In this competitive era of technology, the most common issue people deal with is how to work as a team. You might have an excellent idea but if you cannot work as a team than it is a failure straight away. If you are looking to understand how teamwork creates team identity, this article is for you.
What Is Teamwork?
Teamwork is simply a group of people who must work collaboratively to fulfill a common goal. It is an amalgamation of the knowledge and experiences of each individual in the group. The knowledge is then used to assign and divide the work among team members to work interdependently.
Leader’s Role
No one can reach heights of success without a fully functional team. It requires strong leadership to build effective teams. The Leader needs to build trust with and among team members. The leader should be able to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the team members and support the members accordingly. Team members’ participation should be encouraged and they should get sufficient resources, autonomy, motivation and confidence by the leader.
What Is Team Identity?
Team identity refers to the mutual connection of individual team members to work together in accomplishing goals. It is a sense of responsibility to prioritize the demands of the team first before their own. However, is not that easy to mould a group of people and inculcate the sense of belongingness into them. It is because everyone thinks, acts, and believes differently.
Here are some factors that determine the efficiency of team identity.
Communication: Communication means the exchange of information. It plays a vital role in team identity. It forms the bases of your team. Two mediums for communication are verbal and written. Since everyone has a different communication style, therefore it is easier for the leader to understand various personalities within the team.
Emotional Intelligence: This professional skill influences the team identity. Every team has its unique emotional intelligence. It helps team members to develop social skills and self-motivation. Emotional intelligence can easily determine the success of organizational goals.
Conflict Resolution: It deals with the diversity of opinions, agreements and disagreements within the team. However, how to manage this is a real deal? Hence, there is a need for a leader. A leader acts as a guide to resolve these issues.
What Is The Role Of Team Leader In Creating Team Identity?
Team leaders play a significant role in teamwork. A leader is someone who provides guidance and instructions to a group of people who are in the same team to achieve a common goal. The roles of the team leaders include effective communication, strategize the path to achieve the goal, train and listen to the team members. A team leader must motivate the entire team and even though it seems quite easy, however, it is not that easy in reality. Many teams failed to prove the capabilities of the team members just because they do not feel motivated enough.
How To Create Team Identity
Following steps can help you in creating an efficient team identity.
Develop a Mission: As a leader, you are supposed to understand the personalities of team members. Give each other the chance to understand the work styles of everyone. Then develop a mission for your project. Planning needs to be strong so be very particular with the mission.
Division: Divide the tasks of each team member by understanding their personalities. Note that each individual has a different command of the work so look for that and divide the work accordingly. This ensures that each member is comfortable is what they are doing.
Procedures: Encourage the team members to make the procedures to work. If they feel stuck, help them in making the procedures.
Clarify The Authority: It is important to clarify the role and authority of each person in the project.
Open Communication: Provide such space to team members that they feel free to communicate about the difference of opinions, frustrations and problems. This encourages a healthy working relationship, which in turn enhances the productivity of the team as a whole.
Take Follow Up:
To review the problems and provide solutions, set up a meeting of the team. It will ensure the connectivity of the team that everyone is on the same page. The discussions will help in improving the tasks and team members will feel the sense of belonging to the team hence will encourage them to work.
How To Fix A Damaged Team Identity?
Usually, team identity damages due to conflicts among the team members. Conflicts can be of any nature be it as small as not listening or as big as that of a free rider. To understand the common problem, team members should be aware of the term, conflict resolution. However, before that, here are some tips to overcome the conflicts. Disagreements need to be addressed to the team leader because ignoring it can cause harm to the team. Set up a meeting to understand the viewpoints of each member under disagreements. You can talk directly to each other apart from the disagreements that can ease the feeling of anger if any.
Importance of Team Identity
Team Identity is what shapes the ideology of successful teamwork. Without the concept of team identity, people will not sense the responsibility and feeling of belongingness to the team. To enhance the productivity of the team, team members who happen to be completely different from each other merge together to strive for a common goal in such a way that they feel complete in the team they are in. Absence of team identity will lead to issues such as wrong decisions, lack of communication, lack of participation, lack of support and lack of Creativity. It causes ineffective leadership.
To be successful in your career or business you need to learn the art of how teams work and how to be able to create a team identity.