LEADERSHIP AND TEAM EFFECTIVENESS

LECTURE – 40
THE LEADER’S ROLE IN TEAM-BASED ORGANIZATIONS
PROF. SANTOSH RANGNEKAR
DEPARTMENT OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES
 CONTENTS
• Use of Teams in Organizations
• Team-Based Organizations
• Type of Teams in Team-Based Organizations
• Roles among the teams
• Team Leadership
• Team Leadership vs Sole Leadership
• Robert Quinn’s 8 Leadership Roles
• Leader’s Role in Team Based Organization
• Research paper
• Case study
• Book recommendation
• References
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“Being a leader is not about you. It’s about the
people that are on your team and how you can
help them be successful”
-Susan Vobejda

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The Use of Teams in Organizations
• It is a way of life in post modern organizations.
• It offers the best opportunity for better organizational performance in the
form of increased productivity and profits.
• It leads to cooperation and synergy.
• For many Organizations, the use of teams has led to desirable performance
improvements, such as:
• Improved Quality
• Improved Efficiency
• Improved Employee Satisfaction
• Improved Customer Satisfaction

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 The Use of Teams in Organizations (Cont.)
• For some Organizations, however, the use of teams has resulted in some
negative outcomes, such as:
• Increased Costs
• Stress
• Lower Group Cohesion

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Team-Based Organizations
• Team Based Organizations emphasis the values and importance of all
employees regardless of their specific roles or the simplicity or complexity of
the tasks that they perform

• Usually when traditional organizations become Team based Organizations

they experience a culture shift :
• From hierarchical to flat
• From fragmentation to cohesion
• From independence to interdependence
• From competition to cooperation
• From tried-and-true to risk taking

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 Advantages vs Disadvantages of Team-Based Organizations
Advantages Disadvantages
• Synergy • Pressure to conform to
• Avoidance of major Group standard of
errors performance and conduct
• Faster, Better Decisions • Resistance to the team
• Continuous improvement effort from impinging on
• Innovation autonomy
• Self-motivation • Social Loafing
• Empowerment • Groupthink
• Greater Job Satisfaction • Intergroup conflicts
• Needs fulfillment • High Pressure & Stress
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Types of teams in Team-based Organizations
(Cohen & Bailey, 1997) suggested 4 major types of organizational teams
Work Teams
• Continuing work units responsible for producing goods or providing services

Parallel Teams
• Pull together from different work units or jobs to perform functions that the regular organization is not
equipped to perform well

Project Team
• Produce one-time outputs and are time-limited

Management Teams
• Coordinate and provide direction to sub-units under their jurisdiction, laterally
integrating interdependent sub-units across key business processes

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 Roles among the teams
Team Role Duties
Team Uses team to achieve goals
Leader Understand whole project
Oversees process
Guide without dominating
Supports team and team members
Help team achieve productive working relationships
Team Champions the team within the organisation
advisor Communicates with stakeholders
Facilitator Schedules and conducts team meetings & activities
Serves as a resource person
Encourages full participation
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image55052685

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 Roles among the teams (Cont.)
Team Role Duties
Process Observers Support the leaders and facilitator in promoting team culture
Or team members Focus energy on the task
Listen to everyone’s ideas
Scribe or recorder Keep written records of team meetings

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development/high-performing-teams-belbins-team-roles/ transparent-background-19.htm

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 Team Leader
• A team leader is someone who oversees the
functionalities of a team
• If not the manager himself, the team leader
monitors the quantitative and qualitative
achievements of the team and reports results to a
manager.
• A team leader’s belief is that the whole is greater
than sum of its parts
• Team leaders place considerable emphasis on team
building and then evaluates their own performance
on the basis of how well they have developed the
team.
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Team Leader (Cont.)
Effective Team leaders:
• Must recognize that not everyone know how to be a team player
• Must display self-sacrificing behaviour and confidence
• Employ multiple influencing tactics to control and direct team member action
toward the achievement of organizational goals
• Encourage norms that positively affects the team’s goals and alter those that
are negative
• Observe with a keen eye what’s going on in the team
• Make contributions when necessary
• Encourage a climate of dialogue
• Turn obstacles into opportunities
• Must be adaptive, knowing when to play different roles

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 Solo Leader Vs Team Leader

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 Robert Quinn’s Roles of Leaders
Clan Culture in Quinn’s
model usually denote
team based organizations
Thus, Quinn’s model
suggest Mentor and
Facilitator role for
Leader in team based
organizations

