Week 4.3 Leading a Self- Managing Team

In Chapter 2 authors talk about the Self-Organizing teams. I wanted to share some of finding from a research article that I read recently. (Source of Information: How to Lead a Self-Managing Team Author(s): Vanessa Urch Druskat, Jane V. Wheeler)

The article talks about how to lead self-managing teams that are left to run themselves with some guidance from an external leader. Below I will list some of the important points made in the article.

Some surveys report that 79 percent of companies in the Fortune 1000 and 81 percent of manufacturing organizations currently deploy such “empowered,” “self-directed” or “autonomous” teams.

The most important skill that external leaders that contributed most to their team’s success have is “managing the boundary between the team and larger organization”. External leaders who excel at four functions of relating, scouting, persuading, and empowering were able to drive their teams to superior success.

The hardest part for the external managers is that even though they are not directly managing the teams they are held accountable for any wrong decisions that the teams might make. The job of external leader exists squarely in the middle of a managerial no-man’s land.

The external leader must avoid any heavy-handed attempts at managing. Case studies have shown that external leaders who struggle with their role usually end up exerting too much control, which then undermines self-managing team’s ability to get work done.

Four Functions, 11 Behaviors:

To making self-managing teams work is to delegate considerable authority to the group, granting its tremendous flexibility in making its own decisions.

1. Relating:

External leaders must continually move back and forth between the team and the broader organization to build relationships. Success in this are requires three behaviors:

Being Socially and Politically Aware

Building Team Trust

Caring for Team Members. (Authors say that in their study, average leaders were more likely to see the personal problems of the team members as impediments to getting work done, where as superior leaders more often recognized them as opportunities to build relationships)

2. Scouting:

To scout efficiently, external leaders must demonstrate three behaviors

Seeking information from Managers, Peers, and Specialists.

Diagnosing Member Behavior

Investigating Problems Systematically

3. Persuading:

Effective Persuasion requires two behaviors

Obtaining External Support

Influencing the Team

4. Empowering:

External leaders can empower self-managing teams by demonstrating three behaviors

Delegating Authority

Exercising Flexibility Regarding Team Decisions (“It’s not what I think; it’s what you think”)

Coaching (teach people to manage)

The article says superior leaders in their study were able to develop strong relationships both inside the team and across the organization. An important thing to remember about team autonomy is that self-management is not an either-or condition. Instead, it’s a continuum, and external leaders should also be constantly guiding and developing their teams so that they become increasingly independent.