High Performance

Teams – Part 1Module 5 – Learner Guide

You could have the most intellectually minded, motivated and driven individuals on your Team, yet the Team could fail to perform as you would expect. Why? A number of reasons, typically stemming from how the team is being

led. Look to yourself as a leader, and role model the behaviour you expect to see in your team. Recognise

where your team is at in the team lifecycle, understand your team member’s skills and weaknesses, and be there

to coach them to perform to their best.

What makes a High Performance Team?

End Point of Assessment - High Performance Teams

The assessment of the High Performance Teams module will take the form of a professional discussion underpinned by a portfolio of evidence.

Criteria for success

At End Point Assessment you should be able to confidently;

Evaluate recommended practices and their benefits and drawbacks and deploy them in their approach to team building and team management .

Apprenticeship Standards MetKnowledge Understand people and team management models, including team

dynamics and motivation techniques.

Understand learning styles, feedback mechanisms and how to use

emotional intelligence.

Skills

Behaviours

Able to build a high-performing team by supporting and developing

individuals and motivating them to achieve.

Able to set operational and personal goals and objectives and monitor

progress, providing clear guidance and feedback.

Building trust with and across the team, using effective negotiation and

influencing skills, and managing any conflicts.

Able to input to discussions and provide feedback (to team and more

widely) and identify and share good practice across teams.

Use active listening and provision of constructive feedback.

Inclusive – Open, approachable, authentic and able to build trust with

others

Professionalism – Sets an example and is fair, consistent and impartial

ContentsChapter 1. Further Leadership

Chapter 2. Forming a High Performance Team

Chapter 3. Dysfunctions of a Team

Chapter 4. Emotional Intelligence

Chapter 1Further Leadership

The concept of transformational leadership started with James V. Downton in 1973 and was expanded by James Burns in 1978. In 1985, researcher Bernard M. Bass

further expanded the concept to include ways for measuring the success of transformational leadership.

Transformational leadership is a leadership style in which leaders encourage, inspire and motivate employees to innovate and create change that will help grow and shape the future success of the company. This is accomplished by setting an

example at the executive level through a strong sense of corporate culture, employee ownership and independence in the workplace.

Transformational leaders inspire and motivate their workforce without micromanaging — they trust trained employees to take authority over decisions in

their assigned jobs. It’s a management style that’s designed to give employees more room to be creative, look to the future and find new solutions to old

problems.

Transformational Leadership

According to Bass, these are the hallmarks of a transformational leader that sets them apart from other leadership styles. A transformational leader is someone who:

• Encourages the motivation and positive development of followers

• Exemplifies moral standards within the organization and encourages the same of others

• Fosters an ethical work environment with clear values, priorities and standards.

• Builds company culture by encouraging employees to move from an attitude of self-interest to a mindset where they are working for the common good

• Holds an emphasis on authenticity, cooperation and open communication

• Provides coaching and mentoring but allowing employees to make decisions and take ownership of tasks

Transactional leadership is the opposite of transformational leadership and relies on motivating employees through rewards and punishments that are dependent

on performance of specific tasks. It focuses on supervision, organization and group performance.

Transactional leaders let the group know exactly what is expected, clearly articulate the rewards of performing well, explain the consequences of failure, and

give constructive feedback designed to keep workers on task and help them improve their performance.

Research has found that transactional leadership is most effective when problems are simple and clearly defined, and during a crisis when the focus needs to be on

accomplishing certain definite tasks. However, it does not encourage workers to be creative or find new solutions to problems.

Transactional leadership has advantages in situations where the aim is to follow existing current rules and expectations but in other situations it may prevent

leaders and followers from reaching their potential.

Transactional Leadership

The concept of transactional leadership started with Max Weber and was further explored by Bernard M. Bass in the early 1980s. The model takes a behavioural approach to leadership and posits that behaviour can be modified through a system of rewards and punishments.

