Category 1: âWaiting for Godotâ - no leadership. The overall poor performance of the groups in this category may be attributed to their difficulties in developing ...
The impact of team design and leadership on team effectiveness in student self-managed teams
Abstract This paper presents the first phase of a broader research program and its aim is to measure the impact of team design and leadership distribution on team effectiveness in student teams. We studied a project-based learning program implemented for first-year undergraduate students in a Belgian Engineering Faculty. A total sample of 174 students, organized within 29 groups provided a set of collectively and individually written reports and personal confidential statements on team progress. We did content analysis and a sociometric test to identify group interactions and leadership configurations. Our results reveal four main leadership and group structures, each of them being positively correlated to specific perceived work outcomes.
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Introduction Much of the work in today’s organizations is completed through teamwork so that teamwork and leadership are placed at the top of the list of desirable skills for graduates. Consequently, many higher education institutions have set up project activities as a major pedagogical tool for training students into those skills and behaviors. This is especially the case for business graduates (Volkema, 2010; DeRue, Sitkin & Podolny, 2011), but also for engineering graduates (Felder & Brent, 2003; Eskandari, Sala-Diakanda, Furterer, Rabelo, Crumpton & Williams, 2007; Verzat, Byrne & Fayolle, 2009). Team design impacts production outputs, learning outcomes and team satisfaction (Hackman, 1987). Among the team design factors that influence team effectiveness, scholars emphasized the role of team interdependence and team self-leadership (Campion, Medsker & Higgs, 1993), with team self-leadership enhancing team interaction and commitment (Manz & Stewart, 1997). This is the first article dealing with leadership configurations and their effective impacts on student teams. Our premise is that team outcomes will vary according to the leadership configurations adopted by teams, with shared leadership triggering the most valuable team production and learning, as well as individual satisfaction and pride. When teachers design project work for their students, they are confronted with a major dilemma concerning team leadership (Volkema, 2010: 536): should one designate in advance single project managers, which implies giving only them the opportunity to develop leadership skills, or should one invite teams to rotate roles among several students during the project, thus running the risk of confusion within the team, and with external stakeholders? A third option may be to encourage self-directed team organization, where all members are called upon to play a leadership role within the group (Roper & Philips, 2007), or where informal leaders might emerge throughout the project (Erez, Lepine & Elms, 2002). According to Werner and Lester (2001), team structure and team spirit are significantly correlated with team satisfaction and team grades in student work groups. However, we know little about the impact of team design and team leadership on team production, leadership and teamwork skills development, as well as on students’ satisfaction. So far, there is a lack of empirical work on leadership learning in student teams. Most leadership literature deals with leadership skills conceived as individual attributes rather than with leadership processes emphasized as social interaction phenomena which focus on negotiating a social identity within groups (Day, 2001; DeRue & Ahsford, 2010; Schyns, Kiefer, Kerschreiter & Tymon, 2011). Additionally, knowledge about self-managed teams is recent (Cohen & Ledford, 1994; Pearson, 1992; Seung & Guy, 2004; Tata & Prasad, 2004) and quite ambiguous regarding leadership characteristics and their impact on group performance. While self-managed teams were found to increase job satisfaction, employee commitment, work quality and innovation, they can also demonstrate poor leadership organization (Jones & Lindley, 1998; Kirkman et al., 1996). We think that to better understand the functioning of self-managed teams, one may need to shift from a leadership conceptualization that focuses mainly on individual characteristics towards a more functional and group-level approach of “shared leadership” (Barry, 1991). This recent conceptualization is consistent with teamwork processes and their articulation with leadership roles and 2
functions (Marks, Mathieu & Zaccaro, 2001), and less concerned with previous contributions on individual teamwork skills and abilities (Stevens & Campion, 1994). To sum up, there is little empirical research dedicated to leadership distribution in selfmanaged teams in organizational settings and its impact on team performance (Carson, Tesluk & Marrone, 2007; Fitzsimons, James& Denyer, 2011; Turner & Müller, 2005). In academic settings, existing literature rarely examines the impact of teamwork structures on students’ team performance and learning. Research in this area remains prescriptive, indicating how teachers should guide learning processes and give feedback on leadership behaviors. Several descriptive studies have implemented individual approaches to study the progressive acquisition of leadership behaviors (Wolff, Pescosolido & Druskat, 2002; Kellett, Humphrey & Sleeth, 2006; Côté, Lopes, Salovey & Miners, 2010) and teamwork skills (Chen, Donahue & Klimoski, 2004; Latham & Brown, 2006). For instance, Pineda and Lerner (2006) articulate teamwork processes with perceived team performance, but they do not study role distribution among team members. However, another study conducted on a sample of undergraduate business students demonstrates that shared leadership is correlated with team performance (Sivasubramaniam et al., 2002). This paper presents the first phase of a broader research program aiming to examine and measure the impact of team design and leadership distribution on team effectiveness in student self-managed teams. We studied a project-based learning program implemented for first year undergraduate students in a Belgian Engineering Faculty. Randomly constituted students teams were coached by tutors to help them build and program a Lego robot, and to develop team working as well as engineering “know-how” skills. From a methodological standpoint, we studied individual and group reports and questionnaires, on a longitudinal basis, so as to gain access to internal group organization and processes. We present here the content analysis of 29 collectively written group reports and personal confidential statements that were produced by a total sample of 174 students. We invited students to communicate these documents to the research team 6 weeks after the beginning of the project. We used a sociometric approach to identify group structure and group roles for the 29 teams studied. These sociometric structures were then articulated to provide a qualitative analysis of perceived individual skills acquisition, satisfaction and performance within teams. Our results at this stage indicate that four main group structures are beginning to surface, each of them being positively correlated with specific perceived work group outcomes. We begin by presenting a literature review on team design factors and leadership roles, and their impact on team effectiveness. We highlight the characteristics of self-managed work teams and we present the shared leadership paradigm. We then formulate our research questions and propositions, and present the research context and design. In the last sections of the paper, we present our findings and discuss some of their theoretical and practical implications.
