Team Coordination and Leadership
Although one or more individuals may have a formal designation as a group
leader, the effective use of resources means that all members need to share
responsibility for informal and formal leadership. Because all team members
have an investment in seeing the team achieve its goals and objectives, each
member has the responsibility to help the team progress.
The functions of leadership are: (Sampson)
- Helping the team decide on its purpose and goals.
- Helping the team focus on its own process of work together so that it may
become more effective rather than becoming trapped by faculty problem solving
and decision making.
- Helping the team become aware of its own resources and how best to use them.
- Helping the team evaluate its progress and development.
- Helping the team to be open to new and different ideas without becoming
ummobilized by conflict.
- Helping the team learn from its failures and frustrations as well as from
its success.
Shifting Leadership Roles on Teams
Historically, physicians have had the role of team leader in health care settings
because of
various factors, including culture, sex, and power; however, an emerging pattern
in many
primary care teams demands equal participation and responsibility from all team
members with
shifting leadership determined by the nature of the problem to be solved. Even
when one team
member, often a physician, has administrative authority over others (e.g., as
supervisor),
members of an interdisciplinary team treat one another as colleagues rather
than as a single
leader and subordinates. Emphasis by the team on geriatric health care rather
than the more
narrow focus of medical care broadens the roles and responsibilities of non-physician
care
providers. For example, when a patient’s primary problems are due to an
abusive and neglectful
family situation, the social worker may assume the primary leadership role in
helping the team
take the allowable actions to improve the patient’s situation.
What Behaviors Do Leaders Exhibit on Teams?
There are different types of key leadership behaviors exhibited by members of
a team. Ducanis
and Golin (1978) make the distinction between task-oriented and socioemotional
leadership.
The task leader assumes those functions of coordination and planning necessary
for task
performance, while the socioemotional leader is responsible for team maintenance
activities,
often serving as a mediator and calming force for the group.
Drinka believes that leadership, more than anything else, is about noticing
and solving problems
and getting others to follow through or to recognize a leader's direction in
solving problems.
Reflecting on 10 years of experience with teams, including studies on leadership
in geriatric
interdisciplinary health care teams, Drinka suggests three kinds of tasks: socioemotional,
patient
care, and building and maintaining. The more effectively and consistently team
members
perform all three types of tasks, the more they are seen as strong leaders on
the
interdisciplinary team, whether they were informal or formal leaders (Drinka,
personal
communication, March 2000.)
See the followin pdf for a detailed listing of the responsibilities team leaders
should assume. Functional
Roles of Teams