For this assignment, I want to talk about a team which
I am a part of on a daily basis, my family is a big team and rather we like to
or not, we have to work with each other every day. It is easy to equate my
family to a business or a team, many times I will have to use the techniques
which I have learned in the MSLD program, so that my family can work much more
efficient. Many times I will read about different behaviors which I can reflect
on, there are also different roles which I play in my household. As I read
about some of these roles and the effects they can have on a team, I often find
myself trying to work on my leadership skills. The two roles which we are
focusing on this week in class are, task-facilitating roles, and
relationship-building roles.
I find that playing these two roles, I can improve my
team, it can be a challenge to constantly maintain these two roles since there
are so many different personalities involved on my team. Generally as a team
member, I find that I tend to play more of a task facilitating role, I know that
I am often referred to as the “task master at home”; and that is generally
because I tend to push my team members to reach their potential. Because I do
see myself as the leader of my team, I know that I have to be urging by imploring
team members to stay on task. In our text it talks about how being “enforcing
may create resistance when the team is already experiencing high levels of
pressure” (Cameron and Whetton, 2012, pg. 513), I have realized this resistance
on many occasions, constantly playing the task-facilitating role can have a
negative side to it.
Many times, I will find that my children do need to be
pushed, so I am often engaging my team to accomplish the mission. My team might
see this as me being pushy, but I see it as a way of me “enforcing team rules,
standards, and maintaining agreed upon procedures” (Cameron and Whetton, 2012,
pg. 513). As I actively engage my team to complete the mission and reach their
goals, this requires me to also monitor their progress. “Monitoring consist of
checking on progress, developing measures of success, and helping to maintain
accountability for results” (Cameron and Whetton, 2012, pg. 513); unfortunately
this can also be viewed as being pushy.
Finding the
correct balance, while playing a task-facilitating role can be challenging, my
biggest fear is that my role will go from a task-facilitator to a blocking
role. Sometimes a team can have someone who plays a blocking role, at times
while trying to make sure that task get completed, I can see that I have
instead taken on a role which creates negative feelings. When I am conducting
myself as someone that plays the blocking role, I begin to become “dominating,
overanalyzing, overgeneralizing, and fault finding” (Cameron and Whetton, 2012,
pg. 513). I understand that this is a problem, exercises such as this one, help
me reflect on my behavior and leadership skills. I have to realize that this
type of behavior can “potentially inhibit a team from efficiency and
effectively accomplishing its task by crushing morale” (Cameron and Whetton, 2012,
pg. 516).
As I go through the MSLD course, I become much more in
tune with my actions and the way that I can behave in a team. Being able to
know which mistakes I am making when in the leadership role, have helped me
understand myself, knowing that I still do have room for improvement keeps me
interested in the different techniques which I am learning throughout the MSLD
program. In the past I have caught myself making these mistakes, but I did not
know the effects that my behavior can have on a team until now. I am constantly
trying to improve team cohesion and collaboration, but until now I have not
known which key mistakes I am making. Understanding which role I play in a team
will help me improve my leadership skills, by improving my leadership skills, I
know that in the future my team will be much more effective.
Reference:
Whetten, D., and Cameron, K (2011). Developing Management Skills (8th Ed.) Upper Saddle River, NJ.
Pearson/ Prentice Hall
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