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Literature review Team design factors and their impact on team effectiveness The decisions regarding team design are critical for team functioning and effectiveness (Erez, Lepine & Elms, 2002; Mohrman, Cohen & Mohrman, 1995). Several researchers have demonstrated that variations in team performance can be explained by differences in team structure (Cohen & Bailey, 1997; Williams, Parker & Turner, 2010). Team structure consists of “team relationships that determine the allocation of tasks, responsibilities, and authority” (Stewart & Barrick, 2000: 135). Among the factors that correlate best with team effectiveness, Campion, Medsker and Higgs (1993) highlight the role of team interdependence and team autonomy . Team interdependence applies to tasks, goals, feedback and rewards (Campion, Papper, & Medsker, 1996) and occurs when members interact cooperatively, with interdependence increasing group communication, flexibility and cohesiveness (Guzzo & Shea, 1992; Hackman, 1992; Murnighan & Conlon, 1991). Team self-leadership may raise team communication and flexibility, as well as team commitment (Manz & Stewart, 1997). In other words, the concentration of authority and the structuring of activities are the most important features of team structure as regards team effectiveness (Pugh & Hickson, 1997). Team interdependence and self-leadership were found to correspond with higher group effectiveness, mainly for teams engaged in conceptual tasks (Stewart & Barrick, ibid.). Team effectiveness is assessed according to three main criteria: productive team outputs, the teams’ internal social processes, and overall group satisfaction (Hackman, 1987: 13). The group design, the organizational context and the group synergy impact team effectiveness through their influence on these moderating variables. Particularly, team design influences group effort when the task is motivationally engaging (ibid.: 15-16); it influences knowledge and skills mobilization when members have high-relevant expertise, are numerous enough to do the work, have task and interpersonal competences and are moderately heterogeneous (ibid.: 18-19); lastly, team design influences the choice of appropriate performance strategies when group norms support self-regulation, situation scanning and strategy planning (ibid.: 20-21). In professional environments, team effectiveness is influenced by organizational context, group structure, and group processes (Schwarz, 1994; Sundstrom, De Meuse, & Futrell, 1990), whereas, according to Werner & Lester (2001), team structure and team spirit are significantly correlated with team satisfaction and team grade in students work groups (with workload sharing only related to team satisfaction). Hackman (ibid.) identifies group effort, knowledge and skills, and performance strategies as the key moderating factors of team effectiveness. Interactions among team members are measured at the task and relational levels (Bales, 1950; McGarth, 1984; Hackman, 1987). There are four task categories: “generating ideas and plans, choosing between alternatives, negotiating conflicts of interest and executing work” (Stewart & Barrick, ibid.: 137). From a relational standpoint, team members’ relations include interpersonal transactions in terms of “who is talking with whom (or not doing so), who is fighting with whom, who is pairing with whom” (Hackman, ibid.: 321).
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Self-managed work teams The distribution of authority between work groups and management varies widely among organizations. According to Hackman (1987), there are three typical configurations of leadership in work teams: 1.
2.
3.
The manager-led work team is monitored, designed, and connected to its organizational environment by a designated formal manager, with the team holding collective responsibility only for the work execution; The self-managing work group is designed and connected to its organizational environment by a designated formal manager, with the team holding collective responsibility for work monitoring, managing and execution; The self-designing work group is connected to its organizational environment by a designated formal manager, with the team holding collective responsibility for team designing, as well as for work monitoring, managing and execution.
Self-managed teams are “interdependent groups of individuals who assume collective responsibility for the day-to-day operations of the team” (Williams, Parker, & Turner, 2010: 304). These teams are depicted both by scholars and managers as the production breakthrough of the 1990s (Attaran & Nguyen, 2000). Self-managed teams were found to increase job satisfaction (Cohen & Ledford, 1994) and job commitment (Pearson, 1992), and positively impact products’ quality, innovation and performance (Seung & Guy, 2004; Tata & Prasad, 2004). However, negative outcomes were also identified, such as the higher incidence of absenteeism and turnover (Cordery et al., 1991). Team members’ resistance to selfmanagement can occur because of weak managerial support, unclear role distribution, unfair workload allocation, and weak team support (Jones & Lindley, 1998; Kirkman et al., 1996). Clarity is needed about “who will do what” with regard to the team’s leadership (Kirkman, Jones, & Shapiro, 2000). In Hackman’s terms (1987: 34), the role of the manager “is to make sure a group confronts the leadership issue directly (even if members would prefer to deal with it implicitly or avoid it entirely)”. The design of the leadership role in self-managed teams relies either on emergent or non-emergent leaders (Erez, Lepine, & Elms, ibid.). Concretely, in the case of emergent leadership, one or several team members carry out leadership functions spontaneously, encompassing the risk that other group members may feel less responsible for team outcomes (Shepperd, 1993). In the case of non-emergent leadership, the team may decide to rely on shared leadership or “rotated leadership”, with all members sharing at different points in time the leader’s responsibilities in managing and monitoring team work (ibid.). Erez, Lepine and Elms (ibid.) demonstrated that shared leadership favorably influences the group voice (internal communication) and cooperation (the integration of members’ task inputs), along with group performance. Shared leadership was characterized as “an emergent property of the teams resulting from the distribution of leadership among the group members" (Carson, Tesluk, & Marrone, 2007: 1218).
