Applying Theory to Reality - Essay Example on Team Performance

A team is a group of people who work together to accomplish a common task. Each member of a group has a unique mandate when achieved it enables the group to meet its goals. For this reason, a team should have a vision and mission to govern its activities. In my first year in college, we were placed into groups of six members to work on a class project. We were also asked to select two official one to serve as a secretary while the other to be the team leader. My group members selected me to be their leader, I tried to resist the appointment but they fluttered me with having leadership qualities, and since they had shown trust in my perceived skills I accepted to offer the guidance. We were able to accomplish a task, not because of my skills for leading but for the qualities each member possessed and which was essential to the teamwork. The qualities include trust, conflict solving, and commitment to the action plan, accountability, and collaboration.

Trust is developed when each team member shows competency in their unique skills and readily uses it whenever required by the team (Hooper, 2010). This mean that groups member have to be willing to volunteer in their special capacity and not leave the group to get stuck in areas a member can help. Trust is earned as a result of performing respective roles within the team that give the group a competitive advantage for instance in a competition. In this context, the groups trusted that I was going to streamline the group activities which they supported me to achieve.

Teams encounter different ideas from various members but which have to be filtered and only the best be noted (Hooper, 2010). This situation may lead to vigorous arguments which may result in a conflict which is normal. However, the resilient of a group to have a constructive and fruitful interaction will depend on their conflict resolution skills. As a group leader, I was keen to detect an atmosphere of conflict and mitigate before the arguments affected the team activities.

The commitment of the team members to action plan is the most vital part of a group meeting its goals (Hooper, 2010). For instance, each team member was given a specific role to play away from the group and present it during the group meeting when each part of the assignment was joined it made a whole. This meant that those parts which had errors had to be rectified by the team before approving all work done by the rest of the team. All member was committed to a common goal which was achieved.

Accountability is an aspect that holds member responsible for playing their part knowing that their failure is a failure for the whole team (Hooper, 2010). Therefore, when a member fails to do their part the rest of the member had correct the mistake and held that member is accountable. In my team, all member help this value and ensure that they support each other on hard tasks to ensure the team met its goals.

Collaboration among team member facilitates ongoing consultation to ensure the plans flow as arranged (Hooper, 2010). This means that action of one member affects the rest of the group. My team members used to consult actively for instance, on the pre-outcome results to be able to integrate their work which should appear as one. This improved the success rate of the team.

In conclusion, my team was able to succeed due to excellent team skills and not my leadership. The skills included, include trust, conflict solving, and commitment to the action plan, accountability, and collaboration.

Reference

Hooper, D. (2010). The five characteristics of a highly functional team. Houston Home Journal.