Artifical barriers between leaders and led are only one obstacle to true teamwork. Interdepartmental and cross-functional rivalries – what Americans call ‘turf wars’ – are other serious hurdles, made worse by the fact that they are seldom overcome. They’re known in sport, too. Try to persuade rugby forwards that they can learn from backs, or vice versa, and you’ll usually get no more change than when persuading marketing to work (as it should) hand-in-glove with production, or either to cooperate willingly with finance.
The skills essential to the modern manager thus include the ability to work with other functional talents in teams – and to lead, not by the authority of command, but that of expertise. Team leadership, paradoxically, includes knowing when to hand over the lead to others, as their expertise moves to the fore. In games, this stems naturally from the functional demands. Only the quarterback can call the plays in American football: in rugby, lineout tactics are equally an expert function.
Links:
http://www.thinkingmanagers.com/management/team-management.php
http://www.1000ventures.com/business_guide/crosscuttings/team_management.html
http://www.itmweb.com/f051003.htm