The model, therefore, views the relationship between managers and subordinates as an exchange: perform well and receive a reward; perform poorly and be punished in some way.

There are four main assumptions in transactional leadership:

1. People perform best when the chain of command is definite and clear

2. Rewards and punishments motivate workers

3. Obeying the instructions and commands of the leader is the primary goal of the followers

4. Subordinates need to be carefully monitored to ensure that expectations are met.

Transactional leaders do not act as catalysts for growth and change. Instead, they focus on keeping the status quo and improving performance and output.

So, there is definitely a place for transactional leadership within the workplace, but it is about you as a leader recognising the style you need to adopt, at the right time.

Having a handrail to help you as a leader is invaluable. Adair’s Action Centred Leadership can act as that handrail.

As a team leader, you likely have multiple tasks and competing demands. Sometimes the task, problem or person that "shouts loudest" grabs your

attention, while other important areas are pushed back or ignored.

By taking a step back to look at the bigger picture and your full range of responsibilities as a leader, you can consider the action you need to take that will

have the biggest impact when it comes to achieving the team’s goals.

The Action Centred Leadership model can make this difficult juggling act a little easier. It identifies three key areas that leaders need to focus on, and offers a

framework for keeping them in balance.

Think carefully about the actions you take as a leader, and the extent to which each of these activities applies to the three key areas: task, team and individual.

You can visualize this by drawing your own three circles diagram. Draw each circle in proportion to the amount of attention that you give to each area.

Action Centred Leadership

Team: Actions at the group level to build an effective team and group cohesion

Task: Actions taken to achieve a goal

Individual: Actions to manage and develop individual team members

Chapter 2Forming a High

Performance Team

It’s highly unlikely that a new team will come together and immediately start performing exceptionally well. It takes time to bond, understand how each

member works, and become that team. Bruce Tuckman’s model describes the stages a team goes through to become a high performing team.

Teams move through these stages, and the process is fluid, meaning you can go backwards again into previous stages when the circumstances change, such as

objectives, or adding a new team member.

Your role as a leader is to recognise what stage your team is in and adjust your leadership style as required to get the most out of your team.

Tuckman’s 4 Stages of Team Development

The Forming stage is when a team comes together, or new members join, and everyone needs to know, for example, the purpose of the team, what needs to be achieved, what their specific roles and responsibilities are, how are resources allocated, or who other members are and their roles.

The Storming stage is when members understand what they need to do and performance improves, at first. However, also at this stage difficulties and conflict start to emerge, silos form, ways of working are questioned, and the team leader is very often challenged. When this happens, team performance drops and only starts to rise again once the leader manages the various undercurrents effectively.

The Norming stage is when many of the difficulties of the Storming stage have been resolved either completely or to the extent where they are not holding the team development back. Performance starts to improve again as agreement and consensus start to develop more rapidly and the team start to respond more positively to the leader. Stronger interpersonal relationships start to form along with patterns of interaction and team social activities can become established.

The Performing stage is when everything comes together to make a high performing team and the team know where they are going, why, and how to get there. The team becomes less dependent on the leader and become more self-directing and self-maintaining. Individual and team performance reach their highest points and working relationships are at their strongest.

The term 'Team Role' refers to one of nine clusters of behavioural attributes, identified by Dr Meredith Belbin's research at Henley, as being effective in order to

facilitate team progress.

The research indicated that the most successful teams were made up of a diverse mix of behaviours. Each team needs access to each of the nine Belbin Team Role

behaviours to become a high-performing team.

Interestingly, Belbin’s research found that teams with members who met the criteria needed to be in the team and who, collectively, could perform whichever roles were needed at the time, always outperformed those teams composed of

experts in the criteria necessary but who, collectively, could not perform all of the roles when needed.

However, this doesn't mean that every team requires nine people. Most people will have two or three Belbin Team Roles that they are most comfortable with, and this can change over time. Each Belbin Team Role has strengths and weaknesses,

and each role has equal importance.

