Team Members' Roles
Team Members' Roles
A team is defined as "a collection of people, often drawn from diverse but related groups, assigned to perform a well-defined function for an organization or a project. Team members may be part-time participants of the team and have other primary responsibilities" (Rigby, 2004). Team members are brought together in order to collaborate or contribute towards a common goal, most commonly in the workplace or school projects. This does not necessarily mean that the team comprises like individuals. A team needs to have a mix of diverse roles in order for the group to form into team, transcend conflict, maintain cohesiveness, and accomplish the task at hand. Members of a team always fall into specific roles; defining and understanding these roles greatly influence teams as a whole and their level of performance.
Who leads and who follows? To over simplify the roles of individuals is detrimental to its overall cause, the realization of an objective. Roles are expected behaviors for a given position (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2003). Roles become evident at critical points in team development, normally at its formation, and throughout each stage of the team's evolution. In keeping with Bruce Tuckman's team development model, teams develop in four distinct stages:
Forming: the first stage in which individuals gather information and impressions about each other and about the scope of the task and how to approach it
Storming: the second stage in which addressing of the important issues start, most often with conflict.
Norming: The third stage where a team makes clear and agrees upon and the group's tasks and responsibilities.
Performing: the stage where the energy of the group can be directed towards the task at hand (Tuckman, 1965).
Each stage has it ebbs and flows, starting in an upwards movement towards understanding the team, its individuals, and its eventual performance leading to its...
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