Leading a Team: Strategies for Decision Making, Trust, and Performance

This report delves into the multifaceted aspects of leading a team effectively. It begins by emphasizing the importance of decision-making, stressing the need to consider all stakeholders' interests and involving them in the process. The report then highlights the critical role of gaining team members' trust through fair treatment, leading by example, and encouraging participation. It further explores strategies for encouraging team members through rewards and recognition, as well as fostering collaboration among different departments. Key tasks, such as sales opportunities and customer relationship building, are discussed, along with the importance of allocating tasks based on expertise and delegating responsibilities appropriately. The report also covers creating accountability through clear goal setting, regular meetings, and monitoring performance. Maintaining alignment and consistency between organizational resources, goals, and strategies is emphasized, along with the importance of demonstrating congruency between actions and words. The report concludes by referencing key leadership theories and practices to provide a comprehensive guide to effective team leadership.

Running head- Leading a Team
Leading a Team

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Introduction to the Plan
Decision making is a very complicated, difficult, and complex task. It is very important to take
any decision which is acceptable by everyone. If anyone within the organization is not happy
with the decision, the effectiveness of the decision will decrease. Therefore, the interest of
everyone within the organization or outside of the organization should be kept in mind while
taking any decision. A decision can benefit all the stakeholders of the organization if the interest
of all the stakeholders is considering while taking any decision. To consider the interest of all the
stakeholders their presence is necessary. So, while taking a decision which benefits all the
stakeholders, I will call all the stakeholders to participate in the decision-making process.
Gaining Trust
It is very important for the team leader to gain the trust of the team members. Until or unless the
team members have faith in the team leader the team would not be effective to achieve the target
goals. The performance of the team would also be low, and hence the productivity would also
decrease. Therefore, it is very important to gain the trust of the team member to increase the
performance and productivity of the team. To gain the trust of the team members, it is important
to treat them fairly (Fiske et al., 2014). The team leader should lead the team from the front and
should not blame the members for any fault. Friendly behavior also helps in gaining the trust of
the team members. Allow them to participate in the decision-making process as well as in the
meeting and inform them about the new policy and procedures to gain the trust.
Encouraging the Team Member
Motivate and encourage the team members to trust and support each other to accomplish the
desired goals as a team is essential. To encourage them to work as a team it is important to make

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them realize that working in a team is much easier than working individually. In a team,
everyone is supported by another member of the team. The financial or non-financial reward
should be ensured on the accomplishment of a goal within the given time is also one of the most
important tools to encourage them to work in a team (Slavin, 2014). Financial reward or
recognition of the team within the organization, word of appreciation by the top management,
positive feedback can help in encouraging them.
Collaborating and Supporting Other Team and Individual within the organization
An organization has different departments such as finance department, operation department,
marketing department, human resource, and information technology. In each department, there
are various teams to achieve the target goals of each department. For the overall growth and
development of the organization, each department should achieve its target goals. It is necessary
to understand that without the help of other department and the team no team or department can
effectively accomplish the goal (Hurlburt et al., 2014). Therefore, the team members of all the
team should be aware of this fact and help and collaborate with each team and individual.
Allocation of Key Tasks, Creating Accountability and Maintaining Alignment
The key tasks are the following- identifying the sales opportunities with the new and existing
customers, effective presentation of the product to the potential customers, building a permanent
relationship with the customers, generate the sales to meet the target, preparing and submitting
periodically report (Stopka et al., 2014).
The allocation of key tasks to the team member is to be done according to the proficiency of the
team members. For example- if someone is very good in building a positive relationship with the
customers he or she should not be allocated the responsibility of sales generation or another task,

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but he or she must be stick to the relationship building. If some is having experience of
generating sales he or she should be allowed to generate sales. It means the allocation of the task
should be done by expertize the of the team members. If the team members would be allocated
the task in which they are expert they work actively to achieve the target, as well as their level of
motivation and morale, would also be high.
A delegation of the task is a necessary evil. The managers are afraid of delegating the task due to
the fear of loss of power and control. But due to the burden of tasks or to prepare the employees
to take more responsibility delegation of tasks is important (Johnson et al., 2015). The task with
less risk and responsibility should be delegated to the employees such as preparation of reports
encouraging and motivating the employees, the responsibility of meeting the sales target, etc.
To encourage the team members as we have discussed above financial and non-financial reward
should be given to them. The team leader should lead the team from the front and always ready
to help the team in any situation. The team leader can also encourage and motivate the team
members by allocating them their favorite tasks and realistic, attainable, and specific goals.
The team leader should always be ready to help the team members in any situation. Helping
them in any situation also helps in gaining the trust of the team members and encourages them to
achieve the goals within the given time. In every team, there is a chance of conflict, and hence
the team leader should always be ready to deal with that. Managing conflict is essential to
accomplish the target effectively. Conflict can be managed if the team members are encouraged
to help each other. If each employee is supporting each other, there would not be differences of
opinion, and hence there would not be conflict.

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The team leader should monitor the progress of the performance of the team members to
maximize the production and productivity of the team. Regular monitoring of the work and
performance of the team will increase the quality of work. If the team is performing
extraordinary or effectively achieved the target, it should be recognized in the organization to
boost up their morale to perform in the same way.
Demonstrate and Create Accountability
For any team to perform better motivation is necessary. If a team is performing high the credit
should go to the team, and if someone else is taking credit of the high performance it is very
demotivating for the team, and it might be possible that the performance of the team would
decrease. Therefore, the credit of the performance should go to the actual performer (Smith,
2014).
Achieving own target goal and objective or task is important to achieve the overall goals of the
organization. To achieve the tasks, it is important to plan to achieve the task, prioritize the task to
accomplish, apply skills and knowledge to get the quality result. These tasks are essential to
demonstrate the accountability for achieving own tasks. It is also necessary to demonstrate
initiative, personal responsibility, and self-direction to add value to the tasks. Apart from this
accountability can also be demonstrated by the efficient time management, self-monitoring,
personal integrity, and resource allocation.
The team should be accountable to achieve the target within the given time. It is important to be
accountable because it leads to the high performance and productivity of the team as well as
organization. To create accountability in the team, we need to follow the following things; all the
members of the team should agree on the goal of the team. The entire team members should be

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assigned the tasks and responsibility so that every member can understand what need to do.
There should be a team meeting on a regular basis so that any doubt or query can be asked and
solved. Everyone should be accountable for their part.
Maintain Alignment and Consistency
It is very important to align the organizational resources with the vision and goals of the
organization. Alignment is necessary to achieve organizational goals and objectives effectively.
It also helps in monitoring the progress and performance of the overall organization. To maintain
the alignment, it is necessary to identify and analyze the available resources as well as resources
that are not available but required for accomplishing the goals (Orobitg et al., 2015). The goals
also should not be difficult so that it goes beyond the capacity of the organization. Therefore,
while setting the target or goals, the resources should be kept in mind because lacking resources
would be a barrier in the way of achieving the target.
To demonstrate consistency in strategy, structure, and resource allocation at an operational level
it is necessary to stick to the original strategy. There might be contingencies plan with the
organization, but the organization should stick to the original strategy until or unless there are
any unforeseen contingencies. The organizational structure is also one of the important factors
for accomplishing the target.
It is also important for the team leader to demonstrate congruency between his or her action and
words because if there would be any difference in between these two the leader would not be
able to gain faith or trust of the team members. He or she can demonstrate this by bringing his or
her words into action. The team leaders must do what they say.

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Interagency collaborative team model for capacity building to scale-up evidence-based
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Stopka, O., Kampf, R., Kolář, J., & Kubasáková, I. (2014). Identification of appropriate methods
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