Leading Small Teams

SHASHEMENE POLY TVET COLLEGE

Data base Administration

Level III

Unit of Competence: Lead small teams

Module Title: Leading small teams

Learning outcomes:
LO1: Provide team leadership

LO2 : Assign responsibilities

LO3: Set performance expectations for team members

LO4: Supervised team performance

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LO1 Providing Team Leadership

1.1 Introduction to Leading Small Teams
1.1.1 Terminologies and concepts related to leadership
 Authority
Authority is defined as the power to enforce laws, exact obedience, command, determine,
or judge. The concept of authority is closely related to power, the analysis of both being
essential for studying political and legal systems.
 Brainstorming
Since the 1950s, brainstorming has been put forward as a significant antidote to all forms
of organizational rigidity and defensiveness—and an important catalyst for liberating
organizational creativity.
 Charisma
In scholarly usage since the early twentieth century, the word “charisma” applied to
magnetic leaders, whether they are political, secular, or religious, who exhibit awe-
inspiring and almost magical powers of person and personality.
 Command and control approach
A style of leadership that uses standards, procedures, and output statistics to regulate the
organization. A command and control approach to leadership is authoritative in nature
and uses a top-down approach.
 Empowerment
The term has its origins in the turn within radical politics away from COLLECTIVISM
and towards issues of individual consciousness and emancipation.
 Leader
Somebody or something that ranks first, precedes others, or holds a principal position; a
person with commanding authority or influence.
 Groupthink
Groupthink is a condition in which highly cohesive groups in “hot” decision situations
display excessive levels of concurrence seeking that suppress critical inquiry and result in
faulty decision making.
 Hierarchy of credibility
The notion that societies are so organized that those who occupy top positions and
positions of authority tend more readily to have their versions of the truth accepted, while
the views of those who are ‘underdogs’ or ‘outsiders’ often go unrepresented.
 Mentoring
A form of employee development whereby a trusted and respected person, the mentor,
uses his or her experience to offer guidance, encouragement, career advice, and support
to another person, the mentee.
 Mindfulness
The state of being calmly, intentionally and actively aware of what one is feeling,
thinking and doing; hence the state of being attentive to the moment without becoming
entangled in it.

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 Motivation:
In psychology, the intention of achieving a goal, leading to goal-directed behavior. Some
human activity seems to be best explained by postulating an inner directing drive.
 Stakeholders
A neologism, denoting any person or a group that has a vital interest (a ‘stake’) in the
success or conduct of an enterprise. In discussing business enterprises the stakeholder is
usually contrasted with the shareholder.
 Teamwork
Collaboration by group of people to achieves a common purpose. Teamwork is often a
feature of day-to-day working, and is increasingly used to accomplish specific projects, in
which case it may bring together people from different functions, departments, or
disciplines.
 Values
Defined most broadly, values are the criteria individuals or groups use to define and rank
practically anything as relatively good or bad, including objects (e.g. fruit, cars, gold,
music), styles (of painting, clothing design, writing, etc.), or ideas and philosophies.

1.1.2 Terminologies and concepts related to team

Team Communication:
Key Terms and Concepts
Teamwork Definition
Team Structure Delineates fundamentals such
as team size, membership,
leadership, composition,
identification and distribution.
Leadership Ability to coordinate the
activities of other team
members by ensuring team
actions are understood,
changes in information are
shared, and that team members
have the necessary resources.
Characteristics include: assess
team performance, assign
tasks, develop team KSAs,
motivate team members, plan
and organize, and establish a
positive atmosphere.
Situation Process of actively scanning
Monitoring and assessing situational
(aka: Mutual elements to gain information,
Performance understanding, or maintain
Monitoring) awareness to support
functioning of the team.
Behavioral Examples
• Identifies goals
• Assigns roles and responsibilities
• Holds members accountable
• Utilizes resources
• Delegates tasks and balances workload,
• Conducts briefs, huddles, and debriefs
• Empowers members to speak freely
• Facilitate team problem solving.
• Seek and evaluate information that impacts
team functioning.
• Clarify team member roles.
• Engage in preparatory meetings and
feedback sessions with the team.
• Includes patient/family in communication
• Cross monitors members and applies STEP
process
• Fosters communication
• Provides feedback regarding team member

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Overall, the ability to develop actions in order to facilitate self-correction.

