Page 398 - Fundamentals of Management Myths Debunked (2017)_Flat

Watch It! CHAPTER 12 • Leadership and Trust 397
If your professor has assigned this, go to the Assignments section of mymanagementlab.com to
complete the video exercise titled CH2MHill: Power and Political Behavior.

wHat about Leaders and teams? Because leadership is increasingly taking place
within a team context and more organizations are using work teams, the role of the leader in guid-
ing team members has become increasingly important. The role of team leader is different from
the traditional leadership role, as J. D. Bryant, a supervisor at Texas Instruments’ Forest Lane
40
plant in Dallas, discovered. One day he was contentedly overseeing a staff of 15 circuit board
assemblers. The next day he was told that the company was going to use employee teams and he
was to become a “facilitator.” He said, “I’m supposed to teach the teams everything I know and
then let them make their own decisions.” Confused about his new role, he admitted, “There was
no clear plan on what I was supposed to do.” What is involved in being a team leader?

The most “dangerous” leadership trait: 32 percent of team
members say indecisiveness and
over-cautiousness; 26 percent say selfishness. 41

Many leaders are not equipped to handle the change to employee teams. As one consultant
noted, “Even the most capable managers have trouble making the transition because all the
command-and-control type things they were encouraged to do before are no longer appropri-
42
ate. There’s no reason to have any skill or sense of this.” This same consultant estimated that
“probably 15 percent of managers are natural team leaders; another 15 percent could never lead
a team because it runs counter to their personality—that is, they’re unable to sublimate their
dominating style for the good of the team. Then there’s that huge group in the middle: Team
leadership doesn’t come naturally to them, but they can learn it.” 43
The challenge for many managers is learning how to become an effective team
leader. They have to learn skills such as patiently sharing information, being able A Question of Ethics
to trust others and to give up authority, and understanding when to intervene. And
effective team leaders have mastered the difficult balancing act of knowing when to
leave their teams alone and when to get involved. New team leaders may try to retain Have you ever watched the show Undercover
too much control at a time when team members need more autonomy, or they may Boss? It features a company’s “boss” working
abandon their teams at times when the teams need support and help. 44 undercover in his or her own company to find
One study looking at organizations that had reorganized themselves around out how the organization really works. Typically,
employee teams found certain common responsibilities of all leaders. These the executive works undercover for a week, and
responsibilities included coaching, facilitating, handling disciplinary problems, then the employees the leader has worked with
45
reviewing team and individual performance, training, and communication. are summoned to company headquarters and
However, a more meaningful way to describe the team leader’s job is to focus on either rewarded or punished for their actions.
two priorities: (1) managing the team’s external boundary, and (2) facilitating the
46
team process. These priorities entail four specific leadership roles, as shown in Bosses from organizations ranging from Waste
Exhibit 12–5. Management and White Castle to NASCAR and
Stella and Dot have participated.
What Issues Do Today’s Leaders Face? If your professor has assigned this, go to the As-

It’s not easy being a chief information officer (CIO) today. A person responsible signments section of mymanagementlab.com
for managing a company’s information technology activities faces a lot of exter- to complete these discussion questions.
nal and internal pressures. Technology changes rapidly—almost daily, it some- Talk About It 3: What do you think? Is
times seems. Business costs continue to rise. Competitors develop new strategies. it ethical for a leader to go undercover in his or
Economic conditions continue to confound even the experts. Rob Carter, CIO of her organization? Why or why not?
47
FedEx, is on the hot seat facing such challenges. He’s responsible for all the
computer and communication systems that provide around-the-clock and around- Talk About It 4: What ethical issues
the-globe support for FedEx’s products and services. If anything goes wrong, you could arise? How could managers deal with
those issues?
know who takes the heat. However, Carter has been an effective leader in this
seemingly chaotic environment.