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Shared leadership in self-managed work teams A rich literature in social psychology (Levine & Moreland, 1990; McGrath, 1984) and organizational behavior (Bettenhausen, 1991; Sundstrom et al., 1990) shows that team members in self-managed teams need specific interpersonal and self-management skills to perform at their best standard. According to Stevens and Campion (1994) and their “knowledge-skills-abilities” (KSA) model, interpersonal skills refer to the ability to manage conflict, solve problems collaboratively, and communicate within and outside the group, whereas self-management skills consist of the ability to collectively choose work objectives and track group progress towards these goals through effective planning and coordination tasks. Moreover, self-managed teams’ performance is not automatically raised by the presence of skilled individuals. Three categories of group processes moderate the impact of team design on group performance in self-managed teams: transition, action, and interpersonal processes (Marks, Mathieu & Zaccaro, 2011). Transition processes consist of formulating the group strategy and choosing the objectives to be pursued. Action processes refer to monitoring the group activity in its effort to achieve the objectives, as well as coordinating individual contributions to collective action. Finally, interpersonal processes refer to conflict and emotions management, as well as motivation and confidence building. To enable self-managed teams to achieve their goals, there are a number of leadership roles that contribute significantly to team performance (Carte, Chidambaram & Becker, 2006; Hackman & Walton, 1986; Yang & Shao, 1996). At the individual level, the leader was defined as “the individual most likely to direct the activities of other team members” (De Souza & Klein, 1995: 475). From a functional standpoint, leadership influences cognitive, motivational and emotional group processes, and group coordination (Zaccaro, Rittman & Marks, 2001). In other words, leadership may be the most significant moderator variable of self-managed teams’ performance (Carson, Tesluk & Marrone, 2007; Friedrich et al., 2009; Wageman, 2001). As Barry (1991) pointed out, in the absence of formal authority, selfmanaged teams are potentially more vulnerable to conflicts and power struggles, and therefore more inclined to “fission rather than fusion” (ibid.: 32). Envisioned as a group process (Ensley et al., 2006) or “a set of functions to be supported by the group” (Gibb, 1954: 884), leadership in self-managed teams may be conceptualized as a “collection of roles and behaviors that can be distributed, shared, swapped, and this sequentially or simultaneously” (Barry, ibid.: 34). “Exercising the right role at the right time” seems to be the winning formula, with four leadership roles stressed by Barry (ibid.): 1.
2.
Envisioning leadership facilitates idea generation and innovation, through setting ambitious goals and identifying links between ideas or systems. Envisioning leaders can help team members to work together to develop collective solutions, their role being essential at the beginning of the team work. It is the most exhausting leadership function because it requires constant vigilance and activity. When the team moves toward ideas implementation, this role becomes less preeminent and it is replaced by the organizing and spanning leadership roles; Organizing leadership is concerned with completing the task efficiently and effectively. Organizing leaders are able to bring together disparate elements and put them in order, with attention to detail, deadlines, and structure. This role is essential once the team objectives are set, but it can be counterproductive if exercised too early because it can hinder the process of developing new ideas and innovation;
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3.
4.
Spanning leadership links the team to its external environment through active networking behavior, team image and reputation promotion, information gathering, identification and mobilization of external resources, and negotiation. Ideally, the role of spanning leadership should be exercised throughout the group's activity because it ensures that the team is working in the right direction in relation to its environment. The risk would be to spend too much time away and lose contact with the team; Social leadership allows members to express their needs and concerns, and it ensures that everyone can express his/her opinion. This role has the goal of developing and maintaining the team psychological wellbeing.
Frame (1987) was the first to suggest that different types of leadership would be needed depending on the lifecycle of the team work. In a self-managed team, these leadership roles are expected to succeed in the following way (Barry, 1991): 1. 2.
3.
4.
Phase 1 is dominated by the envisioning leader, whereas organizing and spanning leaders verify that the team vision is feasible and viable, and the social leader facilitates the team constitution; Phase 2 is dominated by the social leader, because the differences between team members become more apparent and he/she may help to manage them effectively, while the organizing leader may manage work planning and distribution among team members; Phase 3 is dominated by the organizing leader, as the team is moving toward implementing the action plans. The spanning and the social leaders are also needed to link the project to its environment, to manage conflicts and increase team members’ motivation and involvement; Phase 4 is dominated by the organizing and the spanning leaders that decisively contribute to task completion. Also, the envisioning leader may help team members to make sense of their team experience, whereas the social leader may help the group to manage its frustration or sadness related to the end of the task.
