Assignment 1: Self-Assessment and Reflection Exercise

It is important that leaders and team members both understand their own skills and capacity for learning and growth. In this assignment, you will complete three self assessments and analyze the resulting findings as they relate to team building. The links below will take you to these assessments.

Assessment Links:

Mind Tools Ltd. (n.d.). How good are your management skills? Retrieved from
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMM_28.h...

Mind Tools Ltd. (n.d.). How good are your people skills? Retrieved from
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMM_36.h...

Mind Tools Ltd. (n.d.). How motivated are you to lead? Retrieved from http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_01.h...

Tasks:

By the due date assigned, complete the three assessments and write a 2–3 page reflection paper on the results. Include the following in your paper:

1. A brief summary analysis of the findings from the three assessments, providing a clear interpretation.
2. Discuss the value of this information in terms of your professional development and application.
3. Assess the results and identify/discuss the implications of the findings in terms of you being a team leader and a team member.
4. Conclude by identifying the 2 most important things you learned from this course and indicate how the information will be relevant to you Over the past seven modules, you researched and discussed various concepts and practices associated with developing and managing an effective team. Through each module’s readings and assignments, you delved into the issues and factors which impact team dynamics. Your lectures discussed essential concepts to make you conversant with theories and techniques of team management. Through the course project, you applied the knowledge gained through module lectures, assigned readings, and independent research. You also learned strategies and best practices to enhance team performance through various module assignments. You have now reached the end of the course on team management. This module recaps the key points and concepts covered in the course. In this module, you will write a brief reflection paper to evaluate your skills as well as to discuss your learning journey in the course.
   • Identify processes and strategies used in positioning, planning, motivating, and implementing project teams across organizational boundaries.
   • Analyze the power and social influences within group dynamics and identify the best practices and conditions to engage teams to counter group think.
   • Evaluate team decision-making processes and problem-solving strategies to apply in daily team operations, motivation, and resolution of conflicts.
   • Assess the role that diversity and cultures contribute to motivation, creativity, and innovation in team productivity and recommend initiatives to help teams embrace the complexity of diversity in team building.
   • Determine the importance of continuous leadership and team development in managing virtual teams.
   • Formulate a team building strategy that will maximize team effectiveness and functionality

5. • Course Summary

     Here is a recap of what was covered during the course: In Module 1, you learned about the importance, elements, and impact of teams. You examined what happens when a group gets too big and the ability to be deeply interconnected is lost. You learned how mutual accountability and being interconnected helps lead individual and organizational development. You also learned about the impact of diversity on team performance. In Module 2, you discussed the types of organizational teams including working teams, pseudo teams, potential teams, real teams, and high-performance teams. You also examined the stages of team development and learned about the four Cs (context, composition, competencies, and change management) of high performance. Additionally, you reviewed and explored motivation theories on employee engagement, satisfaction, expectancy and equity, and needs. In Module 3, you examined the role of the team leader. You learned leaders must learn to create a collaborative culture to promote open discussion. You also learned that effective team leadership results in motivated, empowered, and deeply interconnected teams with the potential to make a significant impact on organizational outcomes. In Module 4, you examined the challenges of building a team. You looked at various factors contributing to a dysfunctional team and discussed strategies to overcome them. You learned handling challenges and executing various strategies can be difficult for every team leader; an overview of various strategies provides a leader with a clear blueprint of action to avoid the debilitating dysfunctions.

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     Course Summary Continued

     In Module 5, you discussed issues related to team building and the challenges leaders have to face to prevent some potentially negative influences on team building. You learned how unhealthy agreement can be more harmful than excessive conflict, just as excessive conflict can be devastating to attempts of team building. In Module 6, you examined temporary, virtual, global, and inter-organizational teams. You learned technology greatly affects team structures, and more often than not, new structures create unprecedented opportunities for growth and pose potential leadership challenges. You also learned the importance of creating shared team norms and explored communication practices that can enhance team cohesion. In Module 7, you learned about motivating and maintaining teams. You also examined the importance of each of these areas and pointed to the importance of both process and product as it relates to leading and being a participant on a team. You reviewed some best practices for the leading, building, motivating, and maintaining of effective teams. Refer the following link to learn more: The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork, by Dr. John C. Maxwell