Leadership Behavior, Team Effectiveness And Conflict...

Introduction Due to the inception of the study on leadership behavior, team effectiveness and conflict management skills, leaders now have valuable resources available at their fingertips to determine what need be done to create a high-performing team. Unfortunately, often times, leaders miss the point and find themselves with teams ridden in conflict and become stuck, leading to organizational ineffectiveness (Gostick Elton, 2012). Since the workplace today consists of an ever changing, instantaneous environment, it is important that leaders ensure their capability to deal with conflict. As such, the following will discuss research found on leading teams through conflict, including (a) diversity conflict amongst teams; (b) managing†¦show more content†¦Diversity Conflict Due to technological advances, teams have found themselves in a much better place, collaboration-wise, than ever before. Meetings can now be held online, anytime, almost anywhere (Berrey, 2010). Addit ionally, the members of teams have become different, too. There are many more different cultures working together than ever before, including those from different countries that speak numerous languages. Because of all these differences, conflict can occur at any time. It is important leaders and team members learn to deal with these differences and conflicts accordingly in order to maintain or create a high-performing team (Woehr, Arciniega Poling, 2013). Cultural Conflict Common sense tells us that different people with different backgrounds and different perspectives are needed in the workplace; these differences increase team creativity (Stahl Maznevski, 2011). Unfortunately, this creativity can only occur if all the people on the team are on the same page. Often times, with the cultural differences, members will find themselves involved in some sort of conflict (Stahl Maznevski, 2011). An important part of culture is the way in which people, or in this case, members of the team, identify within a group (Stahl Maznevski, 2011). Individualist Cultures are oriented around self and independence, instead of a group mentality; personal goals are valued