Several people work for a common goal in team leadership. Their activities and responsibilities may be different however the outcome shall be common desired goal. As per the flow chart Figure 14.1 (page 367), the last stage in ‘The Hill Model for Team Leadership’ contains two components that are, Performance and Development. These are considered as he two critical functions of team effectiveness. Performance is the measurement of task accomplishment whereas Development is for team maintenance considering the quality improvement of the team and its actions.

Six enabling conditions that results in effective team functioning suggested by Hackman, 2012 (page 369) are;

  1. Compelling purpose
  2. Right people
  3. Real team
  4. Clear norms of conduct
  5. Supportive organizational context
  6. Team-focused coaching

As per the studies done on successful teams by Larsen and LaFasto, 1989; their finding is, irrespective the type of the teams eight characteristics was consistently associated with team excellence (Page 368). That are given below;

  1. Clear elevating goal
  2. Results-driven structure
  3. Competent team members
  4. Unified commitment
  5. Collaborative climate
  6. Standards of excellence
  7. External support and recognition
  8. Principled leadership

Collectively they can be described as;

‘A compelling purpose energizes team members, orients them toward their collective objective ad fully engages their talents’ (Hackman, 2012, p. 7). Goals set to the team must be clear and elevating so that no other objectives can interfere. Each team has a structure to achieve their goals based on their activities i.e. Results-driven structure. Right people or Competent team members mean that every team must have enough well trained and qualified members. A real team is not just happening its well designed and developed to have a unified commitment. And in such team, each player knows their role and they act timely in a collaborative climate. Clear norms of conduct or standards of excellence is all about the behavior of team members. It is really important and to be regulated. Recognition and consideration are required for the hard work by teams and that is Supportive organizational context or External support and recognition. And finally Team-focused coaching or Principle leadership is about the leadership of the team and the coaching given to team to travel towards the destiny through stressful situations.

Being a young Nurse, I could work with very few teams in my professional career. However, I have been part of many teams in extracurricular activities in social community. And that are not well-organized team with professionalism. Even though many of the above points are visible in such teams also. In those teams, people are driven by their passion and interest towards the activity they are involved, and they love to work for their desired target. And we can co-relate the terms, Compelling purpose, Right people, Real team in them. In my professional career I could work with the teams which have got the components or characteristics like Clear elevating goal, Results-driven structure, Competent team members, Unified commitment, Collaborative climate, Standards of excellence, External support and recognition, Principled leadership because it’s a Causality/Emergency team in the hospital.

Principe leadership is related to team effectiveness. Leadership has been described as the central driver of team effectiveness, influencing the team through four sets of processes: cognitive, motivational, effective and coordination (Zaccaro et al., 2001). It’s about the leader who helps his team member to do his/her job more efficiently and perfectly by means of tools alike cognition, motivation, affection and coordination. Out of these four processes, motivation has affected more in my short experience of life. It was really required for a youngster like me to be more confident and learn new things and must be more perfectionist. A nurse must be pro-active because it’s all about life and any demotivational incidents can have bad impact on the career and on peoples’ life as well. In that way I am happy that I have got good support from my leader and team and now I am much experienced in my profession to handle emergency situations. Everyone undergoes all the above said components/characteristics in their professional career but it’s all about people how they are adaptive to the circumstances and it is directly related to team’s success and professional growth.

Reference

Northouse, P. G. (2018). Leadership: Theory and Practice, Eighth Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.