common understandings of the
team environment and apply
appropriate task strategies in
order to accurately monitor
teammate performance.
Mutual Support Ability to anticipate and
(aka: Back-up support other team member's
Behavior) needs through accurate
knowledge about their
responsibilities and workload.
The ability to shift workload
among members to achieve
balance during high periods of
workload or pressure.
Communication Process by which information
is clearly and accurately
exchanged among team
members.
The exchange of information
between a sender and a
receiver, irrespective of the
medium.
• Advocates for the patient
• Resolves conflict using Two-Challenge rule,
CUS, and DESC script
• Works collaboratively
• Recognition by potential back-up providers
that there is a workload distribution problem
involving their team.
• Shifting of work responsibilities to
underutilized team members.
• Completion of the whole task or parts of
tasks by other team members.
• Providing brief, clear, specific and timely
information
• Seeking and communicating information
from all available sources
• Using SBAR, call-outs, check-backs, and
handoff techniques
• Following up with team members to ensure
message was received.
• Acknowledging that a message was
received.
• Clarifying with the sender of the message
that the message received is the same as the
intended message sent.

1.1.3 Concepts related to small team leadership

Small Team Leadership
Team leadership is not new or innate. New and existing team leaders often remain unsure of their
approach to the daily encounters surrounding their leadership dilemmas. It is the close
examination and analysis of the intricacies of team leadership that allow a better understanding
of the skills required for effective delegation, coaching, team member support, and daily
planning.

This workshop provides you with common-sense skills to guide your team better. Being an
effective team leader means understanding the team's needs, the expectations of your
organization, and at times, being the intermediary between the two. With the strategies to build a
more cohesive team, both you and your organization and your individual team members will
benefit from this course.

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Building confidence and motivation within a team requires knowledge. This workshop will teach
you when to apply the specific styles of leadership according to the situation: when the level of
staff skills improve; or when it is necessary to raise the self confidence of your team members; or
even when to effectively apply your coaching strategies. But most of all, these two days will
build YOUR confidence, skills, understanding and motivation as a team leader.
This two day workshop is a catalyst to help organizations achieves success, create enjoyable
work environments, and allows greater understanding and skills when dealing with today's ad-
hoc teams.

1.2 Identifying and Presenting Work Requirements to Team Members

One of the basic responsibilities of the project manager is to assign work to team members.
However, some project managers are not always clear on the work to be done and the person that
is responsible. This causes uncertainty in the team and can result of some activities running late.

A good way to test whether your directions and assignments are clear is to ask team members
what they are responsible for completing in the next two weeks. If team members know what is
expected of them, chances are that you are effectively and clearly assigning the work. However,
if team members give you different answers than you expect, it may mean that you need to work
on being clearer and more precise.

If team members understand the work perfectly, but don't deliver on time, you may have a
performance problem. However, if the team member is not clear about the work they have been
assigned or the due date, the project manager may have a communication problem. When you
assign work to team members, be clear about the following:

 Activity name(s)- From the work plan.

 An explanation- Describe, if necessary, what the work entails.
 Start date and estimated end date- The project manager needs to be clear on when the
activity can start (probably immediately) and when the activity is due
 Estimated effort hours (optional)- The project manager should communicate the
estimated hours required to complete the activity. This is usually of secondary
importance compared to the due date. Estimated effort hours are most important if the
team member is a contractor or the employees charge-back their time to the client
organization.
 Estimated costs (optional)- If the team member needs to manage the cost associated
with an activity, he or she needs to know this number as well.
 Deliverable- The team member needs to understand the deliverable or work component
(a portion of a larger deliverable) that they are expected to complete.
 Dependencies- Make sure the team members knows their relationship with other
activities - ones that are waiting on them or ones that must be complete before theirs can
start.
 Other resources. If multiple people are working on the same activity, they must all
understand who their team members are and they need to know who has overall
responsible for the activity.

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1.3 Communicating Reasons for Instructions and Requirements to Team Members

When you communicate effectively with your team it eliminates confusion and can foster a
healthy and happy workplace. Effective communication with your team will also allow you to
get work done more quickly and efficiently. As the business owner, it's your responsibility to
rectify any communication problems with your workers. Once you get the lines of
communication open with your team, the process of completing tasks and projects will probably
go by much more smoothly.

