Northouse, Leadership 9e
SAGE Publishing, 2022
Lecture Notes
Chapter 16: Team Leadership
Learning Objectives
16-2 Explain how team leadership works.
16-4 Discuss the criticisms of the team leadership model.
16-5 Recognize applications of the team leadership model.
Annotated Chapter Outline
I. Description
A. Work teams have grown increasingly prevalent in today’s organizations, due in part to:
i. Increasingly complex tasks.
ii. More globalization.
iii. Flattening of organizational structures.
B. A team is a type of organizational group that is composed of members who are
interdependent, who share common goals, and who must coordinate their activities to
accomplish these goals.
i. Includes task forces, standing committees, project management teams, etc.
ii. May be located in the same place, or gather virtually.
C. The study of organizational teams has focused on strategies for maintaining a
competitive advantage.
i. Team-based organizations have a faster response capability (due to flatter
organizational structures, which rely on teams and new technology to enable
communication across time and space).
a. Also known as “team-based and technology-enabled” teams.
ii. Benefits of virtual teams:
a. Utilizing the best global talent.
D. Virtual teams have unique struggles:
i. While social media, video communication technologies, and software
applications for meeting management have given virtual teams richer and more
realistic communication environments where collaboration is facilitated, there
are also issues associated with a membership separated by time, distance, and
culture.
a. Decisions and scheduling take more time.
Northouse, Leadership 9e
SAGE Publishing, 2022
b. Have less trust, more conflict, and more subgroup formation.
ii. Three key factors influencing virtual team effectiveness.
a. Technology: use of technology to create connections among team
members and make team members feel like they are working face-to–
face.
E. Desirable outcomes of effective organizational teams:
i. Productivity.
ii. Resource efficiency.
iii. Better decisions/problem-solving.
iv. Quality products and services.
v. Innovation and creativity.
F. The traditional authority structure of many organizations does not support decision
making at lower levels, and this can lead to the failure of many teams.
i. Teamwork is lateral decision-making.
a. The dynamic and fluid power shifting in teams has been referred to as
G. Leadership of teams has also become an important area of study.
i. Study of this area is very different from other areas of leadership research
(process oriented).
a. Effective leadership processes are the most critical factor in team
success.
ii. Shared or Distributed Leadership. The complexities of team processes demand
the attention and focus of all members of the team; some teams are
autonomous/self-directed with no formal leader, while others have formal
leaders. All benefit from shared leadership. Team members step forward when
situations warrant, providing the leadership necessary, and then step back to
allow others to lead.
a. Shared leadership, while very important, does involve risk and takes
H. Team Leadership Model
i. The Hill Model for Team Leadership is based on the functional leadership claim
that the leader’s job is to monitor the team and then take whatever action is
necessary to ensure team effectiveness.
a. Starts at the top, examining initial leadership decisions.
b. Moves to leader actions.
c. Finally focuses on indicators of team effectiveness.
ii. Effective team leaders need a wide repertoire of communication skills to monitor
and take appropriate action.
iii. Effective team performance begins with how the leader sees the situation that
the team is experiencing (the leader’s mental model).
a. Model reflects not only the components of the problem confronting the
iv. To respond appropriately to the problem envisioned in the mental model, a good
team leader needs to be behaviorally flexible and have a wide repertoire of
actions or skills to meet the team’s diverse needs.
a. The leader behaves with “requisite variety” when they have the set of
v. The leader has special responsibility for functioning in a manner that will help the
team achieve effectiveness.
a. Leadership behavior is seen as team-based problem solving in this
perspective, where the appropriate behaviors that are selected and
implemented ensure team effectiveness.
vi. Team effectiveness has two critical functions: performance and development.
a. Performance: Task accomplishment; the quality of outcomes.
team; 2) having a compelling purpose; 3) having the right people; 4)
possessing clear norms of conduct; supported from the organizational
context; 6) practicing team-focused coaching.
f. Assessing how well the team compares to these established indicators
of team success provides a valuable source of information to guide the
leader to take appropriate actions to improve team success.
g. Clear, Elevating Goal. Clear team goals make it apparent whether the
h. Results-Driven Structure. Effective teamwork is structured for a team’s
goals, and often includes task design, team composition, and core
i. Competent Team Members. Teams need the right number and mix of
members, with sufficient information, education, and training as a
collective to meet team goals—this includes interpersonal and
teamwork skills, which are every bit as important as technical skills.
j. Unified Commitment. A common mistake is to call a work group a team
but treat it as a collection of individuals, as excellent teams are carefully
designed and developed for excellence.
k. Collaborative Climate. A collaborative climate is one in which members
can stay problem focused, listen to and understand one another, feel
l. Standards of Excellence. Clear norms of conduct (how we should
behave) are important for team functioning, and regulating
m. External Support and Recognition. A supportive organizational context
includes material resources, rewards for excellent performance, an
educational system to develop necessary team skills, and an information
system to provide data needed to accomplish the task; employees must
Northouse, Leadership 9e
SAGE Publishing, 2022
n. Principled Leadership. Leadership is consistently related to team
effectiveness, influencing the team through four sets of processes:
cognitive, motivational, affective, and coordination.
o. Effective team leaders are committed to the team’s goals and give
members autonomy to unleash their talents when possible.
p. Leaders can reduce the effectiveness of their team by being unwilling to
q. Leaders can enhance the effectiveness of their team by keeping the
team focused on its goals, maintaining a collaborative climate, building
confidence among members, demonstrating technical competence,
setting priorities, and managing performance.
r. Leadership can use these 8 characteristics of team excellence in a
vii. Leadership decisions include the major decisions the team’s leadership needs to
make when determining whether and how to intervene to improve team
functioning.
a. Leadership Decision 1: Should I monitor the team or take action?
