10-1
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
McGraw-Hill/Irwin
copyright © 2009 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, inc. All Rights Reserved
1-2
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.
10-3
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.
10-4
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.
10-5
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.
10-6
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.
10-7
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.
10-8
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
10-9
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.
10-10
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.
10-11
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.
10-12
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.
10-13
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
10-14
Organizational Shells
10-15
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.
10-16
Systems Theory Applied to Teams
10-17
Basic TLM Outputs: Outcomes of
High Performance Teams
10-18
TLM Diagnosis Process: Diagnose
Using the Process Variables
10-19
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
10-20
Three Functions of Leadership
10-21
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.
10-22
Team Leadership Model, Robert C. Ginnett, Ph.D.:
The Four Faces of the “Engine” of the Team
Leadership Model
10-23
Factors from the Normative Model of Group
Effectiveness and the Interactional Framework
10-24
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.
10-25
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.
10-26
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.
10-27