Hill’s Leadership Model

The lack of leadership impedes the performance of a team. Supervision of a team is

the main cause for the failure of self-management teams to appropriately develop
and lead to enhancements in quality and productivity of lives for the employees.
Despite the existence of various team leadership models, perhaps the most popular
is Hill’s Team model. The reason for its popularity is that it offers the leader a mental
direction to facilitate in the diagnosis of team issues (Northouse, 2007). After the
problems have been identified, appropriate action can be taken to rectify the team
problems.

The model is mainly founded on the argument presented by functional leadership

that a leader should monitor the team. Necessary steps should also be taken to
make sure that there is effectiveness in the team while trying to meet its objectives
(Bligh et al., 2006). The major components of the model are leadership decisions,
actions and effectiveness of the team. The model describes three leadership actions
that affect team success. The first leadership action described in the model is about
leadership decisions. In this action, a leader is required to monitor both the external
and internal settings. He is also mandated to conduct information search in order to
understand the functioning of the team. Information searching entails getting
feedback from members of the team, carrying out surveys about team assessment,
evaluation of team outcomes and networking with people who are not in the team
(Bligh et al., 2006).

The first action further entails the leader organizing, interpreting and structuring the
information to enable beneficial action plans to be made (Northouse, 2007). A leader
is also required to ascertain the appropriate action that he/she should take basing on
the information obtained. Finally, the leader should ascertain the team’s life cycle
and offer leadership where it is needed. In this step, there is need for the leader to
conduct motivational coaching at the beginning, providing consultative coaching at
the middle of the process and offer educational coaching towards the end of the
process.

From personal experience, I have been affected by this first decision. In the past,
one of my leaders was reluctant to get feedback from the teams despite the
organization having made feedback compulsory. Due to this higher demand on our
leader’s time, we decided to step up. The model suggests that it is the responsibility
of the leader to ensure that the team succeeds. We recognized that this entailed
allowing us to step up and fill in the leadership roles.

The second decision of the first action entails structuring of tasks for better results.
As a team leader, one is expected to examine task leadership, maintenance
leadership, and ensuring that there is equal balance between the assigned tasks and
maintenance. In Decision 3, a team leader should examine the internal and external
environmental factors (Bligh et al., 2006). It can be achieved by looking for the team
process level that requires attention of the leadership, taking action for maintaining
the team and improving interpersonal relationships. It also entails the leader taking
action to enable team members to focus on the objectives (Northouse, 2007).
Finally, it entails taking action to get external team support. Arguably, this is one of
the significant stages that I have experienced as a team member. Our leader often
examined the relationships between our team members before determining the tasks
that were curtailed for our team. In cases where he was unable to resolve issues, he
sought for external support. It was crucial for ensuring that we accomplished our
tasks in time and achieved the overall objectives. We were also trained through
formal and informal ways.

The third action entails internal and external leadership actions. The action is
achieved through coaching of team members, use of collaborative methods to
ensure that all team members are involved, and management of conflict (Northouse,
2007). It also entails satisfying the needs of team members and modeling what the
leader expects from team members. I have experienced these actions in my team
before in various ways. Our team leader had a tendency of providing clarification and
getting consents on objectives. He also frequently trained us on task skills. I
remember he used to inform us that this was aimed to educate and develop our
skills. The final action entails performance and development. In case a leader
diagnoses a problem as one of environmental nature, he should ascertain the right
actions to resolve it. Some of the actions entail networking and development of
alliances, protecting members of the team from any possible distractions in the
environment and assessment of environmental indicators of effectiveness of the
team. Finally, the leader should share appropriate information with the team.

Overall, this model provides three actions that are indispensable for all team
members and leaders. The three actions are leadership actions, decisions and
leadership effectiveness. The three actions are aimed at ensuring that teams
perform optimally and relate in a better way. I have experienced these actions in my
personal life as a member of various teams and I have associated myself with many
of them. As a team leader in future, I would like to apply the three actions highlighted
by the model.