Why communication is important & necessary…

 In a team you are ALL working towards a same goal.
 You need to define and ensure that the goal is shared by all the members.
 If there are questions/issues about the goal those need to be resolved quickly in order for
the team to move forward.
 When decisions need to be made the team has to be made aware of the decision that is at
hand.
 If communication keeps the team members informed, therefore a team working towards
the same goal can be more effective and efficient.
 Information is shared within team.
 Team members have knowledge
 Knowledge is power
 Sense of power gives members sense of belonging and dedication
 Dedicated members will contribute more and feel valuable to the team.

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LO2 Assigning responsibilities

2.1 Allocating Duties and Responsibilities to Team Members by Considering the skills,
knowledge and attitude required to perform the task according to company policy
1. Skills
Listed below are the main generic ‘skills’ that need to be applied in allocating and checking work
in your team.
 Communicating  Prioritizing
 Providing feedback  Team-building
 Planning  Managing conflict
 Reviewing  Information management
 Motivating  Leadership
 Valuing and supporting others  Coaching
 Problem-solving  Delegating
 Monitoring  Setting objectives
 Decision-making  Stress management
2. Performance Criteria
You must be able to:
1 Confirm the work required of the team with your manager and seek clarification, where
necessary, on any outstanding points and issues.
2 Plan how the team will undertake its work, identifying any priorities or critical activities and
making best use of the available resources.
3 Allocate work to team members on a fair basis taking account of their skills, knowledge and
understanding, experience and workloads and the opportunity for development.
4 Brief team members on the work they have been allocated and the standard or level of
expected performance.
5 Recognize and seek to find out about differences in expectations and working methods of any
team members from a different country or culture and promote ways of working that take
account of their expectations and maximize productivity.

2.Behaviors
You will exhibit the following behaviors:
1 You make time available to support others.
2 You clearly agree what is expected of others and hold them to account.
3 You prioritize objectives and plan work to make best use of time and resources.
4 You state your own position and views clearly and confidently in conflict situations.
5 You show integrity, fairness and consistency in decision-making.
6 You seek to understand people’s needs and motivations.
7 You take pride in delivering high quality work.
8 You take personal responsibility for making things happen.
9 You encourage and support others to make the best use of their abilities.
10 You are vigilant for possible risks and hazards.

4. Knowledge and Understanding

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You need to know and understand:

a). General knowledge and understanding
1 Different ways of communicating effectively with members of a team.
2 The importance of confirming/clarifying the work required of the team with your manager and
how to do this effectively.
3 How to plan the work of a team, including how to identify any priorities or critical activities
and the available resources.
4 How to identify sustainable resources and ensure their effective use when planning the work of
a team.
5 How to identify and take due account of health and safety issues in the planning, allocation and
checking of work.
6 Why it is important to allocate work across the team on a fair basis and how to do so.
7 Why it is important to brief team members on the work they have been allocated and the
standard or level of expected performance and how to do so.

b). Industry/sector specific knowledge and understanding

1 Industry/sector specific legislation, regulations, guidelines, codes of practice relating to
carrying out work.
2 Industry/sector requirements for the development or maintenance of knowledge, understanding
and skills.

c). Context specific knowledge and understanding

1 The members, purpose and objectives of your team.
2 The work required of your team.
3 The available resources for undertaking the required work.
4 The organization’s written health and safety policy statement and associated information and
requirements.
5 Your team’s plan for undertaking the required work.
6 The skills, knowledge and understanding, experience and workloads of team members.

2.2 Allocating Duties based on Individual Preference, Domestic Consideration

Roles within teams
Following many years’ research on teams, Dr Meredith Belbin identified a set of eight roles,
which, if all present in a team, give it the best chance of success. These roles are:

The Co-coordinator clarifies group objectives, sets the agenda, establishes priorities, selects
problems, sums up and is decisive, but does not dominate discussions.

The Shaper gives shape to the team effort, looking for pattern in discussions and practical
considerations regarding the feasibility of the project. Can steamroller the team? But gets result.

The Plant is the source of original ideas, suggestions and proposals that are usually original and
radical.

The Monitor-Evaluator contributes a measured and dispassionate analysis and, through

objectivity, stops the team committing itself to a misguided task.

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The Implementer turns decisions and strategies into defined and manageable tasks, sorting out
objectives and pursuing them logically.

