Bus 322 - Leadership, Teambuilding, and Communication

Assignment 3: Leadership, Teambuilding, and Communication

Professor Janet Largaespada

BUS 322

Mar. 3, 2013

Assignment 3: Leadership, Teambuilding, and Communication

Leadership, teambuilding, and communication are essential parts to an effective organization. These three terms play a role in every setting where groups of people come together to achieve a single goal like businesses, charities, and even sports teams. In this paper we will examine things from the business perspective of the regional grocer, BI-LO. Along with examining the work environment we will examine the elements of an effective group leader, sources of conflict, and possible barriers that can impact group performance.

Since the evolution of man leadership has manifested itself in many ways from tribal chiefs, political leaders, and military leaders. Throughout time leaders have used their abilities to do good things or abuse that power for personal beliefs or gains. What is leadership though? According to the text "leadership is the process of guiding and directing the behavior of people in the work environment" (Nelson & Quick, 2013). To begin a more in depth look at leadership we will start with the behavioral theory which consists of three behavioral styles which are autocratic, democratic and laissez-faire. The autocratic style states that the leader controls the rules, regulations, and relationships within the work environment. This can come in the form of company policies enforced by management at BI-LO. The second style, democratic, is where the leader interacts and collaborates with his or her followers to direct the work environment. Using the BI-LO example this can come in the form of workers communicating with managers about spur of the moment incidents that may affect original time constraints for a particular job. As we all know not everything goes according to the plan and sometimes we must reevaluate the work load in order to manage our time well. The final approach is the laissez-faire style, which the leader takes a hands-off approach. This style of leadership can be disastrous in that it creates interpersonal conflict in the work environment and a lack of clearly defined goals.

The contemporary theory utilizes a leadership grid that measures an individual's concern for people against their concern for results in order to determine their leadership style as seen in Figure 1.

Figure 1 (Alagse)

From this grid there are five styles of management which are authority-compliance management (9, 1), country club management (1, 9), impoverished management (1, 1), middle of the road management (5, 5), and team management (9, 9). The authority-compliance manager can be controlling and overpowering and viewing people as a means to reach a goal. The country club manager places more attention on the satisfaction of other people creating a friendly and comfortable atmosphere. Impoverished managers are noncommittal and withdrawn or simply just going through the motions. Middle of the road managers tend to compromise more and have a balance between relationships and results, while team managers are work on a higher level of trust and commitment.

The leader-member exchange (LMX) is a contemporary theory that suggests that leaders form different relationships with their followers. "The basic idea behind LMX is that the leaders form two groups of followers: in-groups and out-groups. In-group members tend to be similar to the leader and are given greater responsibilities, more rewards, and more attention. They work within the leader's inner circle of communication. As a result, in-group members are more satisfied, have lower turnover, and have higher organizational commitment. In contrast, out-group members are outside the circle and receive less attention and fewer rewards. They are managed by formal rules and policies" (Nelson & Quick, 2013). We have all experienced this at some point in our careers whether we were part of the in-group or the out-group. Sometimes this behavior is a result of workers being groomed for future management positions or sometimes it