It's not always necessary to have all Team Roles working simultaneously. It is important to look first at the team objectives, and then work out which tasks need to be undertaken. Once this has been done, discussions can take place regarding

how and when each Belbin Team Role behaviour should be utilised.

Belbin’s Team Roles

Chapter 3Dysfunctions of a Team

By identifying the root causes of poor teamwork, leaders can develop specific strategies for overcoming each of them. By doing this, team members will become more comfortable with one another, be willing to engage in constructive discussions, achieve clarity and buy-in around team priorities, hold one another to high standards, and focus on team results instead of individual ambition.

DYSFUNCTION #1: ABSENCE OF TRUST

The fear of being vulnerable prevents team members from building trust with each other.

DYSFUNCTION #2: FEAR OF CONFLICT

The desire to preserve artificial harmony stifles productive ideological conflict within the team.

DYSFUNCTION #3: LACK OF COMMITMENT

The lack of clarity and/or buy-in prevents team members from making decisions they stick to.

DYSFUNCTION #4: AVOIDANCE OF ACCOUNTABILITY

The need to avoid interpersonal discomfort prevents team members from holding each other accountable for their behaviours and performance.

DYSFUNCTION #5: INATTENTION TO RESULTS

The pursuit of individual goals and personal status erodes the team's focus on collective success.

Lencioni’s 5 Dysfunctions of a Team

Chapter 4Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence (otherwise known as emotional quotient or EQ) is most often described as the ability to perceive, use, understand and manage emotions. When you’re able to use emotional information to direct thinking and behaviours

you are better able to build rapport, trust, and therefore become a more influential leader.

Although there are various EI models, Daniel Goleman’s five components has become one of the most popular theories:

Internal EI: self-awareness; self-regulation; motivation;

External EI: empathy; social skills

Emotional Intelligence

Self-awareness - The ability to recognise and understand personal moods and emotions and drives, as well as their effect on others. Hallmarks* of self-awareness include self-confidence, realistic self-assessment, and a self-

deprecating sense of humour. Self-awareness depend on one's ability to monitor one's own emotion state and to correctly identify and name one's emotions.

[*A Hallmark is a sure sign. For instance, a person must have self-awareness in order to have a realistic self-assessment. Therefore, realistic self-assessment is a hallmark a person has good self-awareness.]

Self-regulation - The ability to control or redirect disruptive impulses and moods, and the propensity to suspend judgment and to think before acting. Hallmarks include trustworthiness and integrity; comfort with ambiguity; and

openness to change.

Social skills. Proficiency in managing relationships and building networks, and an ability to find common ground and build rapport. Hallmarks of social skills include effectiveness in leading change, persuasiveness, and

expertise building and leading teams.

People whose self-awareness is not well developed may struggle to understand and control their emotions. They might lash out reactively without understanding what they are really feeling or why they are so upset.

A person whose self-regulation is not well developed might also have unexpected emotional outbursts that seem overblown and uncontrollable.

In order to be a strong, compassionate and controlled leader, think how you can work on yourself to become more emotionally intelligent.

Internal motivation. A passion to work for internal reasons that go beyond money and status -which

are external rewards, - such as an inner vision of what is important in life, a joy in doing something, curiosity in learning, a flow that comes with being immersed in an activity. A propensity to pursue goals with energy and

persistence. Hallmarks include a strong drive to achieve, optimism even in the face of failure, and

organisational commitment.

Empathy. The ability to understand the emotional makeup of other people. A skill in treating people according to

their emotional reactions. Hallmarks include expertise in building and retaining talent, cross-cultural sensitivity, and

service to clients and customers. (In an educational context, empathy is often thought to include, or lead to,

sympathy, which implies concern, or care or a wish to soften negative emotions or experiences in others.) It is

important to note that empathy does not necessarily imply compassion. Empathy can be 'used' for

compassionate or cruel behaviour. Serial killers who marry and kill many partners in a row tend to have great

emphatic skills!