The Nature of

Leadership

(Part 2)

1 MPU 2232: LEADERSHIP

2 Leading Teams

“To be an effective leader, you must first be an

effective team member”

MPU 2232: LEADERSHIP

3 Leading Teams

➢ Teams are valuable in organizations where work is interdependent, which

means that individuals and departments rely on other individuals and
departments for information or resources in order to accomplish their work

➢ Research shows superior services and products are produced due to superior
teamwork in organisations.

➢ Team & teamwork are essential at every stage; board room up till factory
floor.
MPU 2232: LEADERSHIP
 4 Quality
improvements

Higher Greater
productivity flexibility &
speed

The value Benefits

Of
of teams Teams
Lower Flatter
management
turnover structure
Increased
employee
involvement
and
satisfaction Daft, R. L. (2015). The leadership experience (6th ed.). Canada:
MPU 2232: LEADERSHIP Cengage Learning.
5 – A team is a group of people who work together to accomplish
something beyond their individual self-interests; however, not all
groups are teams.

– A simple but effective description of what is meant by "a team"

comes from Jon R. Katzenbach and Douglas K. Smith's book, The
Wisdom of Teams: Creating the High-Performance Organization:

A team is a small number of people with complementary skills who

are committed in a common purpose, performance goals, and
approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.
(Society of Human Resource Department- California(SHRM), 2019)

MPU 2232: LEADERSHIP

6 – The difference between a group and a team is that a team is more than
a collection of people simply following orders.

– People who do not interact regularly, e.g.: waiting in line at the

company cafeteria or riding together in the elevator, do not compose a
team

– Even a group of employees whose work is related is not a team unless

the members share a common purpose that requires them to depend
on each other.

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7

Types of
teams

cross-
functional self managed global &
functional
teams teams virtual teams
teams

MPU 2232: LEADERSHIP

8 Functional Team

– Common in departments; finance, human resources, marketing.

– Usually consist of a line manager- the team leader.
– Most popular structure in most organisations.
– Membership is relatively stable thus less responsive to changes.
– Tend to focus on the department’s objectives at the expense of the overall
mission of the organisation- less effective in organisational performance.
– Too many functional teams lead to ‘silo effect’- a lack of cooperation between
functional teams which leads to difficult overall management.

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9
Cross-Functional Team
– Teams made up of members from different functional departments of an
organisation.
– Used as the basis for team creation to improve the coordination of activities.
– These teams could be temporary (projects) or permanent part of organisations.
– Advantage: the C-F team would have more expertise, experience & different
perspectives than F team.
– The C-F team sometimes include members from outside the formal
organisation- customers, suppliers, joint-venture partners.
– Usually trusted leaders take up the role of a leader in a C-F team.

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10

MPU 2232: LEADERSHIP

11 Self-Managed Teams

– Different from traditional leadership; it is a team-based organisation where

leaders lead without positional authority.
– Collective/ equal responsibility, accountability and decision-making is seen
– Self-managed team leaders move inside one’s subordinate work group to lead,
provide direction, communication, facilitation, coordination and support.
– Each team member is given an area of work to work on – the team is given the
authority for operational decision in achieving the team’s goal without direct
supervision.
– Self-managed teams often elect a ‘coordinator’ – rotating the position among
members on a regular basis. Ex: the head of faculties in a university.

MPU 2232: LEADERSHIP

12

MPU 2232: LEADERSHIP

13 Global & Virtual Team

– Practised by large organisations which are global enterprises with employees all
over the globe/world.
– Members of the team are geographically scattered but still a part of functional/ c-f.
– Due to the distance, non face-to-face communications are relied upon – emails,
teleconference, video conference keep the team heading towards the same
goal/direction.
– Problems- gaining commitment of team, establishing and maintaining trust,
different shared value due to difference in culture, frustration due to time
differences, problems with communication technology and difficult in facilitation
– Solutions – strong vision that holds the team, effective communication, takes
initiative and being proactive, demonstrate flexibility, inspire team to achieve
results, reliable technology
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15

LEADING A TEAM TO HIGH

PERFORMANCE

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 16
Compelling Purpose,
Clear Objectives, and
Explicit Metrics
Diversity of Skills and
Unambiguous Roles
Streamlined Team Size
MPU 2232: LEADERSHIP
• Members need to know what is expected of them
• Specific, clearly-defined purpose & well-defined set of goals: allow
them to come together in a shared undertaking
• Clear metrics to know how well they are progressing toward
meeting goals
• Effective teams: diverse mix of skills, knowledge, and experience to
perform all the components of the team’s project
• Race, gender, ethnic or cultural background, etc: better innovation
& decision making because different perspectives
• Clear roles & expectations: enhanced cooperation because no
confusion over duties & responsibilities
• No optimal team size but teams function best when they contain just
enough members to perform the job
• Small teams (six/ fewer members) perform better than large ones
• Ask more questions, exchange more opinions & exhibit more
cooperative behavior
Daft, R. L. (2015). The leadership experience (6th ed.). Canada:
Cengage Learning.
 17
Decision Authority • Good leaders share power, information, and responsibility & work to build
consensus rather than issuing orders
Over How to • Members determine together how they will work cooperatively to accomplish
Achieve Goals objectives and achieve the team’s purpose

• Soft leadership skills concerned with building positive relationships important

• Team effectiveness, productivity & learning : strengthened when team leaders
Support and provide support to team members, reinforce team identity & meaning, work
Coaching to maintain trusting interpersonal relationships and group cohesiveness, &
offer coaching to enhance members’ self leadership skills
• Periodic training: communication, building relationships, resolve conflict, etc.

Daft, R. L. (2015). The leadership experience (6th ed.). Canada:

MPU 2232: LEADERSHIP Cengage Learning.
 Today’s lesson

18 MPU 2232: LEADERSHIP