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Leader’s Role in the Team-Based Organization
• Team-based organizations need leaders who are knowledgeable in the team
process and can help with the interpersonal demands of teams.
• Key role of a team-based leader:
• Building trust and inspiring teamwork
• Coaching team members and groups members towards higher levels of
performance
• Facilitating and supporting the team’s decisions
• Expanding the team’s capabilities
• Creating a team identity
• Anticipating and influencing change
• Inspiring the team toward higher performance levels
• Enabling and empowering group members
• Encouraging team members
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Leader’s Role in the Team-Based Organization (Cont.)
Also various researchers have classified these roles into some categories as:
• The team leader as Chief motivator. Through the leader’s support,
encouragement, and training, followers feel a sense of self-worth,
appreciation, and value for their work, and they respond with high
performance.(Bhatnagar & Tjosvold, 2012) As these relationships mature, the
entire work group becomes more cohesive, and the payoffs only increase.
(Liao et al , 2010)
• The team leader as coach and mentor. Team-based organizations need leader
who are good at coaching and mentoring followers,
especially new team members. Like any good coach,
they are experienced and knowledgeable in the team
process & are capable of developing trust and teamwork
norms in team members. (Wellington & Poster, 2009)
Source: (Lussier & Achua, 2016)

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Leader’s Role in the Team-Based Organization (Cont.)
• The team leader as a role model. A team leader must model the behavior that
he/she wants to see in team members. For instance, a leader’s self-sacrificing
behavior and display of self-confidence do influence team members. Self-
sacrificing leaders are those who go above and beyond what’s expected of
them. They don’t just issue orders; they get involved in making things happen.
(Ruggieri & Abbate, 2013)
• The team leader as team culture enforcer. The team leader plays a leading
role in fostering a team culture that supports the team’s goals and operational
strategies. A team culture specifies standards and values
that govern team member behavior. The leader may
insist on team incentives over individual incentives to
promote team performance. (Rothenberg, 2011)
Source: (Lussier & Achua, 2016)

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Leader’s Role in the Team-Based Organization (Cont.)
• The team leader as cheerleader. Leaders with strong social skills tend to have
greater influencing abilities and relate well with team members. As the team’s
leading cheerleader, the leader inspires and motivates team members to
achieve higher levels of performance. When a team leader can leverage
his/her social skills to obtain resources for the team, he or she is said to
possess social capital. (Derue et al, 2010)
• The team leader as resource person. The team leader’s role is to be the
resource person that recognizes team needs and attends to them in a timely
fashion. The team leader’s knowledge of the team’s
capabilities enables him or her to address areas of
weaknesses so the team can function more effectively
and efficiently.
Source: (Lussier & Achua, 2016)

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Research Paper

Purpose
The aim of the study is to explore the role of leadership in empowered teams. More
specifically, we explore how team leadership, emanating from two sources – external
team leaders and team coaches – influences team empowerment, and ultimately, team
processes, and performance.
This study follows up on the work of Mathieu et al. (2006), who
unexpectedly found that external team leaders did not
significantly influence team empowerment, processes, or
performance once other factors such as organizational and HR
team support was taken into consideration.
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Research Paper
Sample/methodology
Using survey measures and temporally lagged the objective performance indices
from a sample of 404 respondents from 70 teams was taken into consideration
under this study. Study participants were customer service engineers (CSEs) who
repaired and serviced large office document production systems at a
multinational office equipment and technology firm. CSEs worked in empowered
teams and were responsible for planning, organizing, assigning, and completing
their work, as well as making meaningful financial and HR decisions
Team coaches consisted of organizational development and
change professionals who were experts on team
development. Each coach supported and provided
leadership to 15–20 teams

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Research Paper
Findings
The results of the study indicate that coaches significantly influence team
empowerment, and thereby team processes and performance whereas external
team leaders do not.
Findings also indicate that HR and organizational supports relate positively to
team empowerment and that the effect of coaches on empowerment is beyond
the effects of HR and organizational supports, team interdependence, and
external team leaders.

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Research Paper
Research Limitations
• The causal ordering of variables are subject to debate and a longitudinal
design would be preferable to establish the causal ordering of variables
• Second limitation concerns the nature of the study's variables. Team processes
variable, for instance, included items for each of the three superordinate
dimensions, yet authors modeled the variable as a composite measure
• Team members assessed all antecedent and mediating variables raises
concerns of common method variance arising from single source bias.
• Data were collected from members of the same
organization used in the Mathieu et al (2006) study
• Study doesn’t depict the underlying mechanisms that
explain differential effects of the two types of leaders.

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Research Paper
Practical implications
The findings suggest that when organizations face difficulties implementing
empowerment, there are other options, such as team coaches, at their disposal
to help empowerment take hold. Furthermore, results also suggest that in such
instances, an outsider (such as a team coach) may be best able to move teams
forward toward an empowered state. Indeed, the focal organization's
introduction of team coaches appears to have helped propel the empowerment
initiative forward.