Shared leadership was correlated with team performance in a sample of undergraduate business students (Sivasubramaniam et al., 2002). Yet, there is little empirical research dedicated to effective leadership distribution in self-managed teams and its impact on team performance (Carson, Tesluk & Marrone, 2007; Fitzsimons, James & Denyer, 2011; Turner & Müller, 2005). In autonomous student teams, it is the negotiations between the group members that lead to implicit or explicit leadership roles distribution. Cohen and colleagues (1997) recommend training students to exercise leadership in self-managed teams. This seems necessary as in this kind of team, one individual could not compensate for the lack of leadership from other members (Taggar, Hackett, & Saha, 1999). In this perspective, the performance of student self-managed teams would be linked to their collective ability to exercise effective leadership. Research questions and propositions Our purpose is to examine the impact of student team design and leadership on team effectiveness using Hackman’s (1987) criteria: production outputs, learning outcomes and satisfaction. Our premise is that team processes play a meditational role in student team work, with team outcomes varying according to the leadership configurations adopted. We posit that 7
shared leadership may be the most effective way to trigger both positive team production and individual learning, as well as satisfaction and pride. Teams which function with an organizing leader may also achieve objectives but would be less satisfied with learning acquisitions. Conversely, student teams with no explicit or implicit leadership would experience difficulties in dealing efficiently with internal conflicts and in organizing work processes so as to keep to deadlines. An additional premise of this research is that the sociogram test could be useful in gaining insight about interpersonal group interactions, as it identifies the group leader(s) as those students who are the most preferred by the other team members. With these premises in mind, the research design and methodology was articulated to enable an exploration of the following propositions: P1: student project groups with distributed leadership will generate positive production outputs, learning outcomes and satisfaction; P2: student project groups with one or more organizing leaders will generate positive production outputs, but limited learning outcomes and satisfaction; P3: student project groups with no leadership configuration will generate negative production outputs, learning outcomes and satisfaction.
Research design and methodology The research context A Problem-Based Learning Project was implemented at Ecole Polytechnique de Louvain in September 2000 for first and second year students. On the first day at school, all engineering students are invited to randomly join a team of 6 students. During the first semester of their first undergraduate year (14 weeks), student teams focus on problem-based learning in three academic disciplines (mathematics, physics and computer engineering) and collective working on an interdisciplinary hands-on project (lasting from weeks 2 to 12). Identical for all the participants, this project aims to facilitate learning from a concrete experience through applying the knowledge and techniques acquired through disciplinary problem-based learning, as well as to enhance teamwork skills and to initiate leadership roles. In 2011, the project consisted of designing a robot prototype capable of removing the nuclear waste resulting from the explosion at the Fukushima nuclear factory in Japan in March 2011. In terms of managerial skills, the learning objectives of the project are to help students enhance their task coordination abilities, as well as to increase their cooperation, communication and conflict management skills. Since the project launching in 2000, groups are expected to weekly rotate four distinct roles among members: the “time keeper”, the “moderator”, the “secretary” and the “scribe”. No explicit instructions are given concerning leadership organization.
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The student teams are coached regularly by several tutors, in charge of monitoring engineering and managerial skills progression. Team tutors may be professors, Phd students and/or graduate students (1 tutor for 4 teams). They have formal weekly appointments with the teams. The tutor’s role is mainly that of a facilitator (Raucent, Hernandez & Moore, 2009), helping students develop collective thinking about their activities, goals and interactions. Prior to their entrance into the project, all the tutors received training to guide them into their coaching role. Participants In 2011, 360 students (60 teams) of first-year engineering students were enrolled in this project. Among them, we randomly selected a sample of 29 groups (174 students; 32 females and 142 males). 16 groups were composed of 2 females and 4 males; the others were all male students. However, the question of gender was not a focus of this particular project. Data collection Team progression follow-up is punctuated by the delivery of a set of documents at specific deadlines. Every two weeks (see table 1), students are asked to individually and collectively evaluate their group work. This evaluation consists of an individual questionnaire, followed by a group meeting and debate. These evaluation documents and discussions are not part of the final team grade, but receive constructive feedback by the tutor. At the end of week 6, all the groups elaborate collective reports on their work progress in terms of individual learning and skills acquisition, as well as group performance and outputs. Again, the tutor gives feedback but no grade to teams for this report. The same type of report is expected at the end of the project (week 12). This final group report is evaluated and receives a grade and feedback from an academic jury. In addition to these pedagogical documents, participants are invited to fill in two questionnaires for research purposes only. The first is an individual questionnaire1 based on Stevens and Campion (1994), Marks et al. (2001) and Barry (1991) constructs, that all students completed before and after the project so as to collect information about their teamwork attitudes, leadership beliefs and abilities. The second is an individual report concerning team progression and teammate’s performance, delivered at week 5 and week 12. At this stage of the research, these two sets of data constitute the knowledge base on which the present analysis is based. Table 1 presents the documents produced by individuals and groups, and indicates those examined in this paper (). The two questionnaires are presented in Appendix 1 and 2.
1
This questionnaire will be further analyzed in future research phases.
