Team Leader And Team Members example essay topic

Is there such a thing as a perfect team? Is there any team that does not have any obstacles or conflict to overcome? Obstacles like communication or confusion due to a lack of materials. Conflicts such as a difference in opinion or different priorities each member has could be something plaguing the group. Time management could also be something holding the group's progress up. There are a lot of things that can affect the group's progress to achieving their ultimate goal or project completion.

The important thing is that the project is completed and on time. In this paper we are going to discuss our adventures acting as a team as well as how all of these conflicts and obstacles arose and how we overcame each of them. The formation and assignment of roles and responsibilities was our first step. It was rather easy for us to become a, "so called" team because we were in the same time zone, except for one member, and we had to find a team as per our instructor. Then it was time to create the chain of command and form where our direction comes from and how we were going to function as a team.

The roles for us were simply a team leader and team members because we are made up of only 4 people that just seemed like the logical way to continue. We quickly nominated the most aggressive and outgoing person to be the leader and the role of members to the remaining three. We then come to a point of defining exactly what part these roles will play in our team. As team leader your responsibility is to be a mentor, motivator, monitor, judge, and boss. You delegate the work and see the project through to the end with or without your member's cooperation. As a team member you take your assignments and your input to the group so that the team is at its best at all times.

The members are the body of a team. They are what makes the ideas of the team come to life and be realized. We found that communication is the key to having a successful team. It is important to keep in contact with your teammates. Since we are in geographically different places our communication was restricted to only written communication and no verbal communication. We then had some confusion about the reference manuals that should have been received in the beginning of class.

These were important because we had assignments that had to be turned in but needed the books to complete them. The last portion of setting up our team was figuring out the times we would decide to meet and how we would use our time. Time management is very difficult when you factor in full time jobs, families, outside groups, and personal time. The conflicts or what we call, "Challenges" arise within the first few days. Our leader is very motivated but not completely clear about what direction to take on our first assignment. There were no specifics and the team was left to make assumptions and use their own style rather then a uniform fashion to start the outline for this paper.

Our leader also expected all of the team members to be equally motivated. It is the opinion of the masses that a leader is the person who sees the project through to the end. Just like a Captain going down with his ship the leader will pass or fail alone if necessary to fulfill their responsibilities. Sometimes there are things happening around us that lead us to be unmotivated or unable to devote ourselves to a project fully. Unfortunately, this led to an uneven workload and great frustration for the ones who were devoted to the team project. This is where our breakdown in communication also became a factor.

We discovered that communication in only written form can not only be misleading but misconstrued to create hurt feelings among the members. It was not intentional but being careless with the way we use our words and not realizing that when we use verbal communication we have other non-verbal ques to tell us how the speaker is trying to convey his or her message. To top it all off, we had a group member that was fifteen hours ahead of the rest of us posing another challenge of being online at the same time. It has been difficult to come into a team setting with such challenges in your way and still come out on top. During our first week together we realized that not all of our members had their reference materials and were also having a hard time finding their way around the materials in our online class.

That was a very hard time for all of us because there was frustration from the members who didn't have the information and frustration from the one's who did. The hardest challenge we have faced in being on a team with this type of distance between them was time management. We all have jobs, families, other responsibilities and we all prioritize these things differently. Some of us became very over extended and could not keep up with all the factors in our lives. Others of us found ourselves being exhausted trying to fill the gaps and make this work for us as a team. It has been a definite challenge to find time for our team responsibilities when we come from such different places with different family structures and after you factor all the differences we could understand how these conflicts arise.

Things just happen and life is an obstacle that must be handled with great care and responsibility. Now that we were faced with our obstacles we came together to find solutions. Our first line of business was to understand that everyone is different and everyone has different ways of dealing with conflict. The leader of our team is a pull yourself up by the bootstraps kind of person. We know that switching roles would have been a great resolution to the team leader's conflicts but it was not very practical considering the challenges that had arisen within our team. Some of our challenges on this project could have been avoided simply by communicating with each other.

We did not give ourselves the ability to be prepared because we did not talk about our issues. Our leader should have taken more initiative to keep in continuing contact with the members. The feeling of being without direction was not necessary and could have easily been avoided if the leader had been leading. We did manage to get our thoughts together at the last minute. It seems that we just simply were not on the same page.

