Importance of Team Building
Nowadays, there are many reasons why companies are eager to build diverse teams and use the skills and abilities of different people to meet the same organizational goals. Diverse teams could produce good results in case they are properly led. Therefore, leaders have to understand their roles when they create teams, combine skills, and identify needs. Besides, they have to comprehend the reasons why diversity could help companies to succeed. Globalization is one of the main factors of why so many organizations focus on team building and cultural diversity, and sociologists offer many effective theories to underline the importance of diversity in team building.
Theoretical Approaches in Team Building and Leadership
Social comparison theory is a significant approach to comprehend how teams should be built and developed. It focuses on individuals and their abilities to share their opinions and knowledge. Festinger proposed to use such a theory as a chance for people to use various comparative references and apply them to different situations to reduce the differences and come to the same powerful conclusion (Yeager and Nafukho 391).
The strongest point of this theory is that employees themselves try to complete a kind of comparative self-evaluation to comprehend if they are ready to join a team, if their skills and knowledge are not enough to be an effective part of a team and if they really strive to be a part of the chosen team.
A leader should learn how to succeed in uniting people with different tastes and abilities. The opinions of all people should be considered in the same way with the same portion of respect. Every leader should understand the possible types of differences that may be observed during the work on some global projects. The scheme of cultural dimensions developed by Hofstede is one of the possible sources to rely on and measure the relations that could be developed (Binder 25). The dimensions include power distance, individualism vs. collectivism, masculinity vs. femininity, uncertainty avoidance, long-term vs. short-term orientation, and indulgence vs. restraint (Binder 25).
Pros and Cons of Cultural Dimensions
All these differences have certain potential benefits and challenges that can be observed in diverse team organizations. Such outcomes as various optimal solutions offered by different people, the possibility to provide customers with different services in regards to their cultural expectations, the opportunities to communicate effectively with different customers, and constant and, what is more important, the free exchange of knowledge and experience can be defined as the main advantages of work in diverse teams.
At the same time, leaders should think about the threats of diverse teams such as complicated interpersonal relations that could be hardly controlled by leaders, language or cultural differences that could not be accepted by all members, different time zones that could prevent effective communication, and possible resistance to changes.
Hints for Leaders of Diverse Teams
There are many ways of how leaders could succeed in building diverse teams. Today, a number of companies prefer diversity as a powerful trend to create interesting ideas and services and unite people from different parts of the world. The example of Devin Wenig, CEO of E-Bay, may teach people about the importance of considering the diversity of people and their opportunities and use them as soon as some decisions should be made by people to complete their functions.
People may have various dreams and face various challenges to make their dreams come true. Therefore, good leaders have to understand the needs of people and check if it is possible to meet them using the opportunities available. Gender differences, financial incomes, and personal traumas may bother every person. At the same time, a good leader should turn into a psychologist who tries to solve personal problems. A leader in a diverse team is a person who knows about their people and understands what can be done to change the situation and use the strengths of one person to cover the weakness of another person.
Conclusion
In general, a diverse team is a chance for organizations to become strong and effective in the chosen industry. The presence of people with different background and knowledge is a wonderful opportunity for a company to become competitive and productive. The only thing that should be taken into consideration is the presence of a good leader who knows how to unite people and use all their opportunities for good.
Works Cited
Binder, Jean. Global Project Management: Communication, Collaboration and Management across Borders. New York: CRC Press, 2016. Print.
Yeager, Katherine, L. and Frederick M. Nafukho. “Developing Diverse Teams to Improve Performance in Organizational Setting.” European Journal of Training and Development 36.4 (2012): 388-408.