Chapter 14 describes a practical team approach to leadership theory. Interest in the theory of team leadership is achieved by the increased importance of organizational management. The theory is a consequence of the need to study the factors that affect team performance (Northouse, 2016). The team approach to leadership brings out the core quality of leadership in helping a team achieve its goals. This theory can be a qualitative addition to the previously studied leadership theories. Team leadership offers practical solutions to improve the collective performance, regardless of the personal type of leader. This theory refutes the concept of a trait leader since it sees the process of leadership through the development of skills and practices rather than a certain set of innate qualities.
The theory of team leadership significantly expands the other approaches studied. It helps think in the direction of increasing the effectiveness of the team and consider each member individually, developing competent management methods. Team leadership is suitable for behavioral analysis and provides valuable guidance for team building. The chapter on team leadership is one of the most comprehensive and practical. The only question that needs to be clarified is how to balance between taking into account individual characteristics and the success of the whole team.
The theory presented in Chapter 14 helps analyze one’s own leadership behavior and evaluate other leaders. With the help of new information, I can understand how I lead the team. For example, when I ask myself questions about the need for intervention, I realize that my position in management is more of an observational one. When I was a leader in my student group, I preferred not to interfere much in the affairs, which can be inefficient when managing a large team.
Leaders in educational organizations are often able to effectively apply a team leadership strategy, preferring internal interventions to improve team performance. Based on my personal observations, the model may be too complex to implement in an educational setting. Offering the distribution of roles among the members depending on the goals and skills does not take into account the specifics in which the leader may be forced to manage a large and diverse team single-handedly.
The Chapter 14 inventory is a survey that a leader can conduct to improve their management skills. The survey measures the satisfaction of participants with their leader, their competence, and the ability to manage the team. I took the survey based on my own experience of being in a team under leadership; the results are presented in Appendix 1. The survey demonstrated the high leadership ability of my leader, with one exception. Since the experience of observing a leader took place in an educational environment, the individualism of each student was valued more than the achievement of a common goal. During my experience, there was no pressure on the team members to achieve high results; this approach was not used as a motivation.
In conclusion, I agree with the results of the inventory and believe that these are good conclusions after observing the interaction of the leader with the team. This inventory is very useful because it should give the leader feedback from their subordinates, which allows them to change or improve the strategy. I find this questioning technique practical and will use it to improve my own leadership techniques. My leadership practice will change as I now have an effective tool that demonstrates caring for the team and improves my management approach.
Reference
Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice. (7th ed.). SAGE Publications.