INNOVATIVE LEADERSHIP STYLES: STAGES FOR UNDERSTANDING TEAM BUILDING AND GROUP FORMATION IN NIGERIA Leadership isn’t about you – it’s about others. It isn’t defined as individual success as a sales person who reaches for his own potential. It’s about helping others see and reach for their potential and I shifted from being a sales person to being a leader.” Leaders still produce but they move from individual contributors to influencing others. “Not all influencers are leaders but all leaders are influencers.” During my sales career as a Banker I was an influencer with my sale psychology but then not necessarily a community leader says Mr. Sunday Reuben Jnr. You cant expect a new team to perform well when it first comes together. Team formation takes time, and teams often go through recognizable stages as they change from being collections of strangers to becoming united groups with common goals. As Brainstorm Associates has already identified each of her members of the Research Teams focuses on the roles of community leadership performance, accepting only the leader’s guidance, authority and maintaining a polite but distant relationship with the others; showcasing set of slides blogs as a compendium of ideas of Brainstorm Associates collecting of good ideas and repurposing them seems to add value to new readers who may not have encountered these ideas in the past. The concepts of teaming and the processes of team building can be traced to many authors. In 1965, Bruce Tuckman, a well-known American Psychologist and researcher, proposed a theory of group dynamics that described the distinct phases of development: forming, storming, norming, and performing. Team members exhibit characteristic behaviors in each stage, and each phase has unique highs and lows, as individuals assume their roles and come to a greater understanding of themselves and each other. A leader’s strong communication skills can help a team develop. Mr. Sunday Reuben Jnr. CEO/Principal Consultant at Brainstorm Leadership Academy, Nigeria said that to become a Leader is good but leadership has class and levels; one of the manager’s main concerns is of team building; for team members to cooperate and achieve results. However, individual and team performance is affected by many factors. For instance, membership, environment, organisation, and maturity. Leadership styles influence these areas greatly and ultimately determine the success of the team. Here I can proves that Innovative Managers are people who do things right, while some Community Leaders are people who do the right thing…urges Brainstorm Associates clients in African Region to develop a clear goals each leader and team members should recognise the contributions of others and ensure that credit is awarded where due. He also adds that, this applies as much to team members validating the leader as the other way round. If anyone is left feeling that their contribution is not being recognised, the resentment may be carried through to the next project and storming will be proportionately harder to overcome in the future…..it then indicate that during this difficult period, the leader must act as negotiator, cheerleader, and psychologist. A skillful leader will identify power struggles and resolve them early on. For instance, a new salesperson may be ridiculed in a staff meeting for offering a suggestion that challenges the status quo. Or, when working with a hospital administrator, an IT person might face resistance to installing new software because the administrator was not involved in the decision-making process. Many of the communications tools used before are useful in this phase as well…like; • Make sure everyone understands how decisions are made, and once again, involve people in the process. • Look for opportunities to help others understand and appreciate the differences in each other. • Encourage people to take on responsibility. • Be sensitive to non-verbal communication—what is not said is as important as what is articulated. • Publicly celebrate individual strengths and work together to minimize weaknesses. Brainstorm Associates Clients documenting decisions and agreements are keys that will aid members avoiding the confusion and tension caused by misunderstandings; listening carefully to frustrations and recommendations from individuals and from the group as a whole since we have considerable experience of helping leaders develop their team. It is our belief that to solve most organisational problems requires teamwork. We work with teams to help them work through the stages of Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing and finally, Deforming. Our proven track record of success for the past three years is based on using leading edge tools and techniques for creating High Performance Teams and it takes time for any team to gel. One off-site event, maybe with a fun activity does not help the individuals bond. Whilst we use fun activities within our development activity, there is always a serious reason. The more people work on being a team with a skilled facilitator, the faster results improve. Thus, this is an emotionally charged time in a team’s evolution, so you may need to read between the lines to get an understanding of how the project is progressing. He concluded his speech with Brainstorm Associates that everyone is participating and collaborating in an effective unit and independently working through interpersonal problems and challenges. As an expert Forensic Computing Linguist he said at this point, communication among team members or with leadership often appears effortless. This ease is based on the concerted and consistent communication groundwork laid in earlier stages. Established processes allow the team to work together toward common goals. The leader should continue to monitor performance, communicate project milestones, and celebrate successes. proves that Leader must be seen to be open with information and ready to answer the many questions that will come her or his way; boundaries, strengths and weaknesses will be tested, including those of the leader. There is likely to be some baggage regarding the way people have been treated in the past, which might result in some clinging to the old ways, if their experience was positive, or suspicion and apathy if it left scars. Brainstorm Leadership Academy, Nigeria Management Executives unveiled secret principles governing Democratic System and its responsibilities with Community Development last night to some policymaker in Nigeria and strongly proves that time invested by the leader and the team members in listening to and empathising with the others will pay off substantially further down the line. They for expectations and job descriptions with the ongoing Leadership in Community Development Project 2014 should now clearly showcase Brainstorm Associates responsibilities; laid out their leader’s role model with her behaviour which he or she would like to see the team exhibit. Though this is a difficult time for all; most when team