Team Roles

(Entrance Essay Question 16)

Essay for the seminar
Communication and Cooperation (6e)
Study Program: Psychology of Excellence
at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

Author:

Iris Hackermeier

30 January 2004

Essay question 16:

”Analyze a recent group experience by identifying the roles each group member
exhibited during a meeting.
Distinguish between functional and dysfunctional roles.
Which roles seemed to contribute to group leadership?
Which roles did you hold?
Which roles would you like to take on in the future?”

Introduction  3

1 Development of Roles  4

2 Roles of Team Members  5
2.1 Functional vs. Dysfunctional Roles  5
2.2 Group Leadership  7

3 Personal Experiences  9
3.1 Reflection of Own Character  9
3.2 Future Perspective  10

Evaluation  10

References  11

Introduction

Group work can be very productive for the end result and very representative for every member of the team. Working in a group means learning from each other (e.g. new solutions), learning with each other (e.g. common result), learning about each other (e.g. trust, warmth) and learning against each other (e.g. conflict management, tolerance) (cp. Weidenmann, 2002, p. 127). Only the diverse traits of every member make group work interesting and dynamic. During my education and work as a social worker I received the possibility of working with groups and working in groups by trying special perspectives. This topic gives me the opportunity to talk about my personal observations and scientific theories.

The quality of the results a group can reach depends on the existing roles containing in a team. The following essay introduces different characteristics of team members, which can be shown in a functional but also dysfunctional way. I go on focusing on the distinctiveness of leadership roles. The last part of this essay reflects my personal experiences and taking on own roles in working in a group.

Before starting the implementations I would like to clarify the term "(work-) group" and "role" because common literature uses varying definitions. Antoni (1994, p. 24 f) describes eight attributes of a workgroup:

• Group-identity (cohesion within the group)
• Several people (two or more)
• Common purpose and/or task
• Direct co-operation (interaction)
• Relatively permanent relations
• Group follows the same rules
• General standards and values
• Development of structure, hierarchy

-  roles

Some authors divide groups according to their intention or function, for instance problem-solving teams, self-managed teams, cross-functional teams, quality circles, project groups, so called production islands and so on (cp. Robbins, 2001, p. 287 f & Antoni, 1994, p. 24). Robbins (2001, p. 286 f) even distinguishes between the terms "group" and "team". He beliefs "groups" only share their information and make decisions to help each other perform within his/her area of responsibility, in comparison of teams, that generate positive synergy through coordinated effort. Therefore is the level of performance greater than the sum of the inputs (- ideal). I wont differentiate the terms in this essay, however I appreciate the name distinction.

There are as many definitions of the word "role" existing as characteristics in a group were found. Belbin (2004) says a team role is "a tendency to behave, contribute and interrelate with others in a particular way". To extend this definition we can assume the behavior to be dependent from the expectations of the other group members (Weiderer, 2003). This is the basic hypothesis for the following remarks.

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