Beck & Yeager Reading 6, teamwork & leadership

Why do teams sometimes fail? We have a culture of individualism. If a teamwork exercise is injected into an organisation which doesn't have structures to support teamwork, the 'team' is a gimmick, rather than something that is integrated with the daily workplace. How can teams succeed? Those in charge of leading teams must learn skills to make their team work and if you don't have a leader...

Each team goes through developmental stages:

1. FormingGroup members need to know: 'Why we are here?' and 'What's my piece of the action?'.Communication in this stage should be mostly downward from the leader to the group members. The leader should provide information, clear directions and complete explanations. Our group is still trying to do this bit without a clear leader.

2. FocusingThis stage centres on buy-in and ownership. Structures, procedures and norms are established here. The leader should encourage questions, ideas and input, and facilitate communication. A lot of the communication at this stage should be upward, from team members to the leader.Our group provides opportunities to communicate and add ideas and input, but we go around in circles a lot because we don't have a leader.

3. PerformingThis stage is characterised by productivity. Group members need responsibility, the opportunity to use their knowledge and skills, and feedback and recognition of their efforts.We are trying to be productive...

4. LevelingThe group needs a catalyst for change to refocus on new goals. The leader can give group members the opportunity to share in the problem solving process to re-clarify roles and the mission of the team.Our group will never get to this stage, as we will disband once the assignment is done. So, my main observation from this reading is that our group would perform much better with a leader.


Beck, J. & Yeager, N. (1994). Making teams work: An underused window of opportunity. In The leader's window: Mastering the four styles of leadership to build high-performing teams (pp. 183-206). New York: John Wiley & Sons.