McGraw-Hill/Irwin
8-1
Copyright © 2012 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Chapter
10
Groups, Teams, and Their
Leadership
“We are born for cooperation, as are the feet,
the hands, the eyelids, and the upper and
lower jaws.”
~Marcus Aurelius
8-2
Introduction
• Groups and teams are different than solely
the skills, abilities, values, and motives of
those who comprise them.
• Groups are essential if leaders are to
impact anything beyond their own behavior.
• Group perspective looks at how different
group characteristics can affect
relationships both with the leader and
among the followers.
8-3
Individuals Versus Groups Versus
Teams
• Team members usually have a stronger
sense of identification among themselves
than group members do.
• Teams have common goals or tasks.
• Task independence typically is greater with
teams than with groups.
• Team members often have more
differentiated and specialized roles than
group members.
• Teams can be considered as highly
specialized groups.
8-4
The Nature of Groups
• Group: Two or more persons interacting
with one another in a manner that each
person influences and is influenced by each
other person.
– This definition incorporates the concept of
reciprocal influence between leaders and
followers.
– Group members interact and influence each
other.
– The definition does not constrain individuals to
only one group.
8-5
Group Size
• Leader emergence is partly a function of
group size.
• As groups become larger, cliques are more
likely to develop.
• Group size can affect a leader’s behavioral
style.
• Span of control
• Group size affects group effectiveness.
8-6
Group Size (continued)
• Additive task: A task where the group’s
output simply involves the combination of
individual outputs.
• Process losses: Inefficiencies created by
more and more people working together.
• Social loafing: Phenomenon of reduced
effort by people when they are not
individually accountable for their work.
• Social facilitation: People increasing their
level of work due to the presence of others.
8-7
Developmental Stages of Groups
• Stages of groups development:
–
–
–
–
Forming
Storming
Norming
Performing
• These stages are important because:
– People are in many more leaderless groups than
they may realize.
– The potential relationships between leadership
behaviors and group cohesiveness and
productivity.
• Punctuated equilibrium: Related to project
teams.
8-8
Group Roles
• Group roles: Sets of expected behaviors
associated with particular jobs or positions.
– Task role
– Relationship role
• Types of role problems:
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Dysfunctional roles
Role conflict
Intrasender role conflict
Intersender role conflict
Interrole conflict
Person-role conflict
Role ambiguity
8-9
Group Norms
• Norms: Informal rules groups adopt to
regulate and regularize group members’
behavior.
• Norms are more likely to be seen as
important and apt to be enforced if they:
– Facilitate group survival.
– Simplify, or make more predictable, what
behavior is expected of group members.
– Help the group to avoid embarrassing
interpersonal problems.
– Express the central values of the group and
clarify what is distinctive about the group’s
identity.
8-10
Group Cohesion
• Group cohesion: The glue that keeps a
group together.
• Highly cohesive groups interact with and
influence each other more than do less
cohesive groups.
– Greater cohesiveness does not always lead
to higher performance.
– Highly cohesive groups may have lower
absenteeism and lower turnover.
– Highly cohesive groups may sometimes
develop goals contrary to the larger
organization’s goals.
8-11
Group Cohesion (continued)
• Overbounding: Tendency of highly cohesive
groups to erect what amount to fences or
boundaries between themselves and others.
• Groupthink: People in highly cohesive groups
often become more concerned with striving for
unanimity than in objectively appraising
different courses of action.
• Ollieism: When illegal actions are taken by
overly zealous and loyal subordinates who
believe that what they are doing will please their
leaders.
8-12
Effective Team Characteristics and
Team Building
• Key characteristics for effective team
performance:
– Effective teams have a clear mission and high
performance standards.
– Leaders of effective teams spend a considerable
amount of time assessing the technical skills
of the team members.
– Good leaders work to secure resources and
equipment necessary for team effectiveness.
– Effective leaders spend considerable time
planning and organizing in order to make
optimal use of available resources.
– High levels of communication helped minimize
interpersonal conflicts.
8-13
Effective Team Characteristics and
Team Building (continued)
• Four variables that need to be in place
for a team to work effectively:
–
–
–
–
Task structure
Group boundaries
Norms
Authority
8-14
Organizational Shells
8-15
Ginnett’s Team Effectiveness
Leadership Model
• Stages of the Team Effectiveness
Leadership Model (TLM):
– Input
– Process
• Process measures
• Group dynamics
– Output
• This model is a mechanism to:
– Identify what a team needs to be effective,
– Point the leader either toward roadblocks or
toward ways to make the team even more
effective than it already is.
8-16
Systems Theory Applied to Teams
FIGURE 10.2
An Iceberg Metaphor for Systems Theory Applied to Teams.
8-17
Basic TLM Outputs: Outcomes of
High Performance Teams
FIGURE 10.3
Basic TLM outputs: outcomes of High Performance Teams.
8-18
TLM Process Variables: Diagnose the
Team Using the Process Variables
FIGURE 10.4
TLM process variables: diagnose the team using the process variables.
8-19
Leadership Prescriptions of the
Model
• A team should be built like a house or
automobile:
–
–
–
–
Start with a concept
Create a design
Engineer it to do what you want it to do
Manufacture it to meet those specifications
• The three critical functions for team
leadership:
– Dream
– Design
– Development
8-20
Three Functions of Leadership
FIGURE 10.5
Three functions of TLM leadership.
8-21
Diagnosis and Leverage Points
• Process block of the TLM:
– Individual factors
– Organizational level
– Team design
• Concluding thoughts about Ginnett’s Team
Effectiveness Leadership model:
– Leaders can influence team effectiveness by:
• Ensuring the team has a clear sense of purpose
and performance expectations.
• Designing or redesigning input stage variables at
the individual, organizational, and team design
levels.
• Improving team performance through ongoing
coaching.
8-22
Team Leadership Model, Robert C. Ginnett, Ph.D.:
The Four Faces of the “Engine” of the Team
Leadership Model
FIGURE 10.56
Team Leadership Model
8-23
Factors from the Normative Model of Group
Effectiveness and the Interactional Framework
8-24
Virtual Teams (Geographically
Dispersed Teams – GDTs)
• Five major areas that need to change for
global teams to work:
– Senior management leadership
– Innovative use of communication
technology
– Adoption of an organization design that
enhances global operations
– The ability to capture the strengths of
diverse cultures, languages, and people.
8-25
Virtual Teams (Geographically
Dispersed Teams – GDTs)
• Conclusions that leaders of virtual teams
need to bear in mind:
– Distance between members is
multidimensional.
– Impact of such distances on performance is not
directly proportional to objective measures of
distance.
– Differences in the effects that distance seems to
have is due at least partially to two intervening
variables:
• Integrating practices within a virtual team,
• Integrating practices between a virtual team
and its larger host organization.
8-26
Summary
• Group perspective: Showed that followers’
behaviors can be the result of factors somewhat
independent of their individual characteristics.
• Leaders should use a team perspective for
understanding follower behavior and group
performance.
• Team Leadership Model: Team effectiveness
can be best understood in terms of inputs,
processes, and outcomes.
– By identifying certain process problems in teams,
leaders can use the model to diagnose
appropriate leverage points for action.
8-27