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Week With feedback (pedagogical documents)
Confidential (for research purpose only)
1
Individual questionnaire on teamwork processes and outcomes + group discussion Collective report on teamwork progression Individual questionnaire on leadership perceptions and attitudes
2
3
4
x
x
5
6
x
7
8
x
9
10
11
12
14
x
x
x
x
Individual short report on team progression and teammates performance
Pre-Jury
x
Jury
Table 1. List of documents produced by individuals and groups
Data analysis Two of the researchers analyzed the collective and individual reports provided by the students at week 5 and 6. They first analyzed the documents provided by 8 groups, randomly chosen among the 29, so as to jointly elaborate an initial typology of group structure and leadership. Then, they analyzed the documents provided by the remaining 21 groups and refined their initial typology. Another member of the research team double-checked the results. The analysis focused on the group perceived performance and the group processes that team members implemented to organize their work. We examined the group perceived performance according to Hackman’s (1987) three criteria of team effectiveness: production outputs, learning outcomes and satisfaction with group performance. Six criteria were used to study team processes: group organization, team members perceived personal involvement, conflict management, group climate, quality and relevance of group and individual reports, and the total amount of interpersonal interactions (measured with a sociometric test). Qualitative content analysis was used to code verbatim, double-checked by two researchers. The sociometric approach was found helpful in identifying team interrelations and leadership patterns, with the sociometric test revealing group structure and group roles (Mescon, 1959; Murray, 1970). Group density, conceptualized as the pattern of relationships within a team is analogous to the number of ties per group member as measured by the sociometric test (Sparrowe et al., 2001). Density may be a good indicator of leadership influences within work teams, especially for assessing shared leadership (Carson, Tesluk & Marrone, 2007). For each group, all ties connecting members with one another (either reciprocal or one-way ties) were identified and registered according to the students’ answers to the confidential question “Who do you prefer to work 10
with?” Based on our findings, we elaborated a typology of team leadership configurations according to the students’ group structure and organization.
Findings The analysis of the collective and individual reports enabled a classification of the 29 groups into four leadership categories. The first category, labeled “Waiting for Godot”, comprises eight groups who did not succeed in organizing themselves in roles and task sharing and where no leadership strategy emerged. The working patterns adopted by the six groups in the second category may have initially created the illusion that some kind of leadership emerged but the leadership potential generated by the “foot soldiers” petered out because of the presence of “hangers-on” who displayed a more passive attitude. The third category comprises seven groups, characterized by the emergence of “organizing leaders” who took command relatively late in the process to “save” the team and mobilize members to ensure a reasonable performance. The eight groups in the fourth category chose to distribute leadership roles among members, achieving a high level of satisfaction and pride as regards their collective outcomes. Our leadership typology is presented in Tables 2 and 3 (see Appendix 3). Table 2 focuses on the overall perceived group performance items, as suggested by Hackman (1987). Table 3 focuses on the group processes implemented by student teams during the project work, measured by the six items presented. Category 1: “Waiting for Godot” - no leadership The overall poor performance of the groups in this category may be attributed to their difficulties in developing appropriate group processes, and in mobilizing existing knowledge and skills to ensure positive outcomes. This may be due to problems in understanding and therefore implementing effective role-sharing within the groups. Consequently, they dealt inefficiently with the issue of task distribution required for managing workload in order to respect deadlines and achieve objectives. Their working patterns were haphazard, resulting in unfinished, disappointing outputs and considered inferior to those of other groups. On the whole, the groups were either not willing or unable to make connections between ineffective learning strategies and unsatisfactory production. Their problems were compounded by a general inability to establish reciprocal communication channels to coordinate and implement the activities to be carried out. The sociometric test displays an extremely low average of 6 interpersonal interactions that occurred amongst the 48 members in this category. Figure 1 displays the typical sociogram in this category which shows a very low group density as well as few reciprocal ties between members. Among the 8 groups of this category, we observed a minimum of 1 and a maximum of 11 interpersonal 11
interactions. In the latter case, only two members worked together to produce the robot but there is no evidence of a concerted group effort to achieve results, which may suggest that this rate of interactions does not necessarily imply a high level of coordination among team members. While one group did manage to attribute tasks and roles from week 3 onwards, albeit on a non-voluntary basis, the low level of motivation generated a group climate that was non-conducive to making progress. As a group pointed out, “everyone thought that someone else would do the work and, as a result, nothing was done… some components were handed in without being corrected by the others”. This tendency to play the “waiting game” rather than to get to grips with the work is also reflected in the mediocre quality of the written reports. Category 2: “Foot soldiers and hangers-on” – an illusion of leadership The groups in this category succeeded in their attempts to generate some leadership to manage the work in progress. They produced the expected outputs within the deadlines, but all experienced difficulties in managing them effectively. With the exception of one group, the others mentioned the “last-minute stress” and the short nights that accompanied the handing-in of the robot components. Two groups underlined the imperfections of the outputs produced. There is a certain focus on progress made in the technical area to explain positive learning outcomes, while mastery in teamwork processes is considered positively only by one group. In terms of satisfaction relative to performance, the results reveal the overriding weakness that plagued these groups and which prevented the emergence of a solid leadership strategy. The groups were composed of two sets of participants: the “foot soldiers” who were anxious to do well and the “hangers-on” who contented themselves with a more passive form of participation. The strategies implemented by the former in distributing tasks and roles tended to be cancelled out by the lack of motivation expressed by the latter. As some groups pointed out, “we divided up the work in an equitable fashion but some members complained that others did not pull their weight”, “certain members of the group show no interest in the work to be done or were uninterested in working as a team”. The strategies employed for managing conflicts reflect the difficulties encountered by all these groups in reaching common agreement on orientations to be taken, exemplified by a preference for voting and subsequent compromises. The sociometric test displays a moderate but heterogeneous group density, ranging from 3 to 18, with an average of 9,6 interpersonal interactions among the groups. As shown in figure 2, the sociogram highlights the existence of reciprocity limited to those sub-groups that are actively involved in achieving results. Differences of opinion are also revealed in the high level of incoherence that exists between appreciations in the collective and individual reports handed in by all groups.
