Leading Teams to Optimize Performance

Author(s):  
Lissa V. Young

Teams are a critical aspect of organizational life and understanding the taxonomy and processes extant in team life is a critical first step in learning how to optimize team and individual performance. This chapter examines key components of both team structure and team processes that form the fundamental underpinnings of team performance. Once leaders understand these constructs and the role they play in team performance, leaders can devise interventions to build better teams. The best teams produce the best team performances and contribute to enhancing the skill development of each individual team member. The relationship between the team and its members is symbiotic. Given this, a leader has the potential to impact the development of teams and individual team members simultaneously.

2006 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter J Jordan ◽  
Sandra A Lawrence ◽  
Ashlea C Troth

ABSTRACTAlthough organisations often implement team-based structures to improve performance, such restructuring does not automatically ameliorate poor performance. The study in this article explores the relationship between team members' negative mood and team processes (social cohesion, workload sharing, team conflict) to determine if negative mood has a detrimental effect on team performance via team processes. Two hundred and forty one participants completed surveys and were involved in an independently rated performance task that was completed over eight weeks. Negative mood was found to influence team processes and as a consequence, team performance. The results, however, were not uniformly negative. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.


2006 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter J Jordan ◽  
Sandra A Lawrence ◽  
Ashlea C Troth

ABSTRACTAlthough organisations often implement team-based structures to improve performance, such restructuring does not automatically ameliorate poor performance. The study in this article explores the relationship between team members' negative mood and team processes (social cohesion, workload sharing, team conflict) to determine if negative mood has a detrimental effect on team performance via team processes. Two hundred and forty one participants completed surveys and were involved in an independently rated performance task that was completed over eight weeks. Negative mood was found to influence team processes and as a consequence, team performance. The results, however, were not uniformly negative. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.


2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Audra I. Mockaitis ◽  
Elizabeth L. Rose ◽  
Peter Zettinig

This paper investigates the perceptions of members of 43 culturally diverse global virtual teams, with respect to team processes and outcomes. Despite widespread acknowledgement of the challenges presented by cultural differences in the context of global teams, little is known about the effect of these differences on team dynamics in the absence of face-to-face interaction. Using a student-based sample, we study the relationship between global virtual team members’ individualistic and collectivistic orientations and their evaluations of trust, interdependence, communication and information sharing, and conflict during the team task. Our results suggest that a collectivist orientation is associated with more favorable impressions regarding global virtual team processes and that cultural differences are not concealed by virtual means of communication.


Author(s):  
Bethany K. Bracken ◽  
Noa Palmon ◽  
David Koelle ◽  
Mike Farry

For teams to perform effectively, individuals must focus on their own tasks, while simultaneously maintaining awareness of other team members. Researchers studying and attempting to optimize performance of teams as well as individual team members use assessments of behavioral, neurophysiological, and physiological signals that correlate with individual and team performance. However, synchronizing data from multiple sensor devices can be difficult, and building and using models to assess human states of interest can be time-consuming and non-intuitive. To assist researchers, we built an Adaptable Toolkit for the Assessment and Augmentation of Performance by Teams in Real Time (ADAPTER), which provides a framework that flexibly integrates sensors and fuses sensor data to assess performance. ADAPTER flexibly integrates current and emerging sensors; assists researchers in creating and implementing models that support research on performance and the development of augmentation strategies; and enables comprehensive and holistic characterization of team member performance during real-time experimental protocols.


