Team Leadership - Free eBook in PDF Format
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Book Description - ISBN 978-1-62620-988-6 (38 Pages)
This free eBook has been written for managers who find themselves in a team leadership role. It uses three real-life examples to illustrate how different leadership styles can be applied to suit different types of team.
Chapter 1 - Team Leadership Theories
Before getting down to answering the question of why people would choose to follow your lead, you will need to understand the different styles of leadership available and the different types of team that are found in the workplace.
Chapter 2 - Leadership Theories and Management
The most important aspect of being a leader is deciding how much freedom to give your team. Too much, and they may not achieve their targets. Too little, and you will restrict their personal development and job satisfaction. The four practical leadership styles are you should know about are: Transactional Leadership, Transformational Leadership, Situational Leadership and The Leadership Continuum.
Chapter 3 - Different Leadership Styles
You should be aware from experience of the wide variety of teams that exist throughout modern organizations. The remainder of this eBook will use three real-life examples of teams to illustrate how different team leadership styles can be applied to suit different types of team. The example teams are: a Development Team, a Customer Support Team and a Steering Team.
Chapter 4 - Transactional Leadership
The power of transactional leaders comes from their formal authority and level of responsibility within the organization. Such leaders are primarily concerned with establishing the criteria for rewarding team members for good performance.
Chapter 5 - Transformational Leadership
These leaders offer a role model that inspires, interests, and challenges their followers to take greater ownership for their work. A transformational leader understands the strengths and weaknesses of each follower and assigns tasks that enhance each individual's performance.
Chapter 6 - Situational Leadership
The Situational Leadership® model states that there is no single style of leadership that is effective in all circumstances and that you should alter your leadership style to suit the ability and motivation of the team to do the task.
Chapter 7 - Leadership Continuum
This approach suggests that leadership behavior should change to best suit the situation you are dealing with. The four styles of leadership are known as 'Tells' (for the autocratic leader), then 'Sells', followed by 'Consults,' and finally 'Delegates.' The three factors that will help your decide which leadership style to adopt along the continuum are your own personality, the team itself, and the environment you are working in.
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Uses Three In-Depth Examples of Leadership Styles
This book starts off by asking four basic questions that can be difficult to answer. The questions this book asks are, "Which leadership style is the most appropriate? Which leadership style is most prevalent in your organization? Why should my team follow my lead? How can I alter my competencies and behaviors to become this type of leader? If you are able to simply answer those questions then this book may not be for you. If you are like me, this really got you thinking to answer those questions. If that is the case then this is a must read for you.
The first question left me stumped. Prior to reading this book, I had assumed that there was only one style that was the best to use while in a leadership position. There actually isn't one way that is better than the others. There are styles that work better for you and your team. This book lists the three factors that affect which style of leadership is best for you and your team. The most important factors are your team, your task, and your role. Those factors seeming fitting because when I stopped to think about it, they really can change the way you lead.
The author of this book then jumps right into three scenarios that will help you see what different types of leadership styles look like. The author does a great job of helping you understand the business and what the team is responsible for. I really enjoyed this style of reading because it uses such in depth examples. I found the "leadership theories" to be very interesting. Earlier studies tended to focus on who the person was based on their personality while later studies tended to focus on what the person actually did. A newer way of thinking tends to believe that people can learn how to be an effective leader not that they necessarily have to be born with leadership characteristics. There are four types of leadership styles. The first style, transactional, is more of a "bossy" role. In this type of role you can fire or reprimand an employee if they do not meet expectations, as they are a paid employee. You will have to be able to lead your team by telling them what to do.
The next style is transformational. Transformational leadership is someone who is a motivator. This style requires that a leader is able to evaluate its team members and can choose the best job to enhance the teams overall effectiveness. This type of leader can get its members to go the extra mile when given a goal.
The Situational Leadership® seems to work best with a typical everyday team. Basically you adapt your style based upon the competency and commitment of your team members. You will have to ask yourself two questions. What ability does my team have to accomplish the task? How motivated is my team to accomplish the task? The answer to those questions will fit into the "Maturity Levels" model in one of four possible ways. M1 is when your team's skills are lacking, but they are very motivated to achieve the end goal. M2 is when your team is lacking the skills and the motivation to achieve the end goal. M3 is when your team has the ability but doesn't have the motivation to achieve the end goal. Lastly, the type of team that everyone wants is the M4. The M4 is when a team has the ability and the motivation to achieve the end goal.
