
using more we than me, more us than you. However it is
described, there is no standard step-by-step approach
to bringing it about.
Team Leadership Rule 7: Change Norms
Norms are behavior patterns that apply
to all members in a group. Norms develop for small groups
or the huge aggregates called nations. Explicit norms
are written down, forming the basis for regulations,
policies and laws.
The best way to discover implicit
norms is through observation since they are rarely discussed
or written down. In newly formed groups, it helps to
agree on certain norms or Ground Rules. Properly setting
ground rules prevent problems later on.
Team Leadership Rule 8: Define Roles and
Responsibilities
In all groups, individuals play a set of
behaviors called roles. These roles establish boundaries
and set expectations governing relationships. In groups,
roles can serve as source of confusion and conflict.
Members of teams, though, have a shared understanding
regarding how to perform their role. Crucial
leadership roles for project teams typically include: the leader,
a facilitator, a timekeeper and a recorder.
Team Leadership Rule 9: Establish Group Processes
Groups don't require extensive procedure
manuals, but they do need to follow certain processes
none-the-less. Three key processes impact performance.
The first is the widely known, but rarely followed procedures,
for running meetings. Another process relates to communication
roles. Finally, there are the processes and mental tools
useful in solving problems.
Team Leadership Rule 10: Facilitate
Meetings
Groups have a tendency to get bogged down
in a quicksand of trivial issues. Ask yourself, "How
much time gets wasted in the meetings you attend?" To
minimize wasted time, smart organizations have leaders
who can act as facilitators for team projects and critical
meetings.
Lead Better Meetings: Determine Both what is Good and What Should Change
Team Leadership Rule 11: Leaders
Use Communication Microroles
In teams, few self-oriented roles are expressed
while the task and maintenance roles are performed as
needed. Ten task roles are played to get the job done
and solve problems. The six maintenance roles are tougher
to perform since they involve maintaining sound interpersonal
relationships. Leadership is necessary to deal with the
twelve self-oriented roles since they are typically dysfunctional, often wrecking
both relationships and task progress.
Team Leadership Rule 12: Develop A
Problem Solving Process
Groups typically don't have a well defined
process for fixing problems. And so problems thought fixed keep occurring again and again and again. Strange as it may seem,
while managers are charged with solving problems in organizations,
somehow the colleges and business schools never got around
to teaching them how to go about it.
Part of the problem is that b-schools tell students that managers are decision makers. The truth is, executives are decision makers, but managers must excel at being problem solvers. It's a subtle, but important distinction.
It's analogous to public and private schools that somehow neglect to teach children how
to learn. We expect our children to excel at learning, but neglect to teach them the techniques to do it
Concluding Remarks
I have often thought interpersonal leadership to be orders of magnitude easier than welding a group of fairly selfish individuals into a cohesive team. It's a difficult challenge, but one that offers great rewards for those individuals and organizations that succeed.
Teams
left to run their own shows often lacked direction. Team members
didn't have the skills to solve problems that arose and found
it hard to get functional support. Many teams members also baked
at evaluating and disciplining their peers At first the problems
were ascribed to inexperience. But as time went on and teams
matured, managers and workers had to admit the old adage still
holds, "Every team needs a leader.
Janice
Klein and Pamela Posey, Harvard Business Review, November/December
1986
A Joke About Leadership and Teamwork
 |
A
certain sea captain and his chief engineer argued as
to which of them was more important to the ship. Failing
to agree, they resorted to a unique plan of swapping
places.
The chief engineer ascended to the bridge and the captain went to the
engine room. After a couple of hours the captain suddenly appeared
on the deck covered with oil and soot.
"Chief!" he yelled, wildly waving aloft a monkey wrench. "You'll
have to come down here; I can't make her go!”
"Of
course you can't," replied the Chief. "We're
aground.” |
|
