Improving Team Performance

A team is a small task group with a common purpose, interdependent roles, and complementary skills. Examples of a team include a professional basketball team working toward winning the NBA title, the NYPD team working toward cracking a bank robbery, or a project team working toward increasing product sales.

A team requires a leader to lead them from the front, facilitate the team tasks, and improve the performance of team members. The type of leadership varies with the type of team being led. The basketball team will have a captain, a NYPD team will have a senior officer and a project team will have a project manager.

Tasks:

Several types of teams can be found in organizations, including functional teams, cross-functional teams, self-managed teams, and virtual teams. Based on your understanding of different types of teams, discuss the following:

1. Which leadership roles and processes are important for functional teams, cross-functional teams, self-managed teams, and virtual teams?

2. Under what conditions are these different types of teams most likely to be successful?

3. Why is leadership more difficult in cross-functional teams than in traditional functional teams?

4. Which factors determine the performance of each type of team?

5. As a leader, what can you do to improve the performance of each type of team?