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Chapter 12
Groups, Teams, and
Their Leadership

Copyright ©2022 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
 Chapter Outline

• Introduction
• Individuals versus groups versus teams
• The nature of groups
• Teams
• Virtual teams
• On the horizon

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 Introduction 1

We are born for cooperation, as are the feet, the hands, the
eyelids, and the upper and lower jaws.
• Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor, 161 to 180.

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 Introduction 2

• Groups and teams are different from the skills, abilities, values, and
motives of those who compose them.
• Groups and teams have their own special characteristics.
• Group perspective: How different group characteristics can affect
relationships both with the leader and among the followers.

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 Individuals versus Groups versus Teams

• Team members have a stronger sense of identification among

themselves than group members do.
• Teams have common goals or tasks, whereas group members may
not have the same degree of consensus about goals that team
members do.
• Task independence is greater with teams than with groups.
• Team members have more differentiated and specialized roles than
group members.

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 Nature of Groups

Group: Two or more persons interacting with one another in a manner

that each person influences and is influenced by each other person.
• This definition incorporates the concept of reciprocal influence
between leaders and followers.
• The definition does not constrain individuals to only one group.
• Group members interact and influence each other.

Although groups play a pervasive role in society, most people spend little
time thinking about the factors that affect group processes and intragroup
relationships

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 Implications of Group Size 1

Leader emergence is partly a function of group size.

As group size increases, cliques are more likely to develop.

• Cliques: Subgroups of individuals who often share the same goals,
values, and expectations.

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 Implications of Group Size 2

Affects a leader’s behavioral style.

• Leaders with a large span of control tend to be more directive, spend
less time with individual subordinates, and use impersonal
approaches when influencing followers.
• Leaders with a small span of control tend to display more
consideration and use personal approaches when influencing
followers.

Affects group effectiveness.

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 Limitations to the Benefits of Size

There may be decreasing returns, on a per-capita basis, as group size

increases.
• May occur in additive tasks due to process losses.
• Additive task: A task where the group’s output involves the combination of
individual outputs.
• Process losses: Inefficiencies created by more and more people working
together.

Social loafing: Phenomenon of reduced effort by people when they are

not individually accountable for their work.

Social facilitation: People increasing their efforts or productivity in the

presence of others.

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 Tuckman’s Stages of Group Development

• Forming: Characterized by polite conversation, the gathering of

superficial information about fellow members, and low trust.
• Storming: Marked by intragroup conflict, heightened emotional levels,
and status differentiation as remaining contenders struggle to build
alliances and fulfill the group’s leadership role.
• Norming: Characterized by the clear emergence of a leader and the
development of group norms and cohesiveness.
• Performing: Marked by group members that play functional,
interdependent roles that are focused on the performance of group
tasks.

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 Gersick’s Punctuated Equilibrium Model

Teams do not necessarily jump right in and get to work.

• Spend the initial months trying out various ideas and strategies.
• Experience the equivalent of a midlife crisis midway into the project.
• There is a flurry of activity and a reexamination of the strategy to see if it
will allow them to complete their work.

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 Group Roles

Sets of expected behaviors associated with particular jobs or positions.

Can be categorized in terms of task and relationship functions.

• Task role: Deals with getting a task done.
• Relationship role: Deals with supporting relationships within a work
group.

Problems that can occur with group roles and impede group
performance.
• Dysfunctional roles.
• Role conflict.
• Role ambiguity.

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 Role Conflict

Receiving contradictory messages about expected behavior.

Ways in which role conflict can occur.

• Intrasender role conflict: Same person sends mixed signals.
• Intersender role conflict: Receiving inconsistent signals from several
others about expected behavior.
• Interrole conflict: Inability to perform one’s roles as well as one
would like.
• Person–role conflict: Violation of a person’s values by role
expectations.

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 Group Norms 1

Norms: Informal rules groups adopt to regulate and regularize group

members’ behavior.
• More likely to be seen as important and apt to be enforced if they:

• Facilitate group survival.

• Simplify, or make more predictable, what behavior is expected of group

members.

• Help the group avoid embarrassing interpersonal problems.

• Express the central values of the group and clarify what is distinctive about
the group’s identity.

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 Group Norms 2

Hackman recommends that a leader has a responsibility to focus the

team outwardly to enhance performance.
• Group members should actively scan the environment for
opportunities that would require a change in operating strategy to
capitalize upon them.
• Teams should identify the few behaviors that team members must
always do and those they should never do to conform to the
organization’s objectives.

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 Group Cohesion 1

Sum of the forces that attract members to a group, provide resistance to

leaving it, and motivate them to be active in it.
• Highly cohesive groups interact with and influence each other more
than less cohesive groups do.
• Have lower absenteeism and lower turnover, which can contribute to higher
group performance.

• Greater cohesiveness does not always lead to higher performance.

• May sometimes develop goals contrary to the larger organization’s goals.

