Teams are used in a wide variety of organizations for a wide variety of purposes. While teams can be useful to organizations in many ways, there are risks as well. By forming individuals into collective teams, organizations must risk conflict and competition amongst group members. Generally, it is also necessary to have one or more individuals lead a team. In essence, teams can yield very positive results, but they must be designed and managed thoughtfully. This research study (Hu & Liden, 2011) addresses how servant leadership might be especially useful in guiding teams to success.
LEADERSHIP AND TEAM PERFORMANCE
The authors note that teams tend to perform better when team goals and processes are clear to all team members. This clarity can lead to high team potency beliefs, wherein team members believe in the team’s ability to effectively achieve its goals. The authors go on to point out that leaders of the “servant leader” type are particularly well-positioned to elicit this clarity and trust in their teams. Servant leaders do this through behaviors that put team members first, empowering them and helping them to grow and succeed both as individuals and team members. The authors hypothesized that by fostering team potency in these ways, servant leaders might lead teams to perform better and engage in higher levels of organizational citizenship behavior, which means going beyond formal job requirements to benefit the organization.
IMPLICATIONS FOR ORGANIZATIONS
Using a sample of bank employees and upper management, the authors found support for their hypotheses. They suggest their findings have applications for both teamwork design and leadership development training. In the case of teams, efforts might be made to clarify team roles and team processes, so that all team members have a sense of how the team is meant to function and how each individual contributes to the team’s overall goals. In the case of developing leaders, training might emphasize a cultivation of the talents that servant leaders bring to their teams – selflessness, empowerment, and an ability to demonstrate faith in the team’s ability to meet their goals and achieve success.
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