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Category 3: “Saved by an emerging captain” – organizing leader(s) At the outset, all groups in this category experienced difficulties in coordinating the role-sharing and task distribution activities. Some groups mentioned that roles were unclear; that they struggled to find their feet, or that a lack of coordination generated hesitations about role-sharing. However, these disorganized beginnings were not caused by a disinterest in the project but served as a catalyst resulting in the emergence of a leader or leaders who gradually took over the organization of the workload to the relief of the other members. By coordinating the tasks to be carried out, these organizing leader(s) enabled members to rotate time-keeping, monitoring, specialist and secretarial roles within their groups. These concerted efforts helped the groups to reach their objectives, although because of initial delays, four of them handed in their work at the last minute. Not surprisingly, the sociometric analysis displays a higher group density than in the first two categories, ranging from 10 to 20, with an average of 13,3. However, as illustrated by figure 3, a sort of blithe confidence in the leaders who took over is reflected in the fact that only one or two members in some groups receive a significantly higher number of preferences from the others, although this is not always reciprocal. The organizing leader (student A in figure 3) succeeds in connecting with all subgroups as well as with less popular students who do not receive preference from any other member (student C in figure 3). There is evidence of openness about the role of conflict management, reflected in criticisms about the lack of organization in the groups or in demonstrating how it helped to resolve divergences in opinions: “there are always difficult moments when the pressure is on or when people disagree… but we always succeeded in managing these crises periods… we remained calm and positive”. The same group neatly summarizes the movement from individual to teamwork when commenting on the fact that “today, when someone has an intuition, they write it on the board and now we voice our differences of opinion”. Not all the groups were satisfied with overall performance or were capable of connecting learning outcomes with team effectiveness, but there is a general positive appreciation expressed for the organizing leaders who saved the day. Category 4: “All guiding the boat” – distributed leadership As shown in figure 4, the sociometric analysis in this category displays not only the highest group density, which ranges from 12 to 24 with an average of 19, but also highlights the significant degree of reciprocity in the preferences expressed among members. Although some groups encountered organizational difficulties at the outset, the relatively 13
high level of communication established in all groups paved the way for effective team working. This is reflected in their ability to distribute the roles and tasks that enabled them to achieve their objectives within the deadlines imposed, thus generating an overall sense of pride in their accomplishments. Roles such as scribe, facilitator, administrator, time-keeper and secretary were shared as underlined here: “during the working sessions and in function of the degree of enthusiasm, determination and tiredness of the group members, the different roles were shared out to ensure better productivity”. A number of groups in this category comment on the emergence of cognitive, social and visionary leaders in their groups. Conflict management was considered as constructive with one group commenting on the social function of leadership played by one member which “helped to alleviate tensions and to create a sense of well-being”. Learning outcomes in the technical and teamwork areas are specified in 5 of the 8 groups and both the collective and individual reports are well-structured.
Discussion The findings globally confirm our research propositions, but introduce some subtleties. P1 is totally supported as shared leadership is found to lead to more positive outcomes than other group forms. But we discovered that some of the groups with one or several organizing leaders also triggered positive learning outcomes and satisfaction, which partially rejects P2. We identified four leadership configurations rather than three categories, as expected initially (P3 partially confirmed). Our results indicate some heterogeneity inside each leadership category, which could be analyzed as an indicator of group dynamics, with teams evolving or sometimes regressing from the beginning until the end of the project in terms of leadership distribution. Teams’ performance depends on their collective ability to deal with group processes so as to progressively harness motivation and interaction, and therefore generate high level outcomes. We think the 4 leadership configurations identified in student project teams should be conceptualized as a “leadership role distribution continuum” rather than as a discrete categories distribution. This new hypothesis requires further investigation on leadership evolution in groups between week 6 and 12. An unexpected theoretical finding concerns leadership roles. We discovered that the student teams did not use all of the four leadership roles conceptualized by Barry (1991). They often relied on one or several organizational leaders as well as on a social leader for the “shared leadership” category. Within this category, we also observed a cognitive leader, not specified in Barry (1991) who might be specific in academic settings. As Holmer (2001) suggested, students with recognized expertise in one relevant area for the project task were perceived as legitimate in coordinating their teammates in that specific domain. “Expertise” may function as a form of “power” or “authority” (cf. French & Raven, 1959), thus as a leadership role to be distributed by the group among team members. We surmise at this stage the presence of a series of competencies exercised by some of the members in the shared leadership category which may contribute to an understanding of the role of the cognitive leader within these academic settings. Being able to call on existing theoretical knowledge for clarification purposes; being able to transpose to and validate this knowledge in new 14