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 Group Cohesion 2

Disadvantages of highly cohesive groups.

• Overbounding: Tendency to erect what amount to fences or
boundaries between themselves and others.
• Groupthink: People in highly cohesive groups often become more
concerned with striving for unanimity than objectively appraising
different courses of action.
• Ollieism: Occurs when illegal actions are taken by overly zealous and
loyal subordinates who believe that what they are doing will please
their leaders.

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 Key Characteristics of Effective Teams 1

Have a clear mission and high performance standards.

Leaders often evaluate equipment, training facilities and opportunities,

and outside resources available to help the team.
• Spend a considerable amount of time assessing the technical skills of
team members.
• Work to secure the resources and equipment necessary for team
effectiveness.
• Spend time planning and organizing in order to make optimal use of
available resources.

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 Key Characteristics of Effective Teams 2

Teams have high levels of communication, which:

• Help team members stay focused on the mission and take better
advantage of the skills, knowledge, and resources available to the
team.
• Help minimize interpersonal conflicts.

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 Figure 12.1: Organizational Shells

Access the text alternative for slide images.

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 Team Leadership Model, or TLM

Identifies what a team needs to be effective.

• Points the leader either toward the roadblocks that are hindering the
team or toward ways to make the team even more effective than it
already is.

Resembles a systems theory approach.

• Inputs are at the base.
• Processes or throughputs are in the center.
• Outputs are at the top.

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 Figure 12.2: An Iceberg Metaphor for Systems Theory
Applied to Teams

Source: 2005 Robert C. Ginnett, PhD. All rights reserved.

Access the text alternative for slide images.

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 Figure 12.3: Basic TLM Outputs: Outcomes of High-
Performance Teams

Source: 2005 Robert C. Ginnett, PhD. All rights reserved.

Access the text alternative for slide images.

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 Figure 12.4: TLM Process Variables: Diagnose the Team
Using the Process Variables

Source: © 2005 Robert C. Ginnett, PhD. All rights reserved.

Access the text alternative for slide images.

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 Leadership Prescriptions of the Model

Team should be built like a house or an automobile.

• Start with a concept.
• Create a design.
• Engineer it to do what one wants it to do.
• Manufacture it to meet those specifications.

Critical functions for team leadership.

• Dream: A team needs to have clear vision.
• Design: Needs to be done before the start of a project or task.
• Development: Ongoing work done with the team at the process level
to continue to find ways to improve an already well-designed team.

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 Diagnosis and Leverage Points

A leader needs to diagnose the problems behind a poorly performing

team by using the TLM model.
• Diagnose the input variables at the individual, team, and
organizational levels that most impact the process variable.
• Using instruments such as the Campbell Interest and Skills Survey to
select personnel may help a team’s effort level from an individual
perspective.

• Examining the reward system that may be impacting a team helps at the
organizational level.

• Poorly designed tasks are hypothesized to be unmotivating.

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 Concluding Thoughts about the TLM

Even if a team is well designed, has superior organizational systems, and

has access to superior-quality ongoing development, without adequate
material resources, it is not likely to do well on the output level.

Leaders can influence team effectiveness by:

• Ensuring the team has a clear sense of purpose and performance

expectations.
• Designing or redesigning input stage variables at the individual,
organizational, and team design levels.
• Improving team performance through ongoing coaching at

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 Figure 12.7: Factors from the Team Leadership Model
and the Interactional Framework

Access the text alternative for slide images.

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 Virtual Teams 1

Also known as geographically dispersed teams, or GDT’s.

According to researchers, areas that must change for global teams to

work are:

• Senior management leadership.

• Innovative use of communication technology.
• Adoption of an organization design that enhances global operations.
• Prevalence of trust among team members.
• Ability to capture the strengths of diverse cultures, languages, and
people.

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 Virtual Teams 2

Leaders of virtual teams need to bear in mind the following research

conclusions:

• Distance between members is multidimensional.

• Impact of distances on performance is not directly proportional to
objective measures of distance.
• Differences in the effects that distance seems to have is due at least
partially to the following intervening variables:

• Integrating practices within a virtual team.

• Integrating practices between a virtual team and its larger host

organization.

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 On the Horizon

Team leadership appears to be the most studied and applied category of

research.

Clusters: Intact teams that are self-managed.

• Formed outside a company context, but are hired and paid by
companies as a unit, as a permanent part of the company.
• Manage, govern, and develop themselves.
• Define their own working practices and tools and share out
remuneration.

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 Summary

Group perspective shows that followers’ behaviors can be the result of

factors somewhat independent of their individual characteristics.

Leaders should use a team perspective for understanding follower

behavior and group performance.

The Team Leadership Model suggests that team effectiveness can be

best understood in terms of inputs, processes, and outcomes.
• By identifying certain process problems in teams, leaders can use the
model to diagnose appropriate leverage points for action.

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