The Forgotten Group Member Essay Example for Free

The Forgotten Group Member Essay The case study of The Forgotten Group Member demonstrations in what manner teams separate due to an absence of communication. The case verifies that knowing how to lead a team is just as significant as being a part of the team. It is imperative to understand that not only does a leader have the responsibility to lead the team but the members have a responsibility to partake in order for the team effectively complete an assignment. Part I: Group Development Teams pass through numerous stages for example the forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning stages. This particular case places the team within the storming stage. When group participants get to know each other better, the storming stage begins. This stage is considered as a bid for power. Each group member is wondering whether or not he or she will be respected and this may play out in competition, tension and maybe disagreement. Relationships become strained and differences become uncomfortable. Christine is challenged for control by Mike. The hostility Mike feels developed when he came upon his teammates during an unofficial group meeting. Left unaddressed, as in this case, I can only assume that Mike become angry, hostile, and now unproductive. As the leader, Christine’s main task at this stage is to coach group members, in particular Mike, to get them on board. She needs to emphasis that teams come together because they share a common interest, and that members are treated equally. Once Christine re-evaluates the work and re-introduces the forming stages she can help re-integrate Mike back into the group. The forming stage occurs when the leader directs the team and establishes objectives clearly. Once Mike is reintroduced to the team goals and realizes his role on the team hopefully he would have made positive contributions in an effort to produce a high-quality group output. Part II: Problem Identification The hostile attitude Christina and her teammates experienced by Mike occurred during an unexpected team gathering; however Mike should reevaluate his overall performance in a group setting thus far. Based off his action, not attending team meetings and providing brief notes, Mike has become the social loafer of the team. Social loafers can be described as team members who work less and put less effort into the team assignment, than he or she would do if he or she had to complete the assignment alone. The key issues’ facing Christine is not only Mike’s social loafing but the lack of communication on her behalf to inform Mike of his lack of participation. By understanding the stages of group development, Christine should have redefined her team roles so that social loafers are more visible and peer pressures are more likely. This in turn will lead to yet another theory concept known as Social facilitation. Social facilitation occurs when the behavior of team participants are influenced positively by the presence of others in a team. According to our text, Social facilitation theory suggests that working in the presence of others creates an emotional arousal or excitement that stimulates behavior and therefore affects performance. When Christine recognized Mike as the â€Å"clown† of the group she should have relied on his strengths to embrace the audience. Perhaps assigning him the task of presenting the power point slides for their team presentation. Part III: Retrospective Evaluation Since this a difficult situation to solve and each solution has pros and cons I can only reiterate solutions mention in the previous sections. The ideal solution would have been for the group leader, Christine, to re-evaluate her understanding of group development. Once she had a full understanding of the stages and process that it takes to have an efficient team she would have known how to properly handle the situation. When I mention properly handle the situation, I refer to the fact that she should have addressed the issue with Mike in a non-threatening environment. After communicating with Mike, Christina would have been aware of any essential skills that he is lacking or uncomfortable situations that are preventing quality work. At this point in time Christine could have re-evaluated the work and reintroduced the forming stages. Mike will once again be re-introduced to the team goals and realize his role on the team. A different solution, not mentioned previously, would be Distributed Leadership. As per the course text, distributed leadership is the sharing of responsibility for meeting group task and maintenance needs. This involves having the leader, Christine, initiate discussions, clarifying issues, and sharing information while involving other team players. As outlined in the case, many team members were functioning fine, Mike was having trouble being able to meet deadlines and rarely let everyone know. This signals once again a communication problem. By having Christine reach out to Mike and his fellow team members, any issues that were apparent would be brought up and handled. In this case, Mike would have told Christine about his demanding job and relationship woes and thus the team could have adjusted according. The only demise of this method is that the discussions and information sharing will not always be as effective as actually addressing the issues head on. Part IV: Reflection Looking back at this case and the events that have transpired up till this point, it is obvious that Christine was not an effective group leader. Although the majority of the team did work efficiently there was just one negative aspect. That negative aspect was Mike. Being able to deal with conflict comes from experience but in this situation Christine was voted by her team members to be the group leader which should have inspired confidence in her. This confidence should have helped her address Mike in the beginning. If Christine have had the knowledge and the skills of group development she would have been able to effectively provide leadership.