Leadership Impact on Team Dynamics

As a part of the Talent Management Program that I'm involved in, I was assigned to write a business proposal on how leadership can affect or have an impact on teams' performances and behaviors. I got to know that the key metric of success isn’t about making only money and how budgets are managed because this is a part of any manager job requirements. It is about creating, building and executing a succession and talent development plan that allows team members experience the satisfaction and excitement of accomplishing new things. Accordingly, leaders are accountable for providing this environment for their teams by being authentic, visible and clear with them.

Manager .. Leader, is there a real difference!!

Any organization is having a management team which is vital in directing the business and employees towards a specific purpose that would vary from one organization to another; but mainly the business success. Management is a way of controlling resources or people at a workforce, within a specific task or project to get things done properly and on time. Although management helps in planning and organizing to achieve a specific target, however; it’s not enough in our todays’ cooperation.

Besides management, employees need to be supported, developed, motivated, inspired and engaged. This is important as it will help drive individuals’ and teams’ performance and maximize their efficiencies.  This process is called leadership where it would lead to business excellence. As a result of combining both management and leadership, it will help in creating a positive organizational climate that promote inspiring, motivating individuals and teams to do their best to achieve organizational goals. It would also build loyalty and commitment towards organization success, its vision and mission.

Leadership Effect on Improving Team Dynamics

Being competent for a management position is not only about how great you are or how you perform. In parallel to that, it is about how could a manager courage his/her team to be successful and keep them on the right track. Leadership has a big effect on making teams performing more efficiently. This can be done by several ways that managers would implement to improve their team dynamics.

It all starts with leaders’ behavior where they should have strong Emotional Intelligence skills to understand themselves and their team better.  Creating and Maintaining a Positive Organizational Climate considered also as a part of improving team dynamics. Developing these two elements are critical in creating a very high influencing environment and exciting workplace that any team or employee would be proud of.

A.               Emotional Intelligence

“The capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, for managing emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships.”        Daniel Goleman, an author, psychologist, and science journalist

This is how EI is defined where Daniel Goleman conveys the importance of emotional intelligence, where understanding others and managing emotions will strengthen the relationship between leaders and their teams. It is also crucial that leaders will know themselves better to identify any blind spot that they don’t see from their perspective.

Leaders have the power to impact on their teams’ emotion positively or negatively. That’s why leaders should have self-awareness where blind spots could be identified and get managed. In addition, they should have the empathy and organizational awareness to inspire, influence, manage conflicts and get effective teamwork. To do this, they have to care and listen to their teams.

      1.                Why does Emotional Intelligence Matters?

EI is a very critical component in motivating and driving your team behavior in parallel to their performance. There are many elements that can bring up team morale and motivation to do their best and try to achieve beyond limits. Subsequently, it would lead to higher productivity rates, job satisfaction, commitment and loyalty.

Leaders should show and demonstrate passion, commitment and dedication so that everyone else would follow him. That means leaders should start with themselves to attract their team members. There are three elements that are essential to the team effectiveness:

• Trust among members
• Sense of Team Identity
• Sense of Team Efficacy

Research’s showed that these elements will lead to higher rates of cooperation and engagement. It will also make teams more creative when members collaborate unreservedly. They also stop holding back when there is mutual trust, rooted in emotionally intelligent interactions.

Additionally, Simon Sinek said in his TED talk on "How great leaders inspire actions" that leaders should communicate with WHY!! He said that trust and loyalty would be built between leaders and employees when they work under a common belief. He added that when leaders or organizations hire people who need a job, they will work just for their money, however; when leaders hire people who have the same beliefs, they will work for them with blood, sweat and tears. That’s why communicating with why means sharing your belief, in which if your team works for what they believe, they will be achieving more because they believe on what they are doing.

That’s why leaders should promote EI among their teams and build sense of belonging, trust and respect between team members where it raises engagement and collaboration. They will also have a feeling of being a part of something significant, which would lead to increase self-esteem that in turn increases performance and productivity.

      2.                “Attitude Reflects Leadership, Captain”

This what an American high school football player said to his captain in “Remember the Titans” movie, where his captain and colleagues were not taking care of him in the field because he is black and they are white.

Spreading racism and favor, being selfish and careless would lead in making your team selfish, disengaged and looking for their own successes instead of the team common success. This would create conflicts within the team where it needs to be eliminated by proper communication. Communicating with empathy is the way to eliminate conflicts and that would be achieved by:

• Avoiding judgments and trying to understand people perspectives
• Paying attention and listening carefully to identify your team feelings
• Communicating and showing your understanding

B.               Positive Organizational Climate

The environment that leaders create for their teams is contributing to business success and excellence. It relies on leaders’ behavior where teams would work beyond their job requirements.

      1.                The Happy Secret to Better Work

Shawn Achor said in his TED talk about "Happiness at work" that humans believe on “Work hard to be happy and satisfied”. However, it’s actually the opposite where happiness inspires us to be more productive.

He found that 75% job successes are predicted by optimism level, social support and ability to see the stress as a challenge instead of threat. He found also, after working with many companies, that they think working harder will make them successful and therefore happier. In fact, it is the whole way opposite, where humans’ brain work in the opposite order.

By raising a positive environment, people brains will experience the happiness advantage which means if your brain at positive, it will perform significantly better than being at negative. As a result, employees will perform better, their intelligence and creativity rises and energy level rises.

In addition, He found in his research that every business outcome improves by raising positivity and happiness among organizations environment. If the brain is in a positive outlook, people will be 31% more productive than being in a negative outlook and 37% better in sales.

Additionally, Hay Group found that leaders’ attitude and behavior can have a 70% positive impact on organizational climate. As a result of that, it would have an impact of 30% raise on business performance. This is an indication that there is a clear and strong relation between human motivation, organizational climate and business performance.

So, being in a negative workplace would impact teamwork commitment, loyalty, quality and productivity. That is why leaders should consider creating a positive working environment by knowing:

• How to manage their teams: This can be done by set clear exceptions, provide support for your team and recognize hard work.
• How to communicate and behave: This is a very critical element where communicating openly and frequently with showing respect to your team would help in eliminating negativity.
• The atmosphere they encourage: Leaders, who allows fun and celebrate differences, would win their team hearts. 

That's why leadership has a very important role in excelling any business where they have the power to impact their team performance positively or negatively. Leaders’ real customers are their teams where they should keep them satisfied and happy. It’s necessary to recognize people successes while also boosting feelings of inclusion to facilitate a collaborative and positive teamwork environment. Leaders are followed as they care about their teams, give them sense of belonging with sharing the same interests and beliefs.