Assessing Team Dynamics: Strengths, Trust & Leadership - Essay Sample

Introduction

In this paper, an organizational team typically operating with six members in a workplace is taking into consideration. The paper further discusses assessing team members' strengths & weaknesses, stages of the team development, and recommendations for team performance improvement. The paper assesses the level of trust evident in team interactions along with suggestions for improvement and finally justification of leadership style appropriate for the team-based.

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How to Assess Team Members' Strengths & Weaknesses

As noted by Cohen, and Bailey, (2019), the aspect of accessing another individual remains a challenging one, especially regarding the issue of evaluating strengths and weakness. It is prudent to take into consideration various professional attributes that include both strengths as well as weakness, particularly concerning the world of business. Some of the criteria paramount in assessing the strengths and weakness of the team members include;

Getting Feedback From All Team Member.

The reality of the matter is that when one person undertakes the assessment, the likelihood is that what may be perceived as strengths as well as weakness may be wrong. The best way entails asking for feedback from the leader of the team and other members. Thus the overall determination concerning the individual stand formed using own assessment and information collected from other individuals.

Focusing On the Failures As Well As Success

It is critical to evaluate areas the overall team that remains to have succeeded or failed along with which team members responsible. It is prudent when considering the team member's weakness and strength to first of all analyses the individual's success with the team as a whole before taking into account the performance of the individual alone.

Gauging Consistency of the Roles of Team Members

For instance, if one individual remains consistently responsible for a given category of the task done effectively as well as efficiently, in that way the skills required to complete said tasks stand part of the strengths of his core professional. At the same time, if another member of the team fails to consistently undertake a given area of the group or else do an excellent job as per the skills required, that may as well stand as part of her weaknesses. It is necessary to consider the performance of a member of the team outside the structure, hence determining respective strength and weakness. From such analysis it becomes possible to discover varying set of strengths along with weakness whenever working independently versus working within a team structure.

Stages of the Team Development

There are five main stages of the team development, according to a psychologist by the name Bruce Tuckman. According to Mathieu and et al. (2017), stages of development include forming, storming, and norming, performing and adjourning.

Stage of Forming

This remains the first stage of team development which is related to a day of orientation in a new job or college. It is at the point when the team get introduced to each other, whereby everyone appears pleasant and polite. At the onset most the team members are excited in commencing something new besides getting to know other members of the team. Some of the issues discussed in the forming stage include:

• The background and interest of the members
• Goals of the project
• Timeline
• Rules of the ground

Roles of the Individual

As the members of the group commence on familiarizing themselves, responsibilities and tasks start forming. It stands crucial for team members to establish as well as comprehend the part that most suit each of the person. Thus, the focus is more on the individuals than on the tasks involved, hence no much productivity expected.

Storming Stage

At this stage, the members of the team reach a point where they become aware of the traits of the other individuals that tend to frustrate or annoy them. The reality and weight of undertaking the task at hand tend to hit everyone at this stage. There may be a question about the guidance or authority of the group leaders. Typically, most groups experience conflicts and group leader need to remind the members of the reality that disagreement remains normal. It is prudent to acknowledge conflict, thereby resolving them instantly.

Norming Stage

At this point, individuals commence noticing as well as appreciate the strengths of the members of the team. The groups start settling, whereby everyone stands to contribute as well as working as a cohesive unit. In some instances, the stages of storming and norming often overlap. Hence as a new task arises, the team may undergo few conflicts and of the group stand to have dealt with disagreement before, at this point, it becomes more comfortable addressing the issues.

Performing Stage

Reaching this point means moving towards success. At this point, members of the team remain confident, familiar enough with the project, and team undertaking in the absence of supervision. Everyone stand driving full-speed and on the same page towards the final objective.

Adjourning Stage

Following the termination of the task at hand, the team gets disbanded. This phase is often referred to as mourning since members tens to have grown close as well as having the feeling of loss in that the experience is no more.

Recommendations for Team Performance Improvement

The first thing to enhance the performance of the team entails setting clear purpose as well as mission thereby revisiting it in the entire process. The point is that every organization has the reason for existing, its values and the problem to solve along with the mechanisms of solving the problem which should at all cost be emphasized. The second thing entails setting ground rules besides ensuring that such practices strictly adhere. Rules make confusion apparent, and in their absence, nobody understands the acceptable behaviour. Thirdly, it stands prudent to let other members act as facilitators or leaders (Oliver, 2019).

It is recommended that one person should not always be leading and it's normal to have conflict hence should not try avoiding them.

Assessing the Level of Trust Evident In Team Interactions and Recommendations for Improvement

A robust team has the potential of achieving anything. The bottom line is that a unit that lacks trust is not a team but only a group of people operating together sometimes attaining disappointing progress. Without trust, no sharing of information amongst team members, but the presence of battle over rights as well as responsibilities. In addition to lacking cooperation with each other. Irrespective of how capable or talented individuals working together may be having, absence of trust makes the group never to realize their full potential (Park, & et al., 2020). Recommendation for improving confidence include leading by example, communicating openly, knowing one another personally, don't placing blame, discouraging cliques as well as discussing issues of trust.

Justification of Leadership Style Appropriate For the Team Based

Participative/ Democratic remains the most suitable for the team members since it has proven to result in having high levels of satisfaction. Such is justified because of having the team's member's opinion valued besides staying put. Although Participative/ Democratic leadership style remains criticized for slower decision making, the results stand exceptional.

References

Cohen, S. G., & Bailey, D. E. (2019). Making teams work. Handbook of Organizational Consultation, Second Editon, 284.

Park, S., Grosser, T. J., Roebuck, A. A., & Mathieu, J. E. (2020). Understanding Work Teams From a Network Perspective: A Review and Future Research Directions. Journal of Management, 0149206320901573.

Mathieu, J. E., Hollenbeck, J. R., van Knippenberg, D., & Ilgen, D. R. (2017). A century of work teams in the Journal of Applied Psychology. Journal of applied psychology, 102(3), 452.

Oliver, C. (2019). A Group Analytic Approach to Work with Staff Teams and Organizations: A Contextual Framework. Group Analysis: Working with Staff, Teams and Organizations.