There’s no I in TEAM!

There are many different leadership theories that could go along with the success of our team dynamics.  Whether it’s the Big Five personality framework to the leader-member exchange theory (To take your own Personality Test go to àhttp://www.outofservice.com/bigfive/).  In this blog I’m going to discuss my personal experience in working and relate to this my Unit 3 readings.

This leadership class is the first class I’ve taken that focuses on the team dynamics (To watch a video on the importance of team dynamics go to à http://www.bnet.com/2422-13950_23-175110.html). Throughout high school, it seems that everything was independent and about the success of the individual.  After the readings in Unit 3, I have learned that the performance of the team is much higher than the performance of an individual.  For example, our groups always score higher on our team RATs versus our individual RATs because we are able to bounce ideas off one another.  As Robbins and Judge say, the effectiveness of teams depends on the team’s commitment.  We all trust each other to do our part for the greater good of the team’s outcome.  We are committed to the common goal of having a successful organizational project and all are driven to that one goal. 

Working in our teams for the organizational project has taught me a great deal about group behavior.  Role perception, norms, status differences, size of the group, and cohesiveness affect performanceand productivity.  Our team dynamic has been working great!  We have synergy and understand each other on a personal and professional level.  

Because our group is smaller and we are all on the same educational level, we communicate well leading to high performance.  Also, our cohesiveness as a group works because our personalities blend nicely, and we all have a driven work ethic.  I agree with Robbins and Judge, that smaller groups are more effective at action-taking tasks because as a smaller team we are able to get more accomplished.

Negotiation is also very important in the process of team activities to resolve conflicts.  So far, our team hasn’t had any major conflict.  We all listen to each other’s and collaborate on the best idea.  For example, while taking group RAT’s we will all listen to what each other thinks is the correct answer, but if only one person has a different answer from the rest that team member compromises (To learn more about team building and leadership go to à http://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/teambuilding.html).

I’m proud of our team and the way we are handling our assignments.  For the future, I’m going to take what I have learned in this team setting and apply it to future team situations.