Personal Leadership in Practicing Effective Team Dynamics Learning Plan

Personal Leadership Analysis & Learning Plan
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Personal Leadership Analysis & Learning Plan
My personal leadership development goal is team dynamics: I hope to acquire the leadership capacity to build a team whose members trust each other sufficiently to engage in conflict over ideas, commit to team decisions and actions, and hold each other accountable so that they stay focused on team's collaborative outcomes. Although team dynamics is an immeasurable and abstract concept, it generally refers to the behavioral relationships between the various members of a team (Tohidi, 2011). These psychological forces that influence a team's performance and behavior can either result in success or failure depending on the team leader's ability to influence interactions between team members positively. Positive team dynamics are characterized by mutual understanding and self-corrective behavior among team members (Mind Tools, 2019). Teams with positive dynamics among members confront controversial topics because they understand that this is critical to success. They tap into the opinions and viewpoints of everyone, have constructive and meaningful dialogue, and discourage all forms of back-channel politics or personal attacks.
On the other hand, negative team dynamics are characterized by team members who focus on their individual goals, consistently underperform, ignore missed deadlines or commitments, shift responsibility to their leaders as the primary source of discipline, and foster as well as involuntarily reward mediocrity. They also tend to be unsure of the direction or priorities of the groups, revisit deliberations or resolutions repeatedly, and miss opportunities because of their indecisiveness and anxiety. Because team members have little trust, meaningful conversations are often rare while personal attacks and backstabbing are frequent (Greer et al., 2017). Members hide their shortcomings and errors by managing their behaviors, hesitate to give their opinions or offer help, and are quick to form judgments about others without exercising patience or conducting due diligence. However, ensuring positive team dynamics is challenging given the multifaceted nature of member interactions, which are generally influenced by personal behaviors, team leadership, individual actions, relationships existing within the team, and the nature of the work. I wish to acquire the capacity to navigate these myriad factors while avoiding conflicts, increasing productivity, heightening motivation levels, and drawing out the best from every team member.
Positive team dynamics is important to a leader's effectiveness in general because it allows him or her to foster psychological safety among group members. No one has all the answers at any time, and therefore all team members must feel safe enough to make their contributions or point out contrary observations without risking embarrassment (Duhigg, 2016). A leader who can cultivate psychological safety among his or her team members will always have subordinates who are comfortable asking questions, giving their opinions, and even admitting mistakes, characteristics that are very critical to team performance and accountability. At the same time, positive team dynamics increase team members' dependability in that everybody can be counted upon to carry out their assigned roles effectively and promptly. Constructive team member relationships often result in group members who are self-starting and can complete their work well and on time without direct supervision (Kozlowski & Ilgen, 2006). Positive team dynamics improve the leader's ability to create structure and clarity among subordinates: teamwork becomes less of a guessing game as everyone understands their place, expectations, and roles.
Constructive psychological forces acting among team dynamics helps create a sense of purpose: when everyone feels included and accepted for who they are, work becomes meaningful, and everyone is committed to achieving required results. Besides, positive team dynamics allow the leader to foster full transparency about how the team's project contributes to the organization's overall goals. When people are free with one another, there is less mystery about how the team's work connects to the company's overarching objectives, thereby adding a sense of purpose and commitment to the undertaking (Saadi et al., 2020). On the whole, positive team dynamics enhance a leader's effectiveness by eliminating authority and conformance, blocking behaviors, free riding, and evaluation apprehension. Effective group dynamics means that group members are less inclined to defer to authority or agree to everything he or she says and more motivated to offer innovative ideas and opinions. Rather than group thinking, individual team members engage in critical thinking because they feel comfortable enough to make their contributions known, however diverse or contrary they are (Nini, 2019). Tied to this point is that positive dynamics prevent evaluation apprehension among team members: team members make their contributions unreservedly because there are no feelings of judgment or embarrassment.
Moreover, positive group dynamics suppresses blocking behaviors among group members, including withdrawing, aggressiveness, recognition-seeking, and even facetiousness, which can impede group progress or flow of information. When everyone is tasked with coming up with solutions, there is less free-riding, and every team member pulls their weight towards achieving set objectives (Warner et al., 2012). Positive team dynamics means that group leaders can address problems promptly: since everyone feels safe enough to bring up difficult topics, team members can hold each other accountable. Even without the leader present, group members can hold each other to account and correct inappropriate behaviors immediately they appear. Conflicts occur regularly but healthily: open discussion of the conflict among team members means that there is no harboring of secret resentment since resolutions to disagreements are quickly and openly sought (Gençer, 2019). At the same time, positive team dynamics means that the team has a charter and a strong focus critical to success. A leader who can cultivate effective team dynamics can also create an effective group charter where everyone has clearly defined roles, and everyone is motivated to address their duties and work together to achieve group goals. A clear team charter means that everyone understands the group's behavioral expectations and standards, and anyone can hold an underperforming team member to account (Klug & Bagrow, 2016). More importantly, positive team dynamics help create a supportive team culture where employees feel their well-being and career progression are supported. When diversity of thought is promoted, team members have better communication and trust since everyone feels included and an important part of the team.
I want to foster positive team dynamics where every member of the team feels comfortable enough to share their ideas and engage in constructive dialogue because being a leader is part of my career aspirations. My internship may require me to lead a team, say attaches, and therefore having the capacity to cultivate positive group dynamics is necessary. However experienced or talented individual team members are, without the right psychological forces in play, the team may not achieve the best possible results or success at all. I would not want to fail as a front-runner. Therefore one of the most important characteristics I want to cultivate as a leader is the ability to create positive dynamics where team members support and listen to one another, hold each other accountable, and seek diplomatic ways of resolving conflicts to accomplish set goals. Team dynamics is a critical determinant factor in the success of a team or its effectiveness, given the fact that it impacts most aspects of work performance, including productivity, effectiveness, and creativity. Besides, the ability to promote positive team dynamics will have a massive progressive influence on work output, engagement levels, job satisfaction rates, commitment to project undertaking, and the organization's overall bottom line.
One experience I will leverage as my practice field for developing positive dynamics as a leader is vo...