Self-managed teams are not leaderless teams

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Discussion
Conclusion
References

Introduction

Leaders are the strategists of an organization; they have the role of making decisions that determine the level at which a company attains its corporate goals and objectives. In organizations, there are formal and informal groups; both have an effect on the performance of the business: formal groups are structured to follow a chain of command.

Leaders have the role of managing a formal team, they are empowered by organizational policies and their roles and mandates are elaborately defined in the company’s management policies. However, when it comes to informal groups, they have an effect on the success and fulfillment of an organizations goals and objectives despite their operation without the approval of the company top management.

In contemporary business environments, company, and teams leadership styles have changed; self-managed teams have started taking center-stage (Lewis, 2004).

Self-managed teams are teams with an organization whose drive comes from focus to attain a certain goal, they don’t have formal leaders to pioneer activities, it is assumed that they collaborate and with the drive to attain set goals, they come up with the best strategy in that effect.

To ague, that self-managed teams/groups have no leadership is not right, since there are self-proclaimed leaders without a title who emerge and lead the team (Margerison, 2002). This paper discusses supports the phrase”Self-managed teams are not leaderless teams”.

Discussion

People are willing to work in environments that they have the authority to make their own choices on the direction they are likely to take; when human resources are given their targets that might involve less of teamwork’s, they feel more motivated if they were to be left to work out their management team.

However, even when doing this something is clear that a certain force, which may be the internal drive or the set targets, have an influence on the attainment of the goals and objectives within an organization.

In informal groups, a character determines the direction of the group, whether directly or indirectly emerges with time. When doing this directly, other team members see him/her as the opinion driver, they are willing to consult and there are higher chances that they feel the decision of the leader (Quinn, Faerman, Michael & Lynda, 2011).

In current team management, there is also a move to have goal-driven organizations instead of leader-lead groups, as much as the move have been recommended by a number of scholars, there is a challenge of accountability and lack of reliable chain of communication.

When the groups are formed, informally or formally, there is always the emergence of charisma leaders who seem to be in control of the entire group, his decisions and perception is likely to be followed in the team.

For example, when an organization is having a self-managed team to ensure that the sale department leads to the attainment of corporate goals, the sales target as set in the organization will guide the team. However, as the team discuss on various issues and the experience or the approach that each member took, there the charisma leader’s style is likely to be followed.

On the other hand, if there is a member of the team who had been successful in the sales campaign is likely to influence others to take the same approach, this can be interpolated as leadership in an indirect manner.

The ideology that self-managed teams have is a psychological one: the approach makes employees believe they have the control and sense of direction vested in them entirely. However, when the structure is well interpolated, then there is a form of leadership seen in the teams; the leadership joins the team together and develops a single approach to be used in the attainment of organizational goals and objectives.

Alternatively, when making the formal teams, managers have the role of blending the teams they have in an appropriate manner, managers and supervisors have the role of focusing the groups to their destination.

When the teams are left to be guided with the goals and corporate objectives, then they are likely to lose the focus or people use different routes to get the desired destination, this can be in right spirit but in the end injures the organization.

Right from the onset, the definition of teams, is that they have a sense of togetherness and recognizes themselves with a certain team, for organization, and then the teams must have a centralized form of leadership (Crother-Laurin, 2006)

Team members should be motivated and encouraged to perform their tasks with diligence and efficiency; leaders perform this role, in self-managed teams, the motivation and the inner drive lacks.

To make the teams orchestrate, managers should have leaders to develop the zeal to work within the teams, they are the strategists and the role models that team members should follow. Co-operation and single sense of direction can only be attained if there is a central power/authority that seems to have the final say.

In times of conflicts , conflict resolution skills in leaders are crucial, they determine how well issues will be resolved as well as the way forward after resolution; when there is no leader, then groups are likely to fall to conflicts that they can hardly manage. This kills group spirit and creates selfishness and loss of group morale.

When developing orchestrates self-managed teams, organization should have a hybrid team-management structure; the structure means that the teams have leaders with reduced control and power, or they adopt leadership rotation approach.

When such an approach has been implemented, then team leaders will have a sense of accountability and be driven by goals and the leadership they have. It is crucial for organizations to understand that an organization success is dependent with the quality of leaders it attracts and retains.

For example, Apple Inc. is an international electronic company, which has adopted self-managed teams. The success of the company has been attributed to innovativeness and invention of staffs; however, the teams are not left alone to manage their strategy and approach to different issues, there are team leaders with well-regulated powers and good communication that team players feel as if they are in full control.

The teams have high accountability in what they are doing; this has increased the performance of the company (Belasen, 2000).

Conclusion

In self-managed teams, there are team leaders who control their operations, directly or indirectly; through they are made to be goals driven, human leadership is required to develop orchestrate teams. Team leaders have the role of developing orchestrate teams from groups in an organization; their decisions and the way they exercise their leadership power determines the success of the team, thus self-managed teams are not leaderless teams.

References

Belasen, A. (2000). Leading the Learning Organization: Communication and Competencies for Managing Change. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

Crother-Laurin, C. (2006). Effective Teams: A Symptom of Healthy Leadership. The Journal for Quality and Participation, 29(3), 4.

Lewis, P. (2004). Team-Based Project Management. Washington: Beard Books.

Margerison, C.(2002). Team leadership. Gale: Cengage Learning.

Quinn, E., Faerman, R., Michael, P., Michael R.,& Lynda, C. (2011). Becoming a Master Manager: A competing values approach. Edison, New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons.

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Self-managed teams are not leaderless teams

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