Communication was once again the key factor in resolving things and was also the biggest conflict among us. We could have done a better job on this paper if we had talked more during our week and not leaving things to be dealt with at the last minute. We have assumed too many things in this team and not made clear cut rules which falls on everyone's shoulders. Had we simply made boundaries in the beginning we would have made sure that we lived up to those boundaries.

Everyone has different time management skills. Some of us work well under the pressure of the last minute; some of us would like to take more time to accomplish things. We needed to communicate the unexpected things in our life that might lead us to having things in late. We all knew when we started school that this was a commitment. Our eyes have all been opened to exactly how much of a commitment it is by working on this project.

Some of us found our groove and balance very quickly while others of us are still figuring out our schedules. Priorities are set on an individual basis. However, when we entered a team setting it is very important that we all stay on track and pull our weight. There are circumstances that arise in everyone's life that can cause conflict but we must be responsible for our actions in this event.

It must fall on our shoulders to communicate these circumstances to the team and formulate a plan together. Our team has faced many conflicts along the way to completing this project. It has been difficult for us suggest resolutions to some of our conflicts because we were just beginning to deal with them when this project was due. However, as you can see since the paper is here and finished that we have managed to muddle through this project. We have figured out that we all have a lot to learn and have already learned a lot.

We hope to find the solutions to all our issues and are still very certain that we will be a successful team despite our short comings. Team work has turned out to be much more complicated and require lots of compromise. Working on our communication will also be a huge part of us becoming successful in this type of environment. One of the other factors that will be worked on in our group is setting boundaries so that we know exactly what is expected out of each of us. Our leader had been accustomed to working independently and team work was a very big change of pace. We would have benefited from having considered other options for a team leader instead of just jumping with the person who seemed to be the most outgoing.

It would have been wise if we had discussed and factored in experience with leading groups. Some of our members were much more equipped to do the job but we did not know this until later. Again we come back to communication being the resolution to our problems. The further we seemed to get with our project the more we seem to think that maybe we made a lot of mistakes when we set out on this path.

That was a rather strange feeling considering how sure we seemed to be about our decisions in the beginning. Trial and error has been a large part of our ability to overcome situations. A philosophy that we could learn from is, "If at first you don't succeed try try again". It has been difficult to work on this paper together for numerous reasons but no one in our group should be unaccountable for their part of the work. We must without fail become dedicated to our team work as we would anything in our personal lives. The feelings of an overwhelming work load took its toll on our project but we will overcome and motivate one another in our next endeavor.

Our team could offer some words of advice to the teams that might also be having these issues. Keep an open mind when dealing with one another. Remember that you may not know what is happening in someone else's life. In the world of distance learning it is even more important that you watch the way you speak to one another. Make sure you keep a soft tone when approaching a subject and not bring hostility to non-hostile situation. It is very important that you keep a good line of communication open and if someone is offended by something then you may have unknowingly closed that line.

Communicate with one another often and do not wait for someone else to make contact first. If you need help or have questions allow your team to assist you. We realize that for some teammates this may be easier to do then for others but it is important to be able to rely on your team for support. When you allow for being human then you allow for everyone in the group to be secure in their environment and keep the lines of communication open.

There are moments when all of us need a helping hand. When a team has a sense of security within it then you can guarantee that they will look to one another. Be kind to each other and expect greatness from one another. If for some reason one of you can not come up with greatness on their own then take it upon yourself to help them create greatness. As the saying goes, "A chain is only as strong as its weakest link". If you help that weak link be strong then you will be unbreakable and achieve exactly what you set out to accomplish.

That is what teamwork means to us. We know that it is easy to give up and blame the other but we learn that together we can overcome these issues and shine even in moments of turmoil. Let your team shine because that is exactly what we will be doing. After finishing this paper we realized as a team that maybe we had grown a lot more then we first realized. It seemed so difficult to come up with solutions to our own challenges but when we reached the end we found that actually lots of resolutions came pouring out. If we allow ourselves to take our own advice maybe some of our conflicts will simply work themselves out..