Striving for competitive advantage, global organizations are tremendously integrating the use of high-performance teams to deploy complex business strategies. Team performance has become a noteworthy concern and the key factor in high-performance teams is cohesiveness, which is a measure of the attraction of the group to its members. Team development is a time taking process which follows recognizable stages.
In group dynamics and the four stages of team development (forming, storming, norming, and performing), motivation of team members by leaders is very important to successfully overcome the challenges of the storming and norming stages. These are the baby steps towards cohesiveness. Once the teams achieve cohesiveness, they move from norming to performing stage and subsequently to highly performing.
Cohesiveness is the point to which members of the team stick together and continue to be in unison in the quest of a common goal. Teams with high degree of cohesiveness are more committed to the goals and activities, feel happy at team’s success and feel part of something considerable. All this boosts self-esteem which in turn increases performance. Cohesiveness is an important aspect when it comes to team performance.
High-functioning teams are not the result of coincidence. Such teams accomplish greater levels of involvement and collaboration because of mutual trust that members have in one another. They share a strong sense of team identity, and believe in their abilities and effectiveness. Such teams have soaring levels of team emotional intelligence (EI).
Emotional intelligence can be defined as the awareness and understanding of emotions. EI has a positive influence on teamwork by making the team more cohesive. To constructing an emotionally intelligent team it is needed to develop emotional competence for the group as a whole. EI is the ability to inspire the team members. Emotional intelligence also has a vital and inevitable role to play in team performance and team development.
Although cohesiveness is a critical and determinant factor for the efficacy of the team, it alone will not assure success without organizational commitment. Highly effective teams should be a blend of both perceived team support (PTS) and perceived organizational support (POS), but their PTS must be higher than their POS. Apart from cohesiveness there are many other subset factors that play an important role in team development.
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