Leadership, Communication Skills, and Managing Teams

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Leadership, Communication Skills, and Managing
Teams
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Communication Processes

• Purposes
• Major Concerns in Communication Process
• Giving Feedback
• Listening
• Improving Communications

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Purposes

• Knowledge and information exchange
• Persuading and influencing others
• Controlling and coordinating individual efforts
• Expressing feelings and emotions such as positive
  and negative moods, excitement, and anger
• Assessment of self getting feedback

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The Communication Process
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Major Concerns in the Communication Process

• Attracting Attention
• Comprehension and Understanding
• Getting others to accept communications as true
• Retention and Action

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Attracting Attention

• Amount of communication occurring, including
  noise
• Direction of information flow up, down, lateral
• Place in communication network
• Nature of message
• Medium

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Communication Networks
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Choosing the Right Medium

• Information richness (amount of information
  carried) versus the amount of time required to
  communicate
• Information richness versus the need for a paper
  trail
• Multiple media needed for very important
  information

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(No Transcript)
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Problems with Electronic Communication

• Groups that use electronic communication
  generally take longer than face to face groups to
  accomplish tasks
• Lack verbal and nonverbal cues that regulate
  group discussions and turn-taking
• Encourages feelings of anonymity and
  depersonalization
• Overload of messagestoo many
• Poor writing skills

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Appropriate Use of Electronic Mail

• Use e-mail to set up meetings, to summarize, or
  to follow up on information discussed
  face-to-face.
• Keep e-mail messages short and to-the-point.
• Use e-mail to prepare a group of people for a
  meeting by sending out material for review
• Use e-mail to transmit standard reports.
• Use appropriate subject headings on message and
  titling of documents.
• Make sure people know from whom the message is
  coming

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Inappropriate Use of Electronic Communication

• Dont use e-mail to discuss something with a
  colleague who sits across the aisle or down the
  hall from you.
• Dont use it in angercarefully think before you
  hit the send key
• Dont write anything in an e-mail you wouldnt
  want published in a newspaper.
• Remember that email on company computers is the
  property of the company and can be traced.

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Comprehension and Understanding

• Semantics jargon, unclear meanings of some
  words and symbols, nonverbal cues, cross-cultural
  issues

He does a complete 180, 24 - 7
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Comprehension and Understanding

• Receiver perceptions filling in gaps,
  simplifying information, preconceived beliefs,
  trustfulness

Is it my imagination, Doebler, or have all my
yes-men started saying yes, but . . .?
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Comprehension and Understanding

• Poor listening skills How to Improve?
• Paraphrase and ask questions
• Check own perceptions
• Describe rather than evaluate what sender is
  saying
• Notice all cues
• Do not talk while being spoken to
• Eliminate distractions

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Ten Keys to Effective Listening
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Ten Keys to Effective Listening
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Comprehension and Understanding

• Giving Feedback
• Be specific, not general
• Give when receiver is ready to receive it, but as
  soon as possible
• Check with receiver for understanding
• Do not give too much at one time
• Focus on behavior, not character flaws

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Getting Others to Accept Communications as True

• Credibility of sender
• Expertise, trustworthiness, and attractiveness
• Similarity of sender and receiver attitudes and
  beliefs
• More similar, the more acceptance
• Audience analysis is crucial

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Retention and Action

• Message presentation
• Logic vs. emotional appeals
• Drawing conclusions or not
• One- vs. two-sided arguments
• Primacy vs. recency effects
• Oral vs. written
• Single vs. repetition
• Reward system reward people for acting upon
  communication

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General Advice

• For sender
• Encourage two-way communication
• Choose appropriate media
• Be aware of language and meaning differences
• Maintain credibility
• Be sensitive to the receivers perspective
• For the receiver
• Develop good listening skills
• Be sensitive to senders perspective
• Provide feedback to sender on understanding and
  action

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Leading Teams

• What are the advantages and disadvantages you
  have experienced in working with teams?
• What skills do we need to lead teams more

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Stages of Team Development
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Major Tasks Facing a New Team

• Focusing on task, people, and relationship issues
• Establishing a positive climate for group work
  and build relationships among team members
• Working out methods for setting goals, solving
  problems, making decisions, ensuring
  follow-through, communication, and collaboration

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Task Issues

• What kind of work needs to be done?
• How much authority does the group have?
• What is the degree of interdependence in the
  group?
• Is there an objective right answer to the group
  task or is it more subjective?
• Are team members interests aligned or
  competitive?

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People Issues

• How many people should be on the team?
• Who is ideally suited to do the work?
• What technical, task-management, and
  interpersonal skills are needed?
• What types of diversity are needed for the team?

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Relationships

• How do we set the correct expectations for team
  members (i.e., socialization)?
• What roles and norms are important for successful
  team work?
• Is cohesion important?
• How do we deal with conflict among members?
• How is trust developed, threatened, and re-built
  among team members?

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Designing a New Team

• Step 1 Develop realistic priority levels for
  team work
• Step 2 Share expectations of group members
• Step 3 Clarify goals
• Step 4 Formulate operating guidelines

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How do we assess and reward the performance of
teams?

• Performance Criteria
• Team Productivity Measures
• Team Satisfaction
• Organizational Gains
• Individual Development and Learning

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What leadership lessons can we learn from Useems
article on trekking Mt. Everest?