The Resource Investigator goes outside the team to bring in ideas, information and
developments to it.
They are the team’s salesperson, diplomat, liaison officer and explorer.

The Team Worker operates against division and disruption in the team, like cement, particularly
in times of stress and pressure.

The Finisher maintains a permanent sense of urgency with relentless follow-through.

It is not essential that teams comprise eight people each fulfilling one of the roles above, but that
people who are aware and capable of carrying out these roles should be present. In small teams,
people can, and do, assume more than one role. In addition, analyzing existing teams and their
performance or behavior, using these team role concepts, can lead to improvements, e.g.:
 Underachievement demands a good co-coordinator or finisher
 Conflict requires a team worker or strong co-coordinator
 Mediocre performance needs a resource investigator, innovator or shaper
 Error prone teams need an evaluator
Quality
Different roles are important in different circumstances, e.g., new teams need a strong shaper to
get started, competitive situations demand an innovator with good ideas and in areas of high risk,
a good evaluator may be needed. Teams should, therefore, be analyzed both in terms of what
team roles members can play, and also in relation to what team skills are most needed.

LO3 Setting Performance Expectations for Team Members

3.1 Describing performance expectations
 Without clear expectations, employees can waste effort doing work that has to be done
over, waste time doing unneeded work, and worry about not knowing if they are doing
the right things.
 With clear expectations, on the other hand, employees understand why they are doing
their work, what exactly they should be doing, and the relative importance of different
parts of their jobs.

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Performance expectations are the basis for appraising employee performance. Written
performance standards let you compare the employee’s performance with mutually understood
expectations and minimize ambiguity in providing feedback.

Having performance standards is not a new concept; standards exist whether or not they are
discussed or put in writing. When you observe an employee’s performance, you usually make a
judgment about whether that performance is acceptable. How do you decide what’s acceptable
and what’s unacceptable performance? The answer to this question is the first step in establishing
written standards.

Standards identify a baseline for measuring performance. From performance standards,

supervisors can provide specific feedback describing the gap between expected and actual
performance.

Guiding Principles
Effective performance standards:
 Serve as an objective basis for communicating about performance
 Enable the employee to differentiate between acceptable and unacceptable
results
 Increase job satisfaction because employees know when tasks are
performed well
 Inform new employees of your expectations about job performance
 Encourage an open and trusting relationship with employees

Characteristics of Performance Standards

Standards describe the conditions that must exist before the performance can be rated
satisfactory. A performance standard should:
1. Be realistic, in other words, attainable by any qualified, and fully trained person who has
the authority and resources to achieve the desired result
2. Describe the conditions that exist when performance expectations are met
3. Be communicated in terms of quantity, quality, time, cost, effect, and process
4. Be measurable, with specified method(s) of gathering performance data and measuring
performance against standards
Establishing performance expectations based on client needs and assignment
requirements
Successfully measuring employee performance requires a clear and well defined strategy, and it
starts with three key steps:
1. Create Specific Job Descriptions
Define the job that each staff member is responsible for performing. Specify the skills the person
in the position should have. Outline the specific duties and responsibilities of the job. Include the
job title, a summary of the position, and a list of job duties. This can be the ideal tool to explain
to employees exactly what is expected of them.
For example, your dental assistant’s job description should include points such as attending
beginning of the day meetings, completing case presentations, reinforcing to patients the quality
of care delivered in the practice, directing the doctor to check hygiene patients, completing post

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treatment care calls, converting emergency patients to new patients, turning the treatment room
around promptly, etc.

2. The Groundwork for Success

 Provide the necessary equipment and tools to perform the job
 Provide training to help team members carry out the job duties most effectively
 Evaluate the number of staff to ensure it is adequate
 Explain what is expected of the employee and how their performance will be measured