“McGrath’s Critical Leadership Functions” demonstrate these two
c. A leader must first seek out information to understand the current state
d. Leaders can also help their information search process by obtaining
feedback from team members, networking with others outside the
Northouse, Leadership 9e
SAGE Publishing, 2022
team, conducting team assessment surveys, and evaluating team
outcomes.
e. All members of the team can engage in monitoring (information search
and structuring) and collectively provide distributed or shared
leadership to help the team adapt to changing conditions.
h. “Hasty to act” leaders might prevent problems from getting out of
control; however, they might not make the right intervention because
i. “Slow to act” leaders might encourage other team members to emerge
as leaders (shared leadership), but the action-taking delay might cause
the team’s problem to become unmanageable.
j. Others have described three phases of group life and the leadership
l. Task functions are closely intertwined with relational functions; teams
that are well-maintained with good interpersonal relationships will work
together effectively, which makes it easier to maintain good
relationships.
m. The focus on building team relationships is even more critical for virtual
teams than in traditional co-located teams, as personal and contextual
nuances of electronic communications are potentially critical.
n. Research suggests that leaders of virtual teams should begin the team
Northouse, Leadership 9e
SAGE Publishing, 2022
q. The current focus of research is on real-life organizational work teams
that exist within a larger organizational environment.
viii. Leadership Actions
a. It is up to the leader to assess what action, if any, is needed and then
intervene with the specific leadership function to meet the demands of
the situation.
d. A team leader also needs to recognize and interpret what is getting in
the way of the team’s goal accomplishment and then make a strategic
choice and respond with the appropriate action.
e. Internal Task Leadership Actions. Includes goal focusing; structuring for
results; facilitating decision making; training team members in task
skills; and maintaining standards of excellence.
f. Internal Relational Leadership Actions. Includes coaching team members
g. External Environmental Leadership Actions. Includes networking and
information with the team.
h. Team leaders must learn to be open and objective in understanding and
diagnosing team problems and skillful in selecting the most appropriate
II. How Does the Team Leadership Model Work?
Northouse, Leadership 9e
SAGE Publishing, 2022
A. Team leaders and team members can use the model to help them make decisions about
the current state of their team and the specific actions needed to improve team
function.
i. Portrays leadership as a team oversight function.
ii. Provides leader with a cognitive map to identify team needs.
iii. Offers suggestions for corrective action.
B. In using the model, the team leadership engages in the leader mediation process by
deciding which option is most appropriate for the team: monitoring or taking action.
i. If monitoring indicates unsatisfactory elements in team functioning, appropriate
action must be taken; otherwise, monitoring continues.
a. Determining the exact intervention is not as easy as it sounds (reflects
C. Team leadership model aids in team analysis and improvement, focusing on
commitment, development, sharing expertise, creating new methods/strategies, and
otherwise improving functioning.
D. Team leadership behaviors reflect the internal functions of task and relational
leadership.
III. Strengths
A. Designed to focus on the real-life organizational work group and the leadership needed
therein.
i. Places the ongoing work group or team in an environmental context within the
organization, industry, or society.
ii. Enables team members—particularly leaders— to diagnose and correct team
problems.
iii. Given the inclusion of external leadership, the model can encompass the shift to
multi-team systems (MTSs) in organizations.
B. Provides guidelines that help leaders to design and maintain effective teams, especially
when performance is below standards.
i. Model integrates in a manageable and practical form many complex factors that
can help a leader be a good medium or processor of information.
C. Takes into account the changing role of leaders and followers in organizations (shared
leadership).
i. Consistent with the paradigm shift from top-down, hierarchical leadership
towards more horizontal, team processes.
Northouse, Leadership 9e
SAGE Publishing, 2022
ii. Does not focus on leader’s position power, but the critical functions of leadership
(diagnosis and action taking).
a. Any team member can perform the critical leadership functions to
assess the current effectiveness of the team and then take appropriate
action.
D. This approach to team leadership can help in selection of team leaders and team
members.
i. Positive leadership qualities:
a. Perceptive.
b. Open.
ii. Good leaders not only diagnose team problems, but devise the appropriate
action to respond to problems.
IV. Criticisms
A. Only lists some important leadership skills.
i. Depending on the type of team or situation, additional skills might be needed
that focus more on:
a. Work environment.
ii. Model omits factors that may influence team effectiveness such as individual
differences of team leaders and members and aspects of the organizational
context.
iii. Nonetheless, the model is still quite complex and requires substantial adjustment
to master.
a. Does not specify when, why, or how is best to deal with complex
B. Many teams have shared leadership necessitating that everyone who provides team
leadership has a wide range of team-oriented skills.
i. Roles of leaders and followers can change over time, so both leader and
members must possess requisite leadership skills.
a. Leader might need to intervene more in immature teams, but be almost
entirely hands-off in more developed team.
Northouse, Leadership 9e
SAGE Publishing, 2022
b. Increasingly, scholars are providing instruction in diagnosing
C. Methods for testing and measuring outcomes of team leadership models are not fully
refined.
i. Most of the research is based on follower perceptions of team leader behavior,
which are likely to be biased.
ii. Rather than rely on team member ratings, team training should rely on the
observation of the team leader’s behavior.
V. Application
A. This model is useful in helping the leader make decisions.
i. The leader might choose to use an assessment tool such as the Team Excellence
and Collaborative Team Leader Questionnaire to help conduct the team’s
diagnosis and set the steps needed for taking action.
a. Research suggests that team leaders overestimate their effectiveness