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 Case Study : Frederick W. Smith—FedEx
• FedEx has built what is the most seamless global air
and ground network in its industry, connecting more
than 90 percent of the world’s economic activity.
• According to its founding CEO Fred Smith, teamwork and team leadership
deserves much of the credit. FedEx has expanded far beyond what Mr. Smith
started in 1971. With annual revenues of $43 billion, FedEx has continued to
strengthen its industry leadership in global transportation services.
• With growth have come difficulties of coordination,
maintaining efficiency, meeting customer expectations,
& managing employees.
• Smith realized that a rigid hierarchy of command-and-
control leadership would only magnify these difficulties.
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Case Study (Cont.)
• To give his employees the flexibility and freedom they need, Smith decided to
restructure FedEx by emphasizing the team approach to getting work done.
• CEO Smith directed his executive team to create and empower more teams by
giving them the authority and the responsibility to make the changes needed
to improve productivity and customer satisfaction throughout FedEx system.
• An example of the successful implementation of Mr. Smith’s vision can be
found in Springfield, Virginia. With strong support from their managers,
employees formed the Quality Action Team to overhaul
their package-sorting techniques.
• The improvements they introduced put couriers on the
road 12 minutes earlier than before and halved the
number of packages they delivered late.
Case Source: (Lussier & Achua, 2016)

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Case Study (Cont.)
• The success of teams at departmental or local levels encouraged the CEO and
his leadership team to also assign employee teams to companywide projects.
• Facing growing competition from United Parcel Service, the U.S. Postal
Service, and Airborne Express, FedEx organized its clerical employees into
“super-teams” of up to 10 people.
• These teams operated as SMTs with little direct supervision from managers.
One team cut service glitches, such as incorrect bills and lost packages by 13
percent. Another team spotted—and worked until they
eventually solved—a billing problem that had been
costing the company $2.1 million a year
• FedEx teams have worked so well because CEO sets
stretch goals & incentivizes followers to achieve them.
Case Source: (Lussier & Achua, 2016)

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Case Study (Cont.)
• Managers are by no means obsolete at FedEx. Mr. Smith has redefined their
roles. There has been a shift in mindset from the traditional leader-centric
model to the team-centered leadership approach.
• Managers are expected to formulate clear, attainable goals for their teams,
solicit employee ideas, and act on the best employee suggestions.
• FedEx managers perceive their role as facilitators—and sometimes they are
players. During emergencies at the Memphis hub, senior managers have been
known to hurry down from the executive suite to help load packages onto the
conveyor belts that feed the company’s planes.
• They practice team leadership by doing, not by telling.
• Mr. Smith is responsible for providing strategic vision
for all FedEx Corporation
Case Source: (Lussier & Achua, 2016)

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Case Study (Cont.)
• FedEx inspires its more than 300,000 team members to remain “absolutely,
positively” focused on safety, the highest ethical and professional standards
and the needs of their customers and communities.
Questions
Q1) What type of teams does FedEx use? Provide evidence from the case to
support your answer.
Q2) Describe the role FedEx managers play in facilitating team effectiveness.
Q3) What motivates the members of FedEx to remain
highly engaged in their teams?
Q4) Leaders play a critical role in building effective teams.
Discuss how FedEx managers performed some of
these roles in developing effective teams.
Case Source: (Lussier & Achua, 2016)

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 Book Recommendation
The 5 Roles of Leadership:
Tools & best practices for personable and effective leader

Authors: Wladislaw Jachtchenko

Publisher: Remote Verlag;
(June, 2021)
Language: English
Paperback: 174 Pages
ISBN-10: 1955655170
ISBN-13: 978-1955655170

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 Book Recommendation
In this book, Author explored 5 roles of successful leaders:
Role 1: The charismatic and convincing communicator!
Role 2: The always efficient and effective manager!
Role 3: The motivating team leader who knows how to
delegate!
Role 4: The empathetic psychologist interacting
consistently with each employee!
Role 5: The skilled problem solver who manages conflict
and implements change!
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References
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2. Derue, D. S., Hollenbeck, J., Ilgen, D., & Feltz, D. (2010). Efficacy dispersion in teams: Moving
beyond agreement and aggregation. Personnel Psychology, 63(1).
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2009.01161.x
3. Hughes, R. L., Ginnett, R. C., & Curphy, G. J. (2015). Leadership: Enhancing the Lessons of
Experience (8th Edition). McGraw Hill.
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exchange coin: A social cognitive perspective on the joint effects of
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Management Journal, 53(5).
https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2010.54533207
5. Lussier, R. N., & Achua, C. F. (2016). Leadership: Theory, Application,
& Skill Development (6th ed.). Cengage Learning.

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References
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https://doi.org/10.1049/et.2009.1816
7. Northouse, P. G. (2019). Leadership Theory and Practice Eighth
Edition (8th ed.). Sage Publications, Inc.
8. Robbins, S. P., Judge, T. A., & Vohra, N. (2016). Organizational
Behavior (16th Edition). Pearson Education Inc.
9. Rothenberg, N. R. (2011). Teams, Leaders, and Performance
Measures*. Contemporary Accounting Research, 28(4).
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1911-3846.2011.01095.x
10. Ruggieri, S., & Abbate, C. S. (2013). Leadership style, self-sacrifice,
and team identification. Social Behavior and Personality, 41(7).
https://doi.org/10.2224/sbp.2013.41.7.1171

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Thank You