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The Hill Model for Team Leadership

March 15, 2018 by Tina — Leave a Comment

In today’s organizational world, we witness teams forming on a regular basis. Whether it be from
committees trying to come to an agreement on how to implement a new process or whether a
department is deciding that they believe a new office layout will produce increased customer
satisfaction, teams are attempting to collaborate to achieve a common goal. One thing to keep in
mind with teams is that “for teams to be successful, the organizational culture needs to support
member involvement”, (Northouse, 2016). All levels need to be included, which is why it is
important to recognize that team leadership is very process oriented and based on lateral
decision-making versus the traditional vertical decision-making.

To visualize team leadership, Susan Kogler Hill developed a model titled The Hill Model for Team
Leadership. This model demonstrates that as the leader is monitoring the team, they are able to
determine an action which will ensure team effectiveness based upon the leaders analysis.
Northouse states, “the model is designed to simplify and clarify the complex nature of team
leadership and to provide an easy tool to aid leadership decision-making for team leaders”,
(2016).

The Hill Model starts with the leadership decisions as to whether they monitor or take action
based upon internal or external actions; all the while, focusing on the overall team effectiveness.
The first step is for the leader to monitor or to take action. Information search and structuring
are two phases in this initial search. A leader must first seek out information to understand the
current state of the team’s functioning (information search), and then this information must be
interpreted so the leader can decide how to act (information structuring). If they monitor the
team and see they are functioning effectively, then the leader will continue to monitor. If they
witness a weakness in the team, then the leader will take action. (Northouse, 2016).

In order for the leader to take action, the leader will decide if the team needs assistance with
an internal task or maintenance issue, or an external environmental issue. Tasks help “focus the
group on using their time and skills to get the job done”, (Whardwick, 2010). If the leader
believes that the members of the team are diverting away from the original task, then the
leader will focus on an internal task intervention. If the leader believes that the members of the
team are not working together and tension has arose, then the leader will focus on an internal
relational action. And lastly, if the leader believes that the environment of the organization is
not supporting the team, then the leader will focus on an external environmental intervention.

The Hill Model illustrates a few examples of each action category (see Northouse, 2016, p 367,
Figure 14.1). For instance, if an internal task action would be required, the leader might perform
goal focusing, structuring for results, facilitating decision making, training team members in
task skills, or maintaining standards of excellence. For internal relational actions, the leader
might choose coaching team members in interpersonal skills, collaborating, managing conflict and
power issues, building commitment, satisfying individual member needs, or modeling ethical and
principled practices. And lastly, external environment actions would include networking and
forming alliances in environment; advocating and representing team to environment; negotiating
upward to secure necessary resources, support, and recognition for team; buffering team
members from environmental distractions; assessing environmental indicators of team’s
effectiveness; or sharing relevant environmental information with team.

By correctly performing the above steps, the leader is able to create high performance through
development and maintenance functions, (Clark, 2015). Performance is a task accomplishment
based upon the quality of the teams’ outcome. Development is team maintenance referring to
the cohesiveness of all members of the team. Leadership of the team can use eight
characteristics of team excellence to assess the health of the team and to determine if there
are weaknesses that need addressed, (Northouse, 2016). These characteristics include: clear
team goals, having a results-driven structure, competent team members, unified commitment,
collaborative climate, standards of excellence, external support and recognition, and principled
leadership. Once the weaknesses are addressed, an effective team will be created.
In conclusion, the Hill Model ultimately demonstrates that, “the leader’s role is to do whatever is
necessary to help the team achieve effectiveness”, (Northouse, 2016). Once a leader has
followed the Hill Model, they have helped to improve an organizational team.

REFERENCES:
Clark, D. (n.d.). Team Leadership Model. Knowledge Jump Productions. Retrieved from
http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/team_leadership.html

Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership Theory and Practice (Seventh Edition ed.). Thousand Oaks,
CA, USA: SAGE Publications.

Whardwick, D. (2010). Eliminate death of meetings – improve communication by clarifying roles

and functions on Team. WordPress. Retrieved from https://thewick.wordpress.com/tag/task-
and-maintenance-roles-and-functions/

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