Once you know what type of group you have on your hands, the book will guide you to the type of leadership that you will need to use to help your team perform at its best. I like that the book then breaks down your leadership style based off of the "Maturity Levels" model. I found that the last style seemed to be the hardest for me to understand. The book laid the other styles out in such a way that it was easy to understand but, I thought the author could have researched this a little more to better convey it to inexperienced leaders. Leadership continuum is when a leader dictates his or her behavior based upon the situation.
Overall, I believe that this book is very useful when trying to determine what type of leader you are and what style of leadership would work better for your team. This was a well written book that all leaders should read before starting their first day in charge of a team. I do think that it would still be useful to someone that has years of experience in a leadership role to enhance their skills and to become a more effective leader.
Opal Soto
A Useful Tool for Managers
Regardless of how much you think you already know about leadership, this book teaches you a bit more. I paid thousands of dollars to attend college, yet it is ironic that a free book by Free Management Books taught me a few things I didn't know.
I noticed that I was having trouble at work recently because the people in my team were far too diverse in terms of personality, work ethic, and educational background. This made it difficult for me to bring them on one common platform to execute various tasks and reach our goals. After I read this book, I realized that it is vital to learn and implement various team leadership styles in order to get everyone working for the same team.
This book taught me to give my team enough freedom so they could "spread their wings" and fly. I was previously too bogged down with micro managing my team members. This was detrimental to the overall success of my team. Through Team Leadership Styles, I learned to ensure that my team members go through personal and professional development, while having utmost job satisfaction.
I went on to recall the basic facts that certain important behavioral traits a leader requires are motivation, self-confidence, cognitive ability, achievement drive, emotional maturity, honesty and integrity. Although I previously knew these traits were important to be a successful manager, it was great to review them again and remind myself what it takes to be a leader. I've always been an honest person, but sometimes I lose motivation, just like any human being does. This however, had an adverse effect on my team members because my emotions resonated throughout the team. I then realized that I had to stay motivated, if not for myself then my team.
This made a huge difference in team morale because everyone started being more upbeat and coming to work early. I knew that it would be easier now to achieve our goals with the kind of drive my team members had. Some other important traits I remembered from this book are charisma, creativity and flexibility.
These have to be worked on very hard because not everyone has them. Some are born with them, while others have to strive to achieve them. I have always been creative, but I lacked the charisma and flexibility to be a good leader. This book taught me how to become more charismatic so that people would look up to me and at the same time be flexible so that people didn't respect me out of fear, but out of genuine reasons.
I never wanted to be a leader who ruled with an iron fist, but the constant pressure from upper management made me lose my cool on more than one occasion. This book helped me remember that I need to contain myself and act as a buffer between upper management and the executive layer.
One aspect I would've liked the author of this book to cover more in depth is situational leadership. I understand some of the characteristics required for this sort of leadership, but a few more real life examples could make the topic clearer. But besides that, I think this is a solid book that any manager can download. Not only because it's free, but it provides tangible information that can be used to improve managerial skills.
Alan Stokes
Team Development and Different Leadership Styles - A great deal of research has been published on team building and team development. Even though most of this research is purely academic and has been performed in a research environment rather than in the workplace, some of it does contain value for a working manager.
Controlling or Eliminating the Worst Interruptions - Are you plagued by the destructive nature of interruptions? Then these four simple interruption screens could help you perform more efficiently. Your effectiveness and success depends on your ability to apply and implement such screens that enable you to be productive without alienating your customers, team members or colleagues.
Understanding Why Teams Underperform - Understanding the different factors that contribute to your team's level of satisfaction is a significant part of your management role. In many instances you will need to focus on minimizing their dissatisfaction and recognize that this is a continual process. This is because what was satisfying yesterday is now seen as part of the 'package' so no longer has a positive influence.
Leadership Styles in Business - The Leadership Continuum described by Tannenbaum and offers a continuum of potential ways a manager can behave along which many leadership styles are placed. This offers you great flexibility in selecting the style of leaderships that best suits the different circumstances you encounter every day at work.
