Are you a Team Player?: Internet Exercise

Teamwork and Leadership
Student’s Name
Institution
Course
Date

Abstract
The nature of organizations makes it necessary for adoption of leadership strategies that enable firms to achieve their objectives. Various organizations offer team managing training to assist groups to adopt the appropriate skills. The essay seeks to evaluate the article in Fast Company to find out more about teamwork. There are various types of management styles in an organization. They vary from organization to organization based on the culture, individuals and communication methodology adopted in the organization. Team-based organization structure is the latest form of organization structure. There are emerging trends fuelled by information age where there is an emergence of self-managed teams and virtual teams in team-based organizations.
Useful Insights from the Fast Company
Teamwork and good leadership are essential to the success of an organization. Teamwork allows group members to work together to achieve their objective. A team requires leadership that guides its activities. Therefore, it is important to learn and adopt measures that improve teamwork and leadership.
Leading from the front
As a good leader, it’s important to set a good example for members of your team, which involves laying out the purpose of the group, rules of the group, and delegation of various activities in the group geared to make the team achieve a common goal. A good leader should be confident enough to critique team members if they do not conform to the team’s goals (Leonhardt, 2018).

Being consistent in both your actions and words would make sure team members know what you believe in.
Match Individuals with Right Tasks
Talented leaders should be good at the selection the right individuals for the right task and inspire them to put away selfish agenda and focus on the aims and vision of the whole group. This ensures every team member is highly focused and motivated towards achieving set targets.
Mentoring
It’s important to have someone successful to look up to for guidance. The person should be independent of the outcome of your work. The mentor would act as a mediator in dissenting voices in the group in case of misunderstandings. A mentor offers an alternative voice to the normal activities of the group thus gives a point of view that was previously not seen.
Concerns about Today’s Rush to Adopt Team-Based Organizations
A team-based organization is a form of organizational structure that groups individuals on same employment level into teams that perform a particular job function. Team-based structure may have various challenges such as;-
Individual interests may sabotage team spirit whereby the competitive instincts kick in within the team members rather than the rival team. This may result in conflicts within the group thus diminishing the capability of the team to perform their tasks efficiently.
Ambitious people are naturally competitive and inject winning mentality into the group. The drawback is that they may become obsessed by the targets and accomplishments neglecting team morale. They may also get frustrated easily if a thing doesn’t go to plan and blame others thus affecting output. Finally, lack of focus on individual performances would lead to a difficulty to low staff morale. Some staff may hide behind the efforts of others thus may result in an unbalanced workforce.
Pros and Cons of Virtual and Self-Managed Teams
A Virtual team refers to a group of employees working together from different geographical points and relay information via technology such as email, fax, and audio or video conferencing. Self-managed team members plan and execute their activities with reduced or no supervision at all
The benefits include lower transportation cost since individuals do not have to commute from one station to another, time and money are significantly saved. Secondly, conveyance of information interchange between the employees is fast thus time-saving. Additionally, reduced expenses such as rents are significantly reduced by this form of management thus increasing the profits of an organization. Teams are committed to the course and admit responsibility since failures emanate from individual effort.
Some of the disadvantages of such a setup include a lack of direct control tool resulting in mistrust in members of the team. Secondly, establishing a suitable leadership structure is challenging thus coordination may be a problem. Projects that may require on-site controls may not complete satisfactorily to management standards. Finally, doing follow-ups in status of a particular activity may pause a challenge and may result in unnecessary delays in finishing a group project
References
Leonhardt, T. (2018). The Secret To Teamwork Isn’t Managing Personalities. Fast Company. Retrieved 24 February 2018, from https://www.fastcompany.com/40514484/the-secret-to-teamwork-isnt-managing-personalities