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Leadership Challenge

Introduction

Communication breakdown undermines the success of leadership in the management of many organizations. Besides, it also affects the decision-making process from top management down to the employees hence making it impossible for an organization to realize its road map to success (Collins & O’Rourke, 2009). This paper discusses communication as a challenge in team leadership and identifies various ways that can be used to restore communication among the team members.

From the case study, the team had had a communication skills training but as time went by the participation of team members declined gradually. Besides, it is clear that the meeting is dominated by discussion of older male team members hence excluding the younger members from contributing their views in the meetings. Therefore, the emerging challenges have contributed to conflicts among team members where a few of them have stopped from participating in the meeting decisions. In order to restore the team spirit among team members, it is necessary to enhance effective communication management within the meeting. This calls for systematic planning, monitoring and the adjustments of all the communication channels within the organization and between the team members. In addition, it also involves organizations of how the new communications directives should be disseminated and implemented among the team members (Levi, 2014).

It appears that the team members may have forgotten the skills they acquired during the previous communication skills training. Therefore, as a team leader it is important to review the goals of team building and the role of communications among team members, in order to address the problem of domination by the older male team members (Collins & O’Rourke, 2009). Besides, training on interpersonal skills including negotiation, motivation, leadership and communication are important lessons that can be initiated among the team members in order to create a resilient environment within the meetings. Additionally, communication exercises allow for problem-solving activities that are geared towards improving communication skills (Hackman & Craig, 2008). As a result, this would allow the younger team male members to get involved in the meetings and make their contributions.

Moreover, the essence of building trust among team members is critical in enhancing good communication strategy among the team members. Besides, this also allows the team to build their interpersonal trust leading to adaptability and spirit of cohesion among team members where everybody is included to make their contributions during the team meetings (Levi, 2014). In handling the problem team members in the meeting, one must take a contingency approach to communicating with the team members on a personal level while acting as a team manager. Besides, the team manager has a role in determining the personality of team members such as rebels, promoters, and workaholic. When a team manager recognizes the different personalities among team members, it becomes easy to manage interpersonal conflicts by addressing unnecessary behaviours within the meetings at a personal level (Hackman & Craig, 2008).

Defining an appropriate communication network among the team members has an important impact on the group functioning. As a team leader, it is vital to have a decentralized communication network that ensures equal access to information among all the team members. A decentralized communication network allows the team members to develop trust among members and the leader since the spirit of equality and fairness prevails within the team (Levi, 2010).

Conclusion

Inappropriate communication strategy affects the conduct and performance of team members where some members may dominate over the others. Therefore, it is important that the team leader identifies the factors that may undermine the performance of team members and address accordingly. Furthermore, it is important that the team members realize the goals and objectives of team building in order to restore the spirit of cooperation and move towards success.

References

Collins, S. D., & O’Rourke, J. S. (2009). Interpersonal communication: Listening and responding. Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.

Hackman, M. Z. & Craig, E. J. (2008). “7”. Leadership: A Communication Perspective (Fifth ed.). Long Grove, Illinois: Waveland Press, Inc. ISBN 978-1-57766-579-3.

Levi, D.  (2010). Group Dynamics for Teams. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.

Levi, D.  (2014). Group Dynamics for Teams. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.

Long, S. (2010). Communication, relationships and practices in virtual work. Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference.

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