members are more concerned with the impression they are making than the project in hand; wanting to be respected, battling with feelings of inadequacy, wondering who will support or undermine them, and above all proving to the leader their value to the team. This is the time when curt e-mails written in the heat of the moment should be left to cool overnight in the Drafts box before being reviewed and moderated in the morning. There is a danger of factions forming and some members becoming isolated, particularly in today’s era of virtual teams in far flung places. Therefore, leadership of teams requires an ability to diagnose the stage of development of teams, and make appropriate interventions that move the team forward. Brainstorm Associates Research Professional Groups emerged in leading in innovative research learning and consulting services as a brainchild of transformational leadership of team development; explaining the relationship between the levels of freedom that a manager chooses to give to a team, and the level of authority used by him which is an old one (about 53 years) and very simple, but it is still very useful in democratic governance since any youth that aspire with a clear vision to lead in the past were not denied of the opportunity. Hereto, Brainstorm Associates aims on the way in which a team handles a task from the initial formation of the team through to the completion of the project. Development level moves from one stage to the other sequentially as they mature as a team but time taken in each stage depends on understanding of and commitment to the goals of the team. With the ongoing Leadership in Community Development Project 2014 Brainstorm Associates and its Partnering Orgainsations, Clients and Student are set to help you recognise the stage of development of the team in Community terms, and then outlines the types of interventions that will move the team forward. Using the wrong type of intervention can, at best, be ineffective and, at worst, destroy any good teamwork that already exists. It is important, therefore, to use the right approach. The five stages of team development have been characterized as: Forming: * Formation of team happens & the team comes together * Members feel anxious and spend their time finding out about each other * Individual roles and responsibilities are unclear * Highly depending on the manager/leader * Equivalent Situational Leadership style: Directing Storming: * Team members come up with ideas through debates on how to proceed with the task - about task priorities; - clarity on purpose of the task; - roles & responsibilities and - processes to follow * Influence of ideas and power struggles may arise * Compromises may be required to enable progress * Team members may challenge the leader & leader coaches * Equivalent Situational Leadership style: Selling Norming: * Work as a team starts * Roles and responsibilities are clear and accepted * Team begin to exhibit participative behavior & decision making happens by group agreement * Commitment, trust and unity increases * Equivalent Situational Leadership style: Supporting Performing: * This stage is characterized by high levels of: - goal orientation, - interpersonal relations, - independence, motivation, - knowledge and - competence in team members * Team know what,why & how of the task they are executing * High level of respect in the communication between team members * Team expects delegation of task instead of instruction/assistance * Equivalent Situational Leadership style: Delegating Adjourning: * Happens when project completes * Members moving out of the group after project goal achievement * Everyone can move on to new things * Achievement celebrated * Members feel difficulty as they have developed close working relationships with other team members FOOD FOR THOUGHT: as political Groups in Nigeria initially concern themselves with orientation accomplished primarily through testing. Such testing serves to identify the boundaries of both interpersonal and task behaviors. Coincident with testing in the interpersonal realm is the establishment of dependency relationships with leaders, other group members, or pre existing standards. It may be said that orientation, testing and dependence constitute the group process of forming, Brainstorm Associates point out clear here that, an established team experiences the same developmental issues as temporary project teams. When membership changes, leaders often don’t recognize the impact on a previously high-performing group until it becomes dysfunctional. The loss of a valued member or the arrival of someone new can have an immediate effect, and a sophisticated team may revert to stage one behavior when it was previously performing at a much higher level. However, when a group has been performing successfully, it is easier to absorb changes and bounce back quickly. With a solid base of shared work experience, everyone involved already knows the feeling of operating efficiently and effectively. Solid teams also typically exhibit high morale, and while a change may cause a temporarily setback, a leader can quickly guide the group through the earlier periods of development and return it to high performance levels. Finally, when a team is forming, it precedes through predictable growth stages. As a leader, you might need to form a matrix team, lead one, or be part of one. A matrix team is composed of people from different areas of an organization who have banded together to solve a common problem or achieve a goal through collaboration. Team members may also come from outside the organization, such as customers, suppliers, or consultants. A matrix team is often called a cross-functional team. Since its members can be highly diverse in culture, expertise, and frames of reference, it is commonly used to solve complex or wicked problems. The question and action now with building and developing effective Leadership in Community are; Think of past team situations you’ve been involved and consider how they relate to your leadership model and how quickly you moved through the stages in each different situation. (You should find that some teams you were in reached the performing stage quicker than others – perhaps some didnt reach the performing stage at all!) • Think of teams you are in now – what stage are you at? • Use your understanding of this model (and the advice on how to apply it) to provide context for any team situation you are faced with? Patience: the model can help you to be more patient with certain situations when you understand the necessary evolution that a team must go through. Productivity: being able to understand team dynamics via the model may help to resolve issues and conflicts quicker and improve productivity? Performance: now you have the understanding via the model of what it takes to build a high-performing team – so use it wisely! Life’s Too Good. Powered By: sunBEN ICT Academy
Posted on: Tue, 18 Mar 2014 11:58:26 +0000
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