Teamwork and Team Leadership (PDF)

Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject Leadership and Human Resource Management - Miscellaneous, grade: 1,0, University of Cooperative Education (Verwaltungs- und Wirtschaftsakademie Erfurt), course: Effizienz- und Arbeitstechniken, language: English, abstract: Since the mid-1980s, group- and team-based forms of work have gained particular popularity due to changed market and competitive conditions, the change in values and increased employee qualifications. People like to work in teams because, as a "zoon politicon", they also have a need for togetherness and social interaction in the world of work. The high operational benefit of teamwork is reflected in the division of labour, effectiveness and efficiency, time and cost savings; in addition, the flexibility, creativity and innovative capacity of the team generate major competitive advantages. However, if the hoped-for effects do not materialise, leadership is often identified as a problem area. Classical leadership research reaches its limits when it comes to team-oriented work, because team leadership is considerably more complex than leading individuals, because it has to take into account additional processes at the group level.

The aim of this paper is to shed light on the factors that influence teamwork and to use them to show how team leadership must be designed in order to contribute optimally to team success. Therefore, the characteristics and phenomena of teamwork will first be examined under 2. and team success defined. This is significantly influenced by the variables "team composition" and "team leadership". While the composition of the team will be dealt with in section 3, team leadership will be the focus of attention in section 4; the explanations there will also form the main focus of the work.