Leadership and Group Collaboration

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Capella University

Selected Leader Analysis

Rajini (2013) defines leadership as the process of enlisting the support and aid of others towards realizing a common goal. The team, in this case, comprises of interdisciplinary professionals with different levels of work experience. Therefore, success will be determined by how well the leader can foster collaboration and teamwork among team members.

I will apply Nelson Mandelas transformational leadership approach to lead and communicate with team members in the committee. The transformational approach is a style of leadership where the leader engages by creating a connection with their followers and encouraging them to look beyond their self-interests to realize a common goal (Lee, 2014). The transformational leader raises high levels of morality and motivation in the followers, while encouraging them to develop their skills to accomplish their best potential (Lee, 2014).

Since the committee is made up of professionals drawn from different disciplines, it may not be appropriate for the leader to adopt a directing approach that involves setting rigid rules and giving orders for the team members to follow. Further, not all members of the committee may be focused on making the best decisions for the company as some are likely to maintain membership for their self-interests, such as for compensation. Thus, a leadership approach that focuses on rewards and punishments may not adequately bring out the best potential of the committee members. A more beneficial approach would be one that set outs a compelling common vision and then arouses and motivates the team members to transcend their self-interests and pursue the common vision (Lee, 2014). This is why the transformational style was selected over the classical leadership approaches.

One of the primary advantages of transformational leadership is that it emphasizes the idea of a common vision, which serves as the focal point that perpetuates the teams collective interests above self-interests (Lee, 2014). The common vision instils a sense of ownership or identity in the team members, and pushes them to fit into the organization in general as they pursue the vision (Lee, 2014). Lee (2014) points out that this would be a crucial aspect in a team that brings together people from diverse professional backgrounds as it enables them to work together productively towards realizing the common vision. The idea of the common vision minimizes the risk of wrangles that would commonly arise in diverse teams.

Another element that makes transformational leadership the most relevant in this scenario is its focus on change. The leader leads by transforming their followers and encouraging them to develop their skills so as to reach their highest potential (Lee, 2014). The committee is tasked with offering guidance to the employees on how to manage diversity. To effectively discharge this mandate, the committee members need to first modify their own attitudes towards diversity. Transformational leadership provides the most appropriate approach for providing this change. It focuses on the individual, helps the leader evaluate individual awareness of problems that may inhibit the realization of the common vision, and working together with the individual to attain higher levels of understanding and motivation (Lee, 2014). The end-result of transformational leadership is that committee members will be more intellectually sensitive to diversity issues, more motivated, and with sufficient charisma to offer guidance on diversity-management to the staff.

The greatest demerit of transformational leadership in the current setting is that the rest of the team may consider it unidirectional given that the influence flows from the leader to the followers (Rajini, 2013). In a setting where team members are all professionals in their various fields, transformational leadership may be interpreted as an attempt by the leader to put themselves above the needs of followers by pushing them to pursue the common vision (Lee, 2014). This is especially so if the team members do not share in or own the common vision (Lee, 2014). To minimize this risk and ensure that the adopted leadership approach realizes its full potential, I will ensure that the leadership is participative and democratic as suggested by Lee (2014). The specific strategies that I will use are...

…anothers back is prohibited. Such rules that bind all members would help provide protection to members and enhance open communication and exchange of ideas without fear of being judged.

To ensure inclusivity, one of the primary strategies that I would use is to ensure that all team members are included in decision making through a flat hierarchical structure. A flat structure spreads the decision-making power to a larger group of people as opposed to an individual. Through a flat structure, the team members will be involved in crafting the common vision, in delineating their specific roles in the committee, and in designing the activities to be undertaken to achieve the common goal. If the team leader needs to make a decision, they will post their concern on the shared platforms and allow all members to engage and deliberate on the same until a decision that meets the needs of all parties is reached (Turner & Baler, 2020). The flat structures would help reduce power differences among team members and create a sense of equality that would foster collaboration. In addition, I will use simple team building activities such as having lunch or coffee together once in a while to ehance team cohesion and inclusivity.

The final principle that I would use to foster collaboration is accountability. According to Oliver et al. (2018), accountability is crucial in multidisciplinary teams as it ensures that team members can be held accountable for the decisions and actions they take. Ensuring transparency of members tasks is one way to ensure that team members act with integrity and their decisions are kept in check (Oliver et al., 2018). Another way to enhance accountability is by drafting a team agreement contract, where members pledge their loyalty to serve the teams best interests and declare that they take responsibility for their decisions (Turner & Baler, 2020). Accountability fosters collaboration as it provides a means for members to question and support each other towards realizing the shared vision.

I believe that the outlined strategies would be beneficial in fostering effective collaboration among…