Motivating Your Team - Part 3 - Leadership Styles

Post date: Feb 16, 2015 4:32:50 PM

Regardless of the management methodology used, in order to motivate at team level, the development stages of a team have to be taken into account. According to the Tuckman Model, there are 5 stages of team development.

1. Forming - the most important action is to establish ground rules for future work that are mutually agreed at team level and the best style to use is SELLING of the overarching goals and of the benefits that are to be gained from these at individual, team and organizational level.
2. Storming - coach, mentor and train as needed using a CONSLUTING style where the decision stays with you as the leader but you gather input from all team members on the decisions to be made, this way building accountability and a sense of ownership for the project/endeavor at hand
3. Norming - here you become a facilitator by AGREEING at first putting yourself with a vote that does count in an equal manner when comparing with other team members votes and later in the process when the Norming phase is more stable or for aspects of the process at which the team is more experienced, employ an ADVISING style by stating your opinion apriori but letting the team take the final decision.
4. Performing - delegate, monitor and manage conflicts as needed, encouraging positive conflict and taking care of negative conflict occurrences by ADVISING, INQUIRING (let the team handle conflict resolution and other issues and then ask to be convinced of their decision if at all possible) and finally completely DELEGATING when you feel that the team can have full decision over the matter at hand.
5. Adjourning - free up team members using an INQUIRE and DELEGATE style and use coaching especially in cases of projected organizations giving team members information regarding the next project assignment if this is known to you.

These activities fit nicely into the PMBOK's (Project Management Body of Knowledge) Develop Project Team process helping in growing teams, developing competences and enhancing overall productivity and last, but not least, providing a sense of ownership in achieving success.