Case study: Becoming an effective Leader for OSD Team at Environmentally Friendly

Department (EFD)

This case study examines how a newly appointed team leader should function to
become an successful leader and manager to a group of 10 staff members at the call
center.
The primary task of the team leader is to justify the trust of the appointment by the
senior management, while creating a healthy and efficient team adhering to the team
leader for guidance and decision making. The new team leader has a binding
responsibility to lead the team towards the success the company is expecting and
counting on.
The first task of the team leader should be building a strong and vigorous team, where
trust and team work should be the primary goal. To begin with, the team leader could
start with staff meetings and team building sessions, where the primary goal would be to
understand the mission and vision of the company, the role of each employee and that
the company could not succeed without contribution and devotion of each of the team
members: the call center operators. Then the team members should be given a chance
to speak and present their views and perspectives of the company’s operation for
success. This will lead to a sincere atmosphere and building of a trust towards each
other. The next steps would be establishing common values and work style/rules. This
exercise should be done in participatory style with involvement of each of the team
member. This way they will feel themselves as part of the important process ready to
work at the highest capacity. This is a democratic style of leadership, where everyone is
encouraged to speak up and contribute, feeling a part of the big picture, leading to the
ultimate goal.
Why this is a more desirable style in this case? Firstly, the company is shifting to a new
product/service and the team leader is unexperienced as a leader/manager, despite the
previous experience within the company. Half of the staff members are newcomers,
whereas the rest have been working as call center operators, however the new product
is also a new start for them. Having so many ‘’newness” in one place, there should be a
strong collaboration, trust, team work under an effective leadership, and it is definitely
the democratic style of leadership as a choice here, while the autocratic and laissez-
faire leadership styles are undesirable as both come with a set of problems, such as employers
being not-motivated, misguided, feeling uninterested, demoralized and just not feeling part of
the big game. This will lead to a poor performance negatively impacting the company’s
presentation overall.

Looking at the stages of team development according to Tuckman’s theory: forming, storming,
norming, performing and adjourning, the team leader’s interest is achieving a smooth norming
stage. As the team will go through the formation and storming stages at first with introduction to
each other, getting to know personal strengths and weaknesses, expectations, setting up of
rules and boundaries, and the first storms of conflicts and misunderstanding will settle down,
achieving the norming stage and keeping it steady is the primary task of the team leader. Since
the choice of the leadership style is the democratic one, it would be easier again to achieve a
smooth norming stage with set rules and procedures, and all within a healthy environment.

References:
Freahbooks, (2021) Tuckman’s Theory: Five Stages of Team Development. Available from:
https://www.freshbooks.com/hub/other/tuckmans-theory [Accessed 29 August 2022].
Carlin, D. (2015) Democratic, Authoritarian, Laissez-Faire: What Type Of Leader Are You?
Available from: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidcarlin/2019/10/18/democratic-
authoritarian-laissez-faire-what-type-of-leader-are-you/?sh=4b9a47012a6b [Accessed 29
August 2022].
Wilson, G. (N. D.) The Advantages Of Democratic Leadership In The Workplace Available from:
https://www.thesuccessfactory.co.uk/blog/advantages-of-democratic-leadership [Accessed 29
August 2022].