A paradox of becoming an effective leader is that it is necessary for one to successfully instill confidence in others while simultaneously not absorbing the projected confidence into oneself. Essentially it is imperative to recognize that if you believe you are powerful, you can actually wreck your organization. Pfeffer & Sutton (2006) utilize Professor Deborah Gruenfeld's research of the effects that take place when someone enters into a position of power. Essentially those people start talking more, take what they want, ignore what others say, act rudely, and treat people and situations as pawns to satisfy their own needs (Pfeffer & Sutton, 2006). This concept is extremely important because power can easily go to someone's head. As more people are underneath someone in an organization, the leader(s) can see that as an opportunity to have a power surge. I read an article that described the prevalence of 'corporate psychopaths.' The article described how these functional psychopaths move up in an organization by being overly charismatic, but ultimately, they put their needs ahead of the organizations and are essentially power hungry. It is just important for people to remember as they climb their career ladder to never believe you are more powerful than anyone else. Have you experienced leaders who believe they are powerful, or, maybe more correctly stated, take opportunities to 'cut you down' essentially, because they can? Should there be a limit on the amount of power and decision-making abilities of an individual to prevent the feeling of power over others within an organization?
Another thing that I found interesting this week was the concept of group reception of women and minorities and their contributions within team dynamics. Women and minorities often have difficulties with having their ideas both heard and utilized. Women are often less likely to be perceived as experts on a subject even though they may actually be equally or even more knowledgeable within a given area of study when compared to a man. Female experts are also perceived as less influential in the sense that they were less able to get the teams to do what they wanted them to do. Female opinions were actually more highly regarded, however, when their opinions were intentionally solicited by another team member. This is important to recognize because it ties into diversity and the benefits that are able to be reaped. These individuals are able to contribute ideas from different perspectives and they are often not considered because of gender or ethnicity (which in these instances is seen as a handicap). I think a take away for management should be to maintain tact when exercising group work. In order to yield the best solutions or ideas, solicit them from individuals. Ask someone point blank if he/she has a specific idea, and because the manager/leader took interest in that individual, maybe the group as a whole will too. Do you find that women and minorities (this can also be men as a minority) are not taken as seriously as men within a group decision-making process? Aside from soliciting ideas, are there other ways to get other group members to take stock in a 'minority' person's idea?
The article, Building and Leading High Performance Teams by Chris Mussel White lists a lot of great suggestions for effective team development and employment. Some of the highlights of the article include: promoting understanding, ensuring the team has adequate knowledge, facilitating effective intervention, understanding the big picture, having common goals, and working as a unit. There is no data to back these suggestions, and while many sound really great, I would be curious to know what the implementation success rate is for these suggestions. I think they are definitely supported by general knowledge and when you research anything regarding a successful team, these exact qualities or ones that are extremely similar will be included within the results. The article definitely highlights some strong points, but it really isn't anything that is not listed elsewhere. I'd like to see some numbers with respect to performance and financial changes for organizations pre- and post-implementation/development of those team traits. I feel like some of them are overly optimistic and often times to get everyone on board with something and maintain all those qualities is really difficult to nurture that within a group and the culture outside of the group as well.
I learned a lot about great leaders and issues and half-truths that are associated with them. I also was really interested in the teamwork components from the week. The dynamic team video was great to watch along with the articles that I read. Currently at work we have a really low morale on my unit and the teamwork is broken at best. Myself and another nurse have been working to try and improve the culture there and make it a happier place overall. The information on the teams and their effectiveness was a great learning opportunity for me and I am going to try to implement some of that within my unit at work. Next week I look forward to learning about conflict and negotiation as I had two verbal conflicts with employees today.
White, C. M. (2007, January 1). Building and Leading High Performance Teams. Retrieved from: http://www.inc.com/resources/leadership/articles/20070101/musselwhite.html.
Pfeffer, J. & Sutton, R. I. (2006). Hard facts, dangerous half-truths, and total nonsense: profiting from evidence-based management. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press.
Thomas-Hunt, M. (2013). Team Dynamics [Video]. LeanIn.org. Retrieved from: http://leanin.org/education/team-dynamics/.