situations and demonstrating skills in reformulation and explanation may be some of the skills and competencies that make up this profile. Aware that further research is required to give body to this type of leader, the research team has added a set of 9 questions on cognitive leader attributes to the individual questionnaire on teamwork processes and attitudes and these will be tested with future groups in the next phase of this project. Indications for pedagogical practice can be inferred from our results. From a pedagogical standpoint, the 3rd category indicates that overall pedagogical organization has an impact on leadership issues. The fact that student teams must elaborate a mid-term collective report after the preparatory jury of week 6 seems to increase pressure, generating one or several organizing leaders to meet pedagogical expectations. The research team did not control for the impacts of stress on leadership emergence in this project but could, in subsequent phases, usefully explore Fiedler’s cognitive resource theory (2002) on the links between stress, performance and an individual’s experience and intelligence. Tutors’ feedback may also play a role in the emergence of organizational or shared leadership, but the data we examined here cannot demonstrate this, as no differentiating links have as yet been established between tutor feedback and the varied degree of performance attained by the 4 categories observed. Future research will take tutors’ observations into account and check if they were aware of ways in which group dynamics may have led to the emergence of leadership features or not, and if they think that their indications helped groups to make decisions about leadership distribution. Another interesting pedagogical finding concerns the relationship between leadership, group structure and learning. Learning is limited when there is no leadership, weak to average when leadership is based only on organizational leaders and higher in the case of shared leadership. This could be interpreted using Holmes’ theory about team performance as a function of leadership, learning, and defensive routines (2001: 591), Defensive routines (Argyris, 1993) are risk-avoidant behaviors that protect individuals and groups from experiencing embarrassment and threat, while at the same time inhibiting their willingness to voice personal ideas , therefore reducing their capacity to deal with interpersonal difficulties and to learn new ways of dealing with teamwork situations. Our results suggest that shared leadership groups maximize satisfaction and help students to overcome those defensive routines. As Bacon et al., (1999) point out, “Students learn more from good group experiences than from bad”, professors are thus responsible for designing appropriate pedagogical projects that may help students learn not only how to collectively deliver appropriate production outputs, but also how to organize as a team and how to function together as a self-managed group (O’Connor & Yballe, 2007). Among the practical guidelines provided by Holmes (2001); O’Connor and Yballe, (2007) we may find inspiration in enhancing the ability of student teams to generate appropriate group processes and leadership. Being clear about the rationale for asking students to work in teams is crucial but not sufficient. Our results suggest that tutors must also encourage certain leadership forms more than others, be it by discussing and criticizing “unreasonable self-expectations”, encouraging discussion about mutual expectations, or providing feedback. However, our investigation does not say much about ways in which 15
tutors can help their groups discover and experience shared leadership. More qualitative data on the coaching relationship and its impact on the evolution of group dynamics may be necessary. Galand, Raucent and Frenay (2010) report that students who attended the program evaluated the relationship with their tutors as caring and supportive. Future research could investigate which characteristics of this support lead to better understanding and implementation of shared leadership.
Conclusion This first study has enabled us to identify four leadership configurations that have emerged in student teams and which can be situated on a continuum. They evolve from inexistent or limited forms of leadership, through to more effective team performance due to organizing leadership input, culminating in shared leadership processes which generate higher levels of team performance and satisfaction. Building on the positive correlation established by Sivasubramaniam et al, (2002) between shared leadership and student team performance, this study has contributed to a better understanding of how shared leadership processes actually emerge, function, interact and succeed in student self-managed teams. It has also brought to light a possible new role particularly appropriate in academic settings, that of the cognitive leader. However, we still do not know if all student teams will eventually adopt shared leadership processes or whether this depends on some students’ already possessing predispositions for exercising leadership. On practical and methodological levels, the orchestration of the pedagogical components inherent in the team design, particularly those concerning deadlines and tutor feedback, would seem to favor the emergence of at least temporarily structured leadership patterns. Further research on how group dynamics are influenced by tutor input at specific periods during the project as well as on the nature of this input (prescriptions, role-models, feedback…) would provide insight for designing effective pedagogical guidelines to deal with leadership issues in student teams. As this study demonstrated, the use of sociometric measures in revealing some of the underpinnings for developing group dynamics could be extended, particularly as regards possible exploitation by tutors. The findings in this qualitative study are limited for two reasons. Firstly, there was a certain degree of heterogeneity within the 4 leadership configurations established. Further quantitative analysis is required to confirm these results focusing on the differences in students’ perceptions on production outputs and team processes, tested prior to and at the end of the project. Secondly, the analysis was carried out at one specific moment during the project. In order to better understand the workings of group dynamics in such projects, team processes should be studied as they evolve. The next phase of the research program will include a verification of these initial findings by comparing collective and individual reports provided at week 6 with those of week 12 and by analyzing the gaps in the individual questionnaires students completed at weeks 1 and 14. We will also collect data from the tutors on their perceptions of the 16
leadership configurations and on possible links between their pedagogical practices in relation to the results achieved by the students. Our ultimate aim is to be able to provide a set of prescriptions and guidelines nurturing leadership behaviors and qualities within student teamwork configurations.
