A520.6.4.RB - Team Roles

A520.6.4.RB_Manglona, Matthew-Napu_Team Roles

Task Facilitating roles as described in Whetten & Cameron helps the team work more efficiently and effectively in achieving its objectives. It’s direction given; information seeking; information giving; elaborating; urging; monitoring; process analyzing; reality testing; enforcing; and summarizing. In the military this is the most common when trying to achieve the organizations goals. However there are some areas where some roles are not present in the team work realm. An example would be “information giving”. A task would come down and it will be up to us as leaders to figure out what needs to be done, although it is not hard or difficult task to do, but information is always crucial when conducting tasks or missions for the unit. What works for me is reality testing, process analyzing, and elaborating.

 For reality testing I go with the term “work smarter, not harder” I would look at the task at hand. Process analyzing always goes through my thought process, I always try to give an “outside looking in” type of approach. Then elaborating, I always want everybody to be on the same page, when one idea comes up, or a task is given, I try to ensure everybody on the team understands. I would ask my subordinates to back brief me (meaning letting me know what they understand about the task/mission) that way at the lowest level they understand their job roles for us to be successful.

Relationship building roles are those that emphasize the interpersonal aspects of the team (Whetten & Cameron, 2011). I forgot to mention earlier that after finally understanding this I know that I sync the two different types of roles (Task Facilitating and Relationship building). Supporting, harmonizing, tension relieving, confronting, energizing, developing, consensus building, and empathizing are all examples of relationship building roles (Whetten & Cameron, 2011). In my career I’ve been known to be a supportive, tension relieving, confronting, and developing type of leader. In my team however everybody brings something to the table. There is not one person in my team who lacks one of these attributes that were discussed. I have my motivator, joker, serious one, spotlight guy, the sensitive one, and pretty much a whole team build up.

Those attributes I discussed earlier from both the task facilitating roles and relationship building roles are what I see myself as a team member. I am a hard charging type of person that tries to go above and beyond in everything I do. “believe that members of a competent team also will have positive feelings about their work. Typically, the relationships among team members reveal a high level of mutual respect and trust. The ability to question each other allows for the appropriate amount of redundancy that I believe is a requirement for minimizing error” (Guglielmi, C., Feldman, D. L., Marco, A. P., Graling, P., Hoppes, M., Asplin, L. L., & Groah, L. 2011)

I try to be a perfectionist when it comes to task getting done by the team (although it does not happen, at least striving for it gives us a better work output). At all times I always ensure that collaboration and cohesiveness are executed within my team. I really dislike it when one team member is offset when it comes to the task that needs to be done. As I stated before, everybody that is in my team is accountable for their actions, it is just a matter of them communicating amongst each other to accomplish the tasks at hand. Not one person will do the “individual” team concept as I am allotted the opportunity to choose my team. I ensure that the team that I choose is reliable and trust worthy within my team. Both concepts apply to the scenario I deal with. There are time where I have to adjust to facilitating roles and organizations roles when challenges are presented.

References:

Guglielmi, C., Feldman, D. L., Marco, A. P., Graling, P., Hoppes, M., Asplin, L. L., & Groah, L. (2011). Defining competency in high-performance teams. AORN Journal, 93(5), 528-538. doi:10.1016/j.aorn.2011.03.004

Whetten, D. A., & Cameron, K. S. (2011). Developing Management Skills, 8th Ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education.