5.1 What is a team leader?
Most of the developments in leadership research identify both situational and personal variables as criteria for leadership success. Study of leadership must therefore cover how it occurs at many levels within an organisation, wether it be individual, group, team or between the organisational and the wider community. Within the chapter we will focus upon leadership of individuals with a team setting.
The difference between the team leader and managers who lead has often boiled down to leaders guiding effort (direction - ends ), and managers intervening in staff activities (tasks - means ), and team leader or facilitator being the role assumed by an individual or a collection of individuals within a team to ensure that collective actions are undertaken to achieve the desired ends ( means to achieve ends ).
Most of the developments in leadership research identify both situational and personal variables as criteria for leadership success. Study of leadership must therefore cover how it occurs at many levels within an organisation, whether it be individual, group, team or between the organisational and the wider community. Within the chapter we will focus upon leadership of individuals with a team setting.
Much of today's literature assumes organisations and individuals not only understand the distinction between being a team leader, supervisor, leader and manager, but also can pursue career and personal development based on this understanding. To further assist us develop our understanding this chapter will progress to investigate leadership within a team setting. The role of leadership can be shared collectively. Our study presupposes anyone may be the team leader. They could be a manager or a staff member.
To place it in some perspective, the continuum ( e.g . a cycle without a single start and end point ) of leadership behaviour presupposes:
Figure 1 Team leadership continuum
The continuum gives simplistic expression to the fact such activities are not locked in time (career progression), neither levels within the workforce (managers or staff), nor an individual (one or many). Supervisors who try to control or monopolise problem-solving mechanisms invariably lose the flexibility of harnessing team and staff input into decision-making and management of operations. The aim is to keep the cycle fluid and to encourage, rather than exclude, input.
The modern emphases on supervisors as leaders have shifted the focus on how managers involve people, to a basis where they must work with a team or a group of individuals to achieve business success. However, not all organisations have progressed to a point where a supervisor's "doing skills" or technical competency is seen as being as important as their 'people skills'.
Reading 1
Schuman, S (2004) What is a Group Facilitator? , International Association of facilitators. Available at http://www.iaf-world.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3290 .
Activity 1
What Type of Team Leader are you ?
Complete the Team Leadership Style assessment tool. You may have completed this through study in prior units. If so consider if you need to complete this assessment point again.
Now reflect on the following:
- Could a team leader be a manager, leader and a junior staff member all at the same time?
- Would the most senior manager always be the team leader? If not, why not?
- Should leadership styles change with the situation and types of subordinates?
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