Learning Activity 2-Servant leadership and team effectiveness

According to Northouse (2019), numerous research data show that leader should clearly show the goal for team members for the team effectiveness (p. 376). Page and Wong (2000) state vision and direction must be conceptualized by the leader and given to the followers to embrace and have a concrete image of the purpose, vision, and outcome of the organizational group project, and then the leader invests in and serves the team members to accomplish the mission (p.8). All through entire the process, the key action which a leader must take for a group project is to clear the goal and give a vision of small steps to achieve the goal to steer the team to the right direction. For that, foresight, and conceptualization are the important skills among the ten essential traits of servant leadership defined by Spears. Spears(2010) states conceptualization is “the ability to look at a problem or an organization beyond day-to-day realities” and foresight is “ the ability to foresee the likely outcome of a situation” (p. 28). Unfortunately, leaders can sometimes get involved in the day-to-day operations though, to judge the present situation logically and flexible beyond the day-to-day work is an essential task for leaders. The goal and steps might change depends on difficulties which the team faces, leaders should remain sensitive to aware the change and adjust the small steps towards the goal.

Northouse(2019) also suggests “Teams that can manage conflict, collaborate well together, and build commitment will have good relationships.”(p. 384) which refer to team development, the other factor of team effectiveness. For that, leaders will use awareness, listening, empathy, healing and persuasion skills. First, a team leader has to recognize the situation carefully, interpret what is becoming wrong and decide what kind of action should be performed or just observe(Northouse, 2019, 384). If a leader thinks arguing in the group is a problem, the leader should listen to the team members “what’s wrong”. Listening is one of the most important skills for leaders, which refer to their communication and decision-making skills(Spears, 2010).
When leaders listen, they should be empathetic listeners and heal them. Servant leadership is strong at healing one’s self and one’s relationship to others(Spears, 2010). Our mood and motivation influenced by relationship issues. Relationship issues can reduce team productivity. Leaders should take actions to make the teams accomplish both team performance and development.

References
Northouse. (2019) Team leadership. In Leadership. Thousand Oaks. CA: SAGE Publications
Page, D., & Wong, T. P. (2000). A conceptual framework for measuring servant leadership. The human factor in shaping the course of history and development, 69-110.
Spears, L. C. (2010). Character and servant leadership: Ten characteristics of effective, caring leaders. Journal of Virtues & Leadership, 1(1), 25-30.