For example, if you are measuring the performance of your dental assistant, you should be able
to see the distal of the cuspid on every bitewing X-ray, you should never have to reach for an
instrument on any setup, and the molds the assistant pours should be free of defects. In addition,
if you expect your assistant to achieve an 85% case acceptance, s/he needs to know this. If it’s
your expectation that s/he give a daily report on post-treatment calls, s/he needs to be told. If you
expect her/him to convert 75% of emergency patients to comprehensive exam patients, and that
s/he is to keep the cost of dental supplies at no more than 5% of practice collections, make sure
that direction is abundantly clear to the employee.
3. What Gets Measured Gets Done
Appraise employee performance using an effective performance appraisal instrument that
evaluates key areas such as:
 The employee’s ability to follow instructions
 Their willingness to help others and cooperate with others
 The incidents of errors in their work
 Their initiative, commitment, and innovation in carrying out their responsibilities and
improving work flow
 Their work ethic, attitude, and individual productivity
4. Feedback Framework
Feedback is an essential component of a
performance culture
 Most beneficial if on-going
 Intended to support staff performance
and development
 Applies to both positive and
constructive situations
 On-going feedback ensures no
surprises
Framework assists in preparing to deliver
feedback effectively
LO4 Supervising Team
Performance
4.1 Monitoring Performance
against Defined Criteria
The key to effective monitoring performance is to identify a range of methods – so you can then
choose the method that’s easiest to apply and most effective. Let’s begin with the easy part –
monitoring performance against quantifiable objectives. Here are some examples

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1. Monitoring performance against quantifiable objectives

Methods:
 Sales reports
 Deadlines met
 Error reports
 Accuracy reports
 Documents
 Proposals
 Plans
 Budget forecasts
 Widgets produced

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These tend to be the monitoring methods most managers are comfortable with because they’re
about what the employee does. It’s easy to see if your employee is achieving a sales target or
submitting accurate work and these are great monitoring methods for the quantity, quality and
time elements of the job

The difficulty arises when these are the only monitoring methods a manager uses because most
jobs aren’t just about the ‘what’, they’re also about ‘how’ your employee’s do their job. About:
 how they work as a team member
 how they work with customers
 how they deal with problems
 how they deal with change and so on
In short, their behaviors’

If you only monitor the ‘what’ of the job you will only be monitoring half of the job. And if you
only monitor half of the job then possibly that’s the only half that the employee will feel it’s
worth focusing on!

2. Monitoring performance against behavioral objectives

Here are three ways to monitor behaviors’
1. Observation
Observation is taking a planned approach to watching your employee ‘in action’. The idea is that
you plan to observe the specific behaviors’ that you have described in your performance
objectives. For example, if you have agreed that a performance objective for team work is
‘offering help to team members’ and ‘contributing to team meetings’ then those are the specific
behaviors’ you plan to observe. So it’s about;

 looking at the performance objectives you’ve agreed that relate to behavioral elements of
the job and then
 planning how you will observe those behaviors’ e.g. paying particular attention to the
employee’s behavior in the next team meeting

2. Report back
Report back is about your employee reporting back to you on their performance. This is a really
useful technique where the employee is responsible for ‘evidencing ‘their performance against
the objectives you’ve agreed

A good example would be if you had an agreed a performance objective from ‘effective time
management’ which included ‘takes action to manage interruptions’. Then the employee would
simply report back to you with some examples of when they had taken action to manage
interruptions
3. Feedback
Feedback is about getting feedback from people on the employee’s performance. This could be
from;
 customers
 suppliers

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 team members
 other departments
It’s important that you only look for feedback;
a) As agreed between you and the employee and
b) Described in the performance objectives
For example, an objective related to ‘Client Servicing’ is ‘Client feedback reflects a high level of
satisfaction ’. This is the feedback you and / or your employee would focus on collecting.

4.2 Taking corrective actions

Monitoring performance can be useful in many situations where performance is important. When
performance is lower than wanted or expected then questions can be asked and we can find out
what is "going wrong" and we can take corrective action.

Taking corrective action first requires identifying the problem, and then implementing a
potential solution.
Taking corrective action is one of the three essential activities of the control process. If the
process is measured and the results don't meet company standards, then the process needs to be
altered so that it can meet organizational goals .

One key aspect of taking corrective action is problem solving. A manager needs to be able to
understand the contributing factors of a problem, how they impact key processes, and how to
find a workable solution. Once that solution is formulated, it is important to determine how to
effectively implement it.

4.3 Providing feedback (positive support and advice)on strategies to overcome deficiencies
Correcting performance deficiencies is a difficult responsibility. One guidelines For Correcting
deficiencies.
 Give corrective feedback soon after the problem is noted
 Deal with improper behavior immediately or as soon as possible
 Do not delay feedback to avoid problems from getting worse

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