Leadership:
Understanding its Global Impact
Chapter 10:
Leading teams
Learning objectives
• Explain the difference between groups
and teams
• Describe and understand the dynamics
of different types of teams
• Explain the stages of team
development and signs of decline
• Understand the leader’s role in a teambased organisation
• Develop a practical plan to improve
team performance
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Chapter contents
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Spotlight: Michael K. O’Loughlin
Introduction
Groups and teams
Types of teams
How teams develop and decline
Characteristics of effective teams
Leader in action: André Smit
Measuring team member strengths and
weaknesses
A practical framework for team improvement
Reflection
Summary
Case study: ING Group
Spotlight: Michael K O’Loughlin
• Provides practical examples of
two significant issues in team
dynamics—team values and
shared leadership
• Team leaders must have team
values, be role models, and
conduct themselves according to
team rules and norms
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Introduction
• Last few decades … an increase in
the formation of teams
• Trend towards development of selfmanaged teams
• Chapter concentrates on need for
leaders to understand the role they
play in developing successful and
effective team work
• Do teams make leadership an
irrelevant concept?
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Groups and teams
• Groups are a collection of
individuals working together
• Teams are committed to a
common purpose
• Sub-cultures can develop within a
team
• While a team is a group, not all
groups are teams
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Types of teams
• The four types of teams
– functional teams
– cross-functional teams
– self managed teams
– global and virtual teams
• They are distinct in their membership,
their duration, and in the way they
can influence their mission
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How teams develop and decline
• Two theories for describing the
stages of development:
– punctuated equilibrium
Gersick 1988
– Tuckman’s four-stage model
Tuckman 1965;
Tuckman &Jensen 1977
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Changing leader style and roles
as a team develops
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Declining organisations
• Collins 2009 - a descriptive model to
illustrate how previously successful
organisations decline
• Five sequential stages of decline
• The way managers and leaders
interact can predict the state of an
organisation and the teams
• By observing signs of decline leaders
can detect declining team situations
and take action to reverse the curve
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Characteristics of effective
teams
• People look up the hierarchy for
clues about how to behave
• Hughes, Ginnett &Curphy 2006, a
team’s failure can often be traced to
the moment it was established
• Four characteristics:
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task structure
team boundaries
norms
leadership
Leader in action: André Smit
• For leaders who need to lead
teams that comprise of people
from diverse nationalities:
– Encourage ownership and
empowerment
– Leverage experiences
– Promote from within
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Measuring team-member
strengths and weaknesses
• Margerison & McCann 1995: ‘Team
Management Systems’
• Identified eight core ‘work functions’
• People tend to assume the role they
naturally prefer and therefore perform
better in those areas
• Team Management Profile Questionnaire
(TMPQ) – nine functions/roles
• For a team to be effective, need to
concentrate on each of these team
functions and roles
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A practical framework for
team improvement
• As new leader takes responsibility,
there is a window of opportunity to
move the team forward
• Existing teams - much more difficult as
the culture of the team will likely resist
any significant efforts for change
• Two types of change program:
– major change programs and
– small-scale, incremental programs
• Eight steps outlined
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Summary
• A team is a group but not all groups are
teams; teams are task focused
• Trend for cross-functional teams
• Self managed teams also popular
• Teams progress through a number of stages:
– ‘Forming, conforming, storming and
performing’
– A number of behaviours indicate whether a
team is in decline or moving through the
development stages
• Leaders do, and will, continue to play a critical
role in leading all types of teams
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Case study: ING Group
• List the initiatives used by Harry Stout in
developing a team-based organisation. Could
these initiatives be implemented in the
organisation you work in or one you know of? List
the reasons the initiatives may or may not be
appropriate.
• How might Collins’s declining team theory be
used by ING to identify whether the three teams
are failing to progress towards their stated
objectives?
• Examine the organisation you work in or one you
know of. How could the cross-sectional team
structure or the rotating team structure used in
ING be implemented in the organisation? What
issues would you allocate to the team(s)
structured in this way?
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