2022 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Bashokuh-E-Ajirloo ◽  
Bahman Khodapanah ◽  
Mehdi Alizadeh ◽  
Mehdi Ebrahimzadeh

PurposeThe main objective of this study is to explain the relationship between members' cultural values on structure and performance of the entrepreneurial teams that located in Tehran.Design/methodology/approachData used in this study are collected by a questionnaire distributed among managers and other executive members of SMEs located in Tehran. One hundred and thirty-nine participants completed the questionnaires, and their responses were analyzed using partial least squares technique. Measures showed good convergent and discriminant validity. Furthermore, Cronbach's alpha, as reliability indicator for all measures, is at the acceptable level.FindingsResearch finding shows that all hypothesis supported in Iran contex. Entrepreneurial team members' cultural values have positive and significant effect on the entrepreneurial team structure. Entrepreneurial team members' cultural values have significant effect on the entrepreneurial team performance and also, the structure of the entrepreneurial team has a positive and significant effect on the entrepreneurial team performance.Originality/valueThese studies mostly focused on technical dimensions of entrepreneurial teams and overlooked the cultural values of their members.


2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 452-473 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean A. Newman ◽  
Robert C. Ford ◽  
Greg W. Marshall

Based on a study of leader communication effectiveness conducted in a large human resource outsourcing firm, this article reports how virtual team members’ perceptions of their leaders’ effective use of communication tools and techniques affect team performance outcomes. The study also investigates the role that trust plays in moderating the relationship between virtual team members’ perceptions of their leaders’ effective use of communication and team performance. Analysis of 458 responses from 68 teams found a positive relationship between virtual team members’ perceptions of leaders’ effective use of communications and team members’ perception of their team’s performance. The study also found that trust strengthens the relationship between perceived leader communication effectiveness and team performance results. Last, the study also revealed serious organizational alignment issues between what team members perceived to be effective leader communication, their perception of team performance outcomes, and the organizations performance measured by a balanced scorecard.


Author(s):  
Ethan Brownell ◽  
Jonathan Cagan ◽  
Kenneth Kotovsky

Abstract Prior research has demonstrated how the average characteristics of a team impact team performance. Individual characteristics of team members and individual team member behavior have been largely ignored, especially in the context of engineering design. In this work, a behavioral study was conducted to uncover whether the most or least proficient member of a configuration design team had a larger impact on overall performance. It was found that a configuration design team is most dependent on the proficiency of its most proficient member and results suggest that replacing the most proficient member with an even more proficient member can be expected to have a more positive impact than replacing any other member with a higher proficiency member of the same change in proficiency. The most proficient member had a significant positive effect on how quickly the team reached performance thresholds and that the other members of the team were not found to have the same positive impact throughout the design study. Behavioral heuristics were found using hidden Markov modeling to capture the differences in behavior and design strategy between different proficiency members. Results show that high proficiency and low proficiency team members exhibit different behavior, with the most proficient member’s behavior leading to topologically simpler designs and other members adopting their designs, leading to the most proficient member driving the team design and team performance.


2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 168-176
Author(s):  
Jian Yu ◽  
Weichu Xu ◽  
M Rogers

Teamwork skills have becoming an important asset that employees can bring into an organization. How to make employees work with other team members and make team effective is an important issue in business education. In order to make sense which factors in team management will help improve team performance, we try to design a test among students. In this paper, we focus on using 12-step method to help business students acquire their teamwork skills and improve their team performance in class, and propose and examine several hypotheses on the relationship between 12-step and their impact on team performance with a dataset collecting from university student teams. The results show that initial sharing, continuous sharing and feedbacks are positively associated with team performance, but expectation, equity and celebration are negatively associated with team performance. The findings provide some insights about how to apply different steps in different environments, and show that some measures and steps should be paid more attention in training in a firm or other organizations.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nishant Uppal

Purpose This paper aims to examine the effects of the leaders’ dark triad (DT) personality traits, namely, Machiavellianism, Narcissism and Psychopathy, on the team performance variability. Furthermore, this work explores the role of team agreeableness in the above relationship. Design/methodology/approach The study is based on the longitudinal and archival data obtained from the sales team (team leaders: n = 190; team members: n = 832) of 19 firms dealing with fast-moving consumer goods in India. Findings From the finding of the study, it can be inferred that the presence of DT traits in the leaders causes high fluctuations in team performance. Besides, team agreeableness was found to moderate the relationship between the DT traits of the leaders and the team performance variability. Originality/value The theoretical and practical implications of the study are also discussed.


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