Leadership Development: Successful Teamwork

Leadership Development Name Institution Course Date Leadership Development Outline and critically evaluate some of the ways in which leaders can encourage successful teamwork. Leaders all over the world seem to be getting all the praise even when they had little to do with the success of a project. Often, people look at the involvement of leaders and find ways to criticize them without considering the burden leaders have on their shoulders. A leader is someone who can easily lose their job because one employee made a mistake. Even though they do get the praise when things go right, they are also the ones who get to bear the burden when things go wrong. CEOs of big corporations have lost their jobs because of mistakes that had little to do with them. However, this is the burden that comes with the responsibility of being a leader. When it comes to teams, leaders are also expected to take center stage and help persuade or encourage successful teamwork. As a leader, it is one’s responsibility to ensure everything falls into place within an organization. Teams are difficult to work with mainly because of people’s differing personalities. Bringing people together is quite easy but getting them to commit to a single goal can be a major problem. However, this article seeks to showcase how leaders, with all the difficulty considered, can help to encourage successful teamwork. Communication is one of the most underrated ideas or concepts that can help teams and employees achieve their goals. It is said that leadership is greatly dependent on how one communicates. For leaders, it is crucial to practice or encourage effective communication in the workplace. Sharma and Sharma (2015) define effective communication as “a combination of a set of skills which include attentive listening, nonverbal communication, the ability to deal with stress in the present situation, and the capability to identify and understand one’s own emotions and those of the person one is communicating with.” Effective communication breeds understanding and helps people work from the point of understanding. As a leader, one has to know the importance of communicating effectively, and this needs to be passed down to the teams or employees. As a leader, one has to ensure that the working environment is one where the team members can freely communicate and share their feelings and views. When openness and honesty form the foundation of communication in a team, people will share and freely express themselves. This means that nothing will be left unsaid and everything will be handled before it gets out of control. Price (2019) notes that “great communication is at the heart of great teamwork” and this statement cannot be faulted in any way. A team that communicates will have a livelier audience and will always share without fear of reprisal or retaliation especially when criticism is concerned. Secondly, to ensure success in a team, a leader needs to encourage team-building exercises. These are often ignored, but their influence and eventual effect cannot be ignored. Patrick Lencioni said “Not finance. Not strategy. Not technology. It is teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage.” These words carry a great amount of weight in that they help to...