Leading your team

This is nice. I'm sat in the grounds of Cliffe House, waiting for my lift to arrive typing up this blog post in the sunshine. A great session today with lots of practical demonstrations to stimulate thought about the attributes of a good team and good leadership. And - as usual - a good dinner.

I also had a long chat with the caretaker over lunch who told me some of the history and struggles they have had at Cliffe House. The stories of passionate, caring employees with a strong belief in the value of Cliffe House would serve as a great example to many about staff motivation.

Leaders

Difference between a leader and a manager

Leader	Manager
See slide

References

F.W. Taylor – scientific management? Work measurement, systems of methods etc – time & motion studies…

Colt guns – break products down into constituent parts and build assembly lines. Management was about looking at the worker as another piece of equipment. Since the second world war people started to consider the well being of the staff as being important to production. This lead to motivational theories etc. Out of this grew the concept of the Leader as a person to inspire and influence teams.

Leadership and Management are two sides to the same coin. A good leader/manager should be able to switch between the two.

Theory

Tannenbaum and Schmidt continuum (slide) – demonstrates the spectrum of management styles.

Hersey and Blanchard (slide) – model for introducing a new starter or introducing someone to a new task for example.

Within organisations it is getting harder for a select few to know the details and run the whole organisation. Orchestra??

Break

Exercise: split into groups to discuss the pros and cons of different management styles.

Tell

Sell

Consult

Share

Responsibility can be delegated accountability can not

Authority is given power comes from a whole range of sources: a network of friends, connections, expertise (real or perceived), can come from authority, personal characteristics.

Theory E (empowerment theorists)

• Authority to make decisions
• Emphasis on team work
• Information sharing
• Clear boundaries
• Encouragement and recognition.

Self managed team/empowered teams

• Project based
• Clearly defined objectives, delegation of responsibility and authority limits (budget etc)
• No appointed leader – leadership may vary based on the task
• Team agrees roles, process and possibly related issues

Commitment, less staff turnover, engagement, reduced absenteeism, creativity, motivation

Sunflower exercise to discover the characteristics of effective teams.

Launching a new organisation.

One of those memorable and fun exercises in which we had to develop a new organisation and product and produce a logo and tv commercial. We all seemed naturally to understood the roles that were required and people seem to take on those roles individually but working to a common team goal. A self managed team emerged and worked very well together to complete the task.

   

 

Team roles analysis questionnaire Francis & Young.

This displayed our preferred roles but we must bare in mind that wd can step into the other areas when necessary to do so. Ideally a team should have a good spread of these attributes.