Week 5 Learning Activities – Northouse, “Team Effectiveness”

Northouse gives two critical functions of team effectiveness. The first critical function is performance which refers to the quality of outcomes of the team’s work. Did the team accomplish its goals in a timely manner? The second critical function is development which refers to the cohesiveness of the team and the ability of team members to satisfy their own needs while working effectively with other team members (p. 375).

These are further broken down into component and characteristics that support group effectiveness. The components are: a compelling purpose, having the right people, having a real team, clear norms of conduct, having a supportive organizational context, and team-focused coaching (p. 376). The characteristics are: clear, elevating goal, results-driven structure, competent team members, unified commitment, collaborative climate, standards of excellence, external support and recognition, and principled leadership (p. 376)

I have had teams where there has been all of these, and none of these. I have led groups with whom I have instilled making sure we have the right people which led to them becoming a real team. In our local church case, we use a Mission Board model. This board is usually put in place before we even arrive at the church. However, in this case, we had to create our own. The group that was there has no purpose for existing – which means all the other components of a team didn’t happen. We were able to describe and articulate the purpose of that group, with which people did not agree. Therefore, we started from scratch understanding that we needed all of these components. We also understood that principled leadership was necessary.

Principled leadership, which is the central driver of teams effectiveness, is merely the effective leadership of the team. The leader influences the team through four sets of processes: cognitive, motivational, affective, and coordination (p. 378-379). One of the four processes that affected me in a team environment has been the cognitive process.

When my wife and I arrived at the church, that we pastor at currently, we had a group of individuals overseeing the church. We hardly called this group a church board as they did not function as one. However, before that could be restructured the current board kept asking the question, “Why aren’t we growing?” I would say the typical question most boards ask. Well, from our third Sunday there we could see the problem – the worship leader. She had been leading for 25 years, was not open to learning new songs or new ways of neither creating a more open worship environment nor willing to partner with us as her pastors to develop a more modern worship team. The leader helps the team understand the problems that are confronting the team (p. 379). What the current board refused to see was that the worship leader was the problem. Not only that, but they didn’t want to take action. We got to know the worship leader over the next year or so and realized that her heart was in teaching, not leading worship. However, when we asked her to step down and help with the teaching aspect of the church, she refused and left the church.

Have you had a similar situation when understanding one, or more, of the four sets of processes, has caused pain for someone else?

References:

Northouse, P. G. (2019). Leadership: Theory and practice (8th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publication