A team is an important unit of the organizational structure of any company. Only people united around a certain task and possessing considerable theoretical and practical skills for its accomplishment can lead the organization to success in whatever field it operates in. Accordingly, teams themselves have a certain structure and certain roles distributed between their members (Teamtechnology, 2009). These roles include leaders, time managers, learners and committed workers. This paper will briefly discuss all these elements of team dynamics.
First of all, the basis of every team or another organized group of people is its leader able to control the team activity and direct it at certain aims. According to the surveys carried out among employees of numerous companies, to become such a leader, a person should possess the following qualities. First of all, the leader should be committed to the team which is usually reflected in the welcoming atmosphere and the friendly and supporting environment that every team member feels. This is achieved by the second element of the leader personality which is the attention to the team members’ needs and ideas, and readiness to assist instead of transferring the responsibility (The Teal Trust, 2009).
However, the most important quality of a successful leader is the ability to turn a group of people into an organized and effective team pursuing common goals. Experienced leaders use education and already existing models of leadership to improve their skills in organizing and motivating team members. Moreover, the knowledge of psychology plays a great role in this as the leader is able to find the approach to every single individual in the group and be reverend and authoritative among his or her subordinates (The Teal Trust, 2009).
Speaking about the latter, they can be classified into time managers, learners and committed workers. Time managers are rather significant participants of teams, especially under the circumstances of the modern business world with its constantly growing speeds and lack of time for decision making. Based on this criterion, and on the four major psychological types of personalities in respect of their attitude towards time, team time management should be entrusted to the representative of the either of two most reliable types (Douglass, 2009).
On the whole, the four above-mentioned groups of personalities are time taskmasters, time teasers, time tarriers, and time tenders. Only the first and the last group of personalities are accurate and precise in relation to time. They strive for timely task completion, perfection in their work and are strict to themselves and colleagues in respect of time. The other two groups of people are usually rather calm and committed to work, but their abilities to accomplish tasks within given deadlines are at a rather low level (Douglass, 2009). Therefore, team time managers should be accurate people who are perfectionists in their attitude to work. This is also important for the team leaders who should understand and pay attention to the time temperaments of their team members to plan the team works properly, as “management is about human beings. Its task is to make people capable of joint performance, to make their strengths effective and their weaknesses irrelevant” (Douglass, 2009).
Discussing the last two possible roles of team members within their teams, it is necessary to state that the importance of learners and committed workers should not be underestimated. If leaders organize the team and time managers are responsible for the planning of its work and choosing the right people for the successful and timely task completion, ordinary team members are those on whose activities the performance of the team is grounded (Teamtechnology, 2009).
Thus, the learners (crusaders or explorers as they are often called) are the team members that take part in a team’s activities not only due to the feeling of commitment to the idea but also for the sake of acquiring new experiences and establishing their authority among their colleagues. Their behavior during group work is rather active. They try to always propose new ideas and solutions to group problems. The proposals and activities of these members of the teams should always be coordinated with the team time managers and team leaders.
Finally, the committed workers are usually people displaying no special abilities and enthusiasm but ready to do their best for the sake of team goals. It is also necessary to keep in mind that roles in teams can freely change in the process of team dynamics. This can be often reflected in the change of the team leader who either failed to cope with his or her tasks or was displaced by another more initiative and enthusiastic person having more authority among other team members (Teamtechnology, 2009).
So, to conclude, it is necessary to say that teams are basic units of the organizational structure of any company. Team dynamics presupposes the attribution and interchange of certain roles to team members in the working process. The basic roles characterizing the team dynamics are leadership roles, time management, learning from others, and commitment. The roles can change during the work leading to the success in the organization’s performance which is the major aim of team dynamics.
References
Teamtechnology. (2009). Team Dynamics. Web.
The Teal Trust. (2009). What Makes a Good Team Leader? Web.
Douglass, M. (2009). Team Time Management. Help your employees improve their time management. Web.