Leadership and Teambuilding Essay (Critical Writing)

There is a widespread impression, evident from popular research and casual empiricism, of the inability of scholars and organisations to accurately evaluate the effectiveness of team building in measuring changes in skills or attitudes. Often what the evaluation tools do is evaluate the team before and after team building event in anticipation of valuable outcomes.

However, the methodology employed in team building evaluation has not been successful in gathering and assessing data that would serve conclusive. One major short coming of team building interventions is that is the research employed does not even attempt an evaluation.

Across the social science, skill is a fundamental yet problematic concept and the inaccuracies of evaluation methods may be linked to the phenomena under investigation and the circumstances under which the data is collected that does not produce conclusive analysis.

In this paper I will discuss three leadership styles using my past work experience. Then I will go through some aspects of teamwork. Finally, I will give a summary about myself as a leader and how personal characteristics influence leadership style.

Key theories, concepts and empirical research carried out to evaluate team building interventions (TBIs) have proven frustrating leading us to examine what has been done to overcome this problem.

To obtain conclusive, data was collected from 22 full time MBA students on a three day trip via open ended questionnaire to determine what’s happening both within team and individuals involved in team building event in order to determine the kinds of practices, support and resources used to ensure effective data collection.

Each student for this case was given a responsibility to record their negative and positive events on a daily basis bearing changes in themselves and their team members (Rushmer 1997, p.316). Since team building interventions used open ended questionnaires to collect data, I found it difficult to process and analyse large amount of data in limited time. Open ended questions for my case would be hard to record my exact feelings which would be measured to provide conclusive results.

Due to the changing economic and social context of employee relations, there’s need to evaluate the effectiveness of team building Interventions (TBIs) in organizational development projects.

Schools and organisations for this instance should recognise the inherent benefits associated with such evaluations such as their ability to justify direct and indirect costs of interventions to organisations and providing evidence to its validity to scholars to ascertain whether programs are truly operational and beneficial.

However, in my analysis, the journal’s weakness is that the team building strategy used in measuring outcomes has not been able to adequately gather or assess data that would serve as conclusive. Plenty of evidence suggests that students who are more likely to integrate into groups were more likely to get through their course completion and to successfully gain their award.

Evidently from my analysis, students grouped into teams are able manage through their academic years either due to the emotional support received from fellow students, the practical advice gained from drawing from each others skills, expertise and experiences, opportunity to clarify their ideas with each other or it could possibility be a combination of all these factors.

Therefore, as the MBA students undertake their full time residential period, TBI takes place in their first week of the program to “build the teams” at the beginning of the course (Rushmer 1997, p.316). I therefore support the journal’s theory of group integration in team building activities since it provides reliable analysis to support the evidence.

Participation

Participants age group ranged from 22 to 37 with an average age of 25 combined with a great range of cultural background, a strategy that was not put into consideration in regard to how their participation would affect TBI.

In this case, I stand against the team building theory since the spit groups in regard to gender were not considered as female participants of ages 35 were not likely to stay full time in the residents due to family ties hence making the data collected unreliable. The groups were further divided into three groups; teams, gender, nationality and age and stayed together during the TBI duration (Rushmer 1997, p.316).

Methodology

Data collected from the 22-full time MBA students teams on a three day outward bound residential team building course was done through open ended questionnaire in order to allow participants to answer freely in their own words.

This strategy was used in anticipation that extensive data will be collected on how each member perceived changes and developments during their trip rather than forcing themselves into YES and NO replies on pre-existing scales designed around the authors beliefs.

The advantage of this journal article was that the method of data collection used by students to record raw information and report the findings on the sensitive issues to map the phenomena was reliable. On the other hand, the sorting through large amount of data served as a disadvantage since it would take considerable amount of time jeopardising the credibility of data collected (Rushmer 1997, p.316).

Open ended questionnaires are disadvantaged to the sense that the answers produced were inadequate and missing valuable data that were to be measured against at the end of the project.

Poor warded questions may prevent responses from answering individual questions, therefore increasing unit non response. The project supervisor should have opted for more explicit questions that would produce accurate answers to be used for School surveys as a self administered mode of data collection.

Participant observation

The author was actively involved in TBI exercise and task taking which enabled him obtain tacit knowledge and experience, team membership and team functioning which helped him extract qualitative data from questionnaire returns and assemble them into themes in reflection to what happened in TBI and to report the events as close as it was. The author classified important stages in the process of becoming a team as the following;

Emergent themes

The themes of “Speaking to” and “getting to know” were introduced at the beginning of project, a strategy that facilitated the process of getting to know each other. On a social level, “speaking to” enabled the relationship between the team members to develop although there is no strong indication that all team members got along successively.

One of the participant reported that, once team members were able to speak to each other, everyone was friendly and they felt relaxed and even made friends at the end of the process. The themes, “speaking to” and “getting to know” was identifies as the first step in facilitating the process of team building.

Here, Maslow’s theory of motivation which stipulates that team members draw satisfaction from safety and belongingness of membership of the team was identified. Maslow’s theory of motivation that proposes the model of how happy, healthy and functioning people are, are only based on concrete observations of people rather than coming up with an ideal formular for basing their theory.

The motivation theory explains where “self-actualising” personality comes from which reacts too much on reductionism. Though the theory has taken into consideration the existing healthy personalities, the observations are more detailed than the theory can predict and the data contradicts the theory to some extend (Rushmer 1997, p.316).