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Appendix 1 Questions of collective report after preparatory jury (week 6) 1) How do you evaluate team outcomes so far ? a. In terms of team production b. In terms of learning outcomes c. In terms of participation and involvement of each member of the team 2) How do you evaluate teamwork processes and cooperation from week 3 to 6 ? a. How do you evaluate the group organization? Illustrate with concrete situations experienced by the team, for example deadlines that were not held, tasks that were not divided up… why ? when ? facts ? solution ? b. How were the roles distributed among team members? Illustrate with concrete situations experienced by the team, for example : roles were distributed but not held… why ? when ? facts ? solution ? c. Did every member voice his/her opinions in an open manner within the group? Illustrate with concrete situations experienced by the team, for example : members did not listen to each others, some hanged back… why ? when ? facts ? solution ? 3) How do you evaluate conflict management and leadership in your group? a. Did you meet any conflicts in your group? Did you collectively deal with in a constructive way? give facts and analyze them b. Did you find difficult to solve some of these conflicts? give facts and analyze them c. What about leadership in your group, how was it organized ? give facts and analyze them 4) Are you proud and satisfied with your group work and outcomes ? a. Proud and satisfied with learning outcomes ? give facts and analyze them b. Proud and satisfied with conflict management ? give facts and analyze them c. Proud and satisfied with team production ? give facts and analyze them d. Proud and satisfied with teamwork ? give facts and analyze them 5) Which deceptions or difficulties did you encounter during the group work ? a. Concerning learning process and outcomes ? give facts and analyze them b. Concerning production outcomes ? give facts and analyze them c. Concerning teamwork ? give facts and analyze them 6) Which changes would you suggest and/or implement if you had to do it again? How would you like to deal with this pedagogical project ? What or who could help you to deal with it in a more efficient way?
Appendix 2 Questions of individual confidential report (week 5) 1) Sum up the main phases of your team work so far (working stages, strong beat, down beat, difficulties…) 2) How do you evaluate the actual team outcomes as compared to initial objectives? 3) According to you, what could explain these outcomes ? 4) What did you learn during the project. Which student of your team do you prefer to work with? 5) What are your remarks, suggestions, and recommendations to enhance the learning and production outcomes of this pedagogical project?
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Appendix 3 Table 2 Types of leadership
Waiting for Godot No leadership
8
Foot soldiers and hangers-on -
Saved by emerging captain -
All guiding the boat Distributed leadership
Illusion of leadership
Organizing leader(s)
6
7
8
Groups produced the expected outputs Evidence of time-keeping problems for 4 groups
Groups produced the expected outputs, the deadlines were respected but some imperfections were observed as regards the quality of production outputs
An average to weak level of learning acquisitions in the technical and teamwork areas
Common agreement on significant learning outcomes in technical and teamwork areas in 5 of the 8 groups
A mix of positive and negative evaluations of overall team performance
High level of individual and group satisfaction, with high pride as regards the results achieved
Number of groups
Production outputs
Learning outcomes
A general consensus on the fact that the production outputs were not completed satisfactorily and on time
Groups produced the expected outputs, but their quality was rather mediocre. Groups declared time management difficulties
Whether in relation to the technical or teamwork area, information about learning acquisitions is rare, vague and difficult to identify in students’ discourse
Some difficulties in identifying clear learning outcomes Gaps in technical expertise are sometimes deemed responsible for poor performance Teamwork does not rate much thought
Low level of satisfaction due to the lack of focus and clarity in the project work
Poor to average with some expressions of pride as regards the work performed by the “active” group members
Satisfaction
Table 2: Group leadership typology in relation to group perceived performance
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Table 3 Types of leadership
Group organization
Team members’ perceived personal involvement
Interpersonal interactions (sociogram)
Conflict management
Group
Waiting for Godot - No leadership
Foot soldiers and hangers-on -
Saved by emerging captain -
Illusion of leadership
Organizing leader(s)
A lack of coordination in task distribution and evidence of resistance to role-sharing among team members
Due to the lack of an authoritative figure, subgroups hold specific coordination roles to achieve common objectives. The hangers-on are tolerated by the other group members
A lack of clear organizational strategy, particularly at the outset of the project, but emergence of one or several organizational leader(s) to help the team achieve objectives
Systematic task distribution and role-sharing in overall group or sub-groups. Evidence of distributed leadership
Rather weak in general, but some sub-groups are perceived as experiencing strong involvement
Relatively low in general, but some members may experience a stronger involvement
Low at the outset, then higher, once the organizing leaders have emerged
Members display a strong level of involvement. Awareness of negative effect of absenteeism
Limited group density (1-11, mean=6)
Moderate yet heterogeneous group density (3-18, mean = 9,6)
High group density (10-20, mean = 13,3)
High to very high group density (12-25, mean = 19)
1 or 2 members of each group are significantly preferred by others but choices are rarely reciprocal
High reciprocity of preferrences: All team members are elected by others and hold reciprocal ties
Limited number of ties per team member : Only 3 students out of 48 are chosen by 3 members of their group
Contrast of number of ties per member – Only 2-4 members of each group are chosen by at least 2 other members
All guiding the boat Distributed leadership
Very little evidence of conflict management leading to resolution of problems encountered
Constructive conflict management for 1 group, but strong evidence of dependence on “voting” to solve differences of opinion in 3 groups
Evidence of group learning on how to harness conflict management techniques to enable more effective teamwork
Conflicts are perceivedas constructive, necessary and effective for achieving team objectives
Generally considered by group members as not conducive to making progress
Rather positive but tense group climate
Relaxed group climate, not always conducive to enabling effective teamwork
Hard-working groups in a positive, enthusiastic and respectful group climate
Incomplete and mediocre group and individual reports. Some incoherence between collective and individual reports
Major incoherencies between collective and individual reports
Average level for group and individual reports.
Well-structured, wellpresented group and individual reports. High coherence between collective and individual reports
climate Quality and relevance of individual and group reports
Table 3: Group leadership typology in relation to group processes
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