Management Skills Essay

Management Skills

2. Principals of leading and managing effective teams

2.2 Establishing and managing effective teams

It is important individual team members share the same beliefs and aims, show commitment towards the work and other team members, have an acceptance of the values and norms established by the team, form trust, express open communication and resolve conflict among themselves. Mullins (2007, p.311)  

In order to establish and manage an effective team the following must be taken into consideration:

 Size - Limited
 Selection – Crucial
 Leadership – Shared or Rotating
 Perception – Mutual knowledge/understanding
 Style – Role spread/co-ordination
 Spirit – Dynamic/interactive

(Belbin, R. M., Beyond the team) - Mullins, L. J. (2007, p.301)

According to Belbin the ideal size of a team should be limited between four and six members. However, when talking about selection, Belbin suggests that there are nine useful types of team roles, each of which provide a unique number of contributions along with allowable weaknesses. This suggests that a team consisting of less than nine people could take on more than one role.

Roles:

 Plant
 Resource investigator
 Co-ordinator
 Shaper
 Monitor-Evaluator
 Teamworker
 Implementer
 Completer
 Specialist

(Belbin, R. M., Team roles at work) – Mllins, L. J. (2007, p.332)








Other factors contributing to cohesiveness and performance between groups of people according to Mullins (2007, p.307) include:

Organizational
 Leadership - how the overall team is managed or whether they are self-managed

Work environment
 Physical setting – at its least workable, at its best inspiring

However, Mullins (2007, p.309) also goes on to suggest that cohesiveness depends upon how groups progress through different stages of development,...