The data collected in the group dynamic theory that stipulates that people sometimes join groups in order to gain comfort, security and friendship was also identified. Since the project was task oriented, participants in day three began to notice strength and weaknesses of team members and learned how to work with each other.

In my opinion, when there is no “speaking to” and “getting to know” then there would be no way of knowing what different teams can or cannot do in terms of skills, expertise and experience. It is to this i conclude that socializing was more fruitful strategy in the task orientation since teams reported more communication and unity (Rushmer 1997, p.316: Hays 2004).

Refusal of leaders

Following the dynamics of group behaviour, the teams refused to provide group leaders at the beginning of the project but allowed it to happen naturally as the project went on. One of the team members become one of the spokesman, a role that made him feel commanding often perceived with linked to negative comments. Strong leadership is seen to destroy both unity and coherence of the team.

An Egalitarian team?

In the process of team building, I can see egalitarian team developing where leaders are allowed to guide and the team members are satisfied when everyone takes part.

This theory may be misleading in the sense that leadership has often been perceived as a force that directs action, tasks, unifies group and suggests solutions but we can see that this activities were not solely directed at one person, but were directed by different team members depending on task t hand, therefore not bale to base our conclusive result on (Rushmer 1997, p.316).

In relation to organisations, management should set realistic goals of their team members by making it clear of the expected outcomes making clear of the task to be carried out to prevent unnecessary de-motivating influences and unrealistic expectations which often cause disappointments.

This is often experienced in organisation with complicated communication channels through policies and practices. Organisation should also reduce the formal appearance of hierarchy since employees often link them with negative comments. Leaders should fully participate in organization projects to allow acquisition of new skills (Rushmer 1997, p.316).

The project strategy was also aimed at determining who would enact leadership behaviour for example in tasks requiring physical strength and for this case, it was the biggest member of them team that took the role. Likewise, when rock climbing, team members who had initially experienced similar exercise appeared to direct the others.

It’s therefore concluded that a given task is determined by ones skills, expertise or experience. Leadership as evident from this project may seem to be influenced by expert’s power, rather that permanent role of a particular individual (Rushmer 1997, p.316).

Benefit of the team

Participation of team members forces them to try out new behaviours and acquire new skills, team members attest to that. One member attests to this by saying that the he tried out new things he wouldn’t without the team work. This brings me to conclusive evidence that teamwork modifies behaviour for the sake of the team, hence the theory of “team will”. This however supports the assertion that ‘team’ is a body that forces people to do things they would not have done on their own.

Members reported to have gained self confidence which were often rewarding and made the team experience enjoyable. There was also a “feel good factor” that enhanced positive feelings and stimulated team spirit. One of the participants regarded his team to be the best because of the fun and motivation received. The ability to identify with the team helps build the feel good factor (Rushmer 1997, p.316).

Since the participants were eager to undergo new experiences, learn new ideas and skills, Maslow’s theory calls for accurate perception of reality which is inconsistence to ordinary people’s ability to deny, repress or deform perceptions to fit their own prejudices.

Here Maslow’s theory agrees with the experiences of participants’ intuitive levels and their conscious on rational levels. The general concept to this self-actualizer is that may be attracted to the unknown rather than being afraid of it.

Achieving the task: Process, outcomes and motivation

There is a strong indication of positive outcomes in complimentary with task orientation to teamwork as it motivates and heightens team’s efforts to achieve their tasks. Since everyone participated in the task, everyone celebrated its success hence the theory of “one for all, all for one” ethos of success.

In task orientation process, the pathways travelled in order to achieve this outcome helped them recognise important process in accomplishment of these stages which determines the effective functioning of the team as the actual achievement of the outcome. The outcome helped the team recognise real organisation, planning, discussion and action to be the major component of their team building.

In relation to task orientation, the task outcomes and task process did not give conclusive results on how the team operates. We also realised that demanding tasks gave rise to supportiveness, encouragement which stimulated relationship orientation behaviour since members desired to help each other to succeed.

Task difficulty challenged members to rise up to cooperation and encouragement within the team. We therefore conclude that team work motivated people to work together and stay till the end of the project (Hays 2004; Rushmer 1997, p.316).

De-motivation

Team members also complained of cold and wet weather in which they were required to exercise and not all activities required them to work as a team. Therefore motivation as part of team building spirit departs from the theory that states that team work encourages full participation of members.

Conclusion

Since individuals were inclined to pre-set groups, team members were unable to mix and talk freely and therefore knowing each other’s skills and expertise was only limited to the preset groups.

Structural and geographical arrangements were also a hindering factor to team operations. People should read the article because it encourages organisation to implement more challenging tasks as a strategy to pull all members participation towards task accomplishment.

Challenging task as i have already mentioned help members gain positive side effects and increases participation thereby enabling development of new skills, increases confidence and motivation and built team spirit and co-operation.

This should therefore be incorporated in work places by rewarding hard working employees by their skills, experience and length of service. People should also read the article because it teaches new learner on methods of data collection and different theories applied in team building activities

List of References

Hays, J. 2004, Building High-Performance Teams: A Practitioner’s Guide. Argos Press: Canberra

Rushmer, R. 1997, ‘What happens to the team during teambuilding? Examining the change process that helps to build a team’, The Journal of Management Development, Vol. 16, pg. 316