Sari Butink 10670378 Supervised by: Marja Flory, Leadership & Management track
Master thesis
‘How can diverse teams be most productive with respect to the effects of team leadership on those teams’?
Abstract
This study examines the influence of team leaders on the effectiveness of teams. In addition, the influence of task and person focused leaders will be studied on teams that are diverse and
less diverse in age by the effectiveness of these team. By examining the annual productivity of several teams the influence of the focus of the team leader is measured. There is used a qualitative research design in which data is acquired trough semi structured interviews with the team leaders. After, to use the results a thick description and themes are formed. Surveys
are used to gather data of the team members and for the productivity of each team annual reports are used. The findings indicate that person focused leaders perform well on diverse
Preface
This thesis contributes to the fulfilment for the degree of Master of Science in Business administration at the University of Amsterdam. The research is carried out in a Dutch insurance company, Delta Lloyd placed in Amsterdam. The supervisor of this research is dr. Marja Flory form the Erasmus university of Rotterdam.
Without the support of several people this project would not have been possible. I would sincerely like to thank my supervisor, dr. Marja Flory, for her support, knowledge and the pep-up talks. I would also express my gratitude to the support I received at my current employer, Delta Lloyd. Without my team leader, Reinout Camphuijsen and the other team leaders, Iris Werkman, Gerda Schuurman and Paul Weissman I would not have been able to perform this research. Also, I would like to thank my manager at this company, Raymond Leemkuil, for his guidance and inspiring words. Furthermore, the support of my friend and family was unable to miss during this project.
Statement of Originality
This document is written by Student Sari Butink who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document.
I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it. The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.
Table of Contents
1.
Introduction__________________________________________________6
2. Literature review_____________________________________________ 7
2.1 Team effectiviness________________________________________7
2.2 Diversity________________________________________________9
2.3 Age Diversity___________________________________________11
2.4 Team Leadership________________________________________13
2.4.1 Task focused leadership _________________________________15
2.4.2 Person focused leadership______________________________16
2.5 Situational influence______________________________________17
2.6 The propositions formed__________________________________ 18
3. Methodology__________________________________________________20
3.1 Research Methods_______________________________________20
3.2 Qualitative vs Quantitative view____________________________21
3.3 Research context_________________________________________22
4. Measurement_________________________________________________23
4.1 Interviews, Surveys and annual reports_______________________23
4.2 Moderator_____________________________________________24
4.3 Team effectiveness_______________________________________24
4.4 The company___________________________________________26
4.4.1 The delta Lloyd group___________________________26
5. Results______________________________________________________27
5.1 The interviews__________________________________________27
5.1.1 thick description TL1______________________________27
5.1.2 thick description TL2_____________________________30
5.1.3 thick description TL3____________________________32
5.1.4 thick description TL4___________________________34
5.2 The survey_____________________________________________ 36
5.2.1 team 1, the survey results________________________37
5.2.2 team 2, the survey results________________________38
5.2.3 team 3, the survey results__________________________38
5.2.4 team 4, the survey results __________________________ 38
5.3 Team diversity measure________________________________39
5.4 Team effectiveness measure_____________________________42
5.4.1 objective measure_________________________________ 43
6.
Discussion________________________________________________44
6.1 Themes_______________________________________________44
6.1.1 Theme 1______________________________________45
6.1.2 Theme 2______________________________________ __46
6.1.3 Theme 3________________________________________48
6.1.4 Theme 4______________________________________49
6.1.5 Theme 5______________________________________50
6.1.6 Theme 6______________________________________50
6.2 The propositions answered_________________________________50
7. Concluding remarks____________________________________________55
7.1 Limitations and future research_____________________________ 57
1. Introduction
Teams of people working for a common cause is part of our everyday lives. They are the centre of how the work gets done in the modern society. Sometimes, people working together have unexpected success, sometimes they do not. This research is therefore focussing on the question how leadership can influence a team and make team functioning effective with having a diverse team. Nowadays organizations are changing from individual jobs in a system of organized and complex workflow systems. Teams are able to create innovation, have a diversity in skills with which they can response and adapt rapidly and therefore be more competitive (Kozlowski & Ilgen, 2006). For survival in the rivalry of companies, employees can have an important role in the competitive advantage of a firm. The greatest competitive advantage a firm can have is the pool of employees, with their own unique qualities combined together as a team it is hard for other companies to copy (Wolff, 1999). Furthermore, stimulating creative behaviors is an important aspect in the competitiveness of the organization. For the organizational survival it is important to influence employees in a way to better collaborate and be creative to draw the highest benefits out of the employees.
Teams are important for companies, in a way that they are hard to imitate. Therefore, performing tasks in group form is stimulated by most companies and contribute to the core of the organization and the job that needs to be done (Borman & Motowidlo, 1997). Team performance can be effective if individual team members successfully integrate their actions and coordinate these with other team members in order to create team processes that are aligned with each other for having the highest team performance (Zaccaro, Rittman & Marks, 2001).
The individuals who form the team all have diverse characteristics and should be guided in a way to achieve effective team performance. Therefore, leadership is the most important factor in influencing the employees and the higher management in having success in organizational teams (Zaccaro, Heinen & Shuffler, 2009). There is evidence that employees’ attitudes toward the firm have a positive relationship with the performance of the firm (Wang, Tsui & Xin, 2011). This link is moderated by the leader and the style that will be used to achieve an effective firm performance. If a leader for example creates the idea of ‘shared values’ in a team, they are more likely to cooperate and collaborate with each other, which in turn improves organizational performance. Another important aspect in having diverse individuals in team is trust (Yang, 2014). It is associated with effective work teams and crucial in defining group dynamic it even allows individuals to justify their decision to
contribute in teams (Kramer, Brewer, & Hanna, 1996). The feeling of trust can even be more important when values and goals of individuals differ. When the expectations of an individual about interaction among team members is disconfirmed it causes an affective or emotional reaction, this can be positive or negative. Prospective group members are often optimistic about their future experiences in their new group, therefore it is important for a leader to maintain this positive feeling of the employees performing team work to create the best team effectiveness. Leaders need to support an intensive and profounded knowledge exchange between workers of different ages in order to give them the opportunity for life-long learning in the organization they are working for (Ellwart, Bundgens & Rack, 2013). The exchange of knowledge is a central element of the elaboration of task-relevant information (Ellwart et al., 2013; van Knippenberg et al., 2004). Moreover, many companies promote a high organizational identification in order to bind younger and older workers to the organizations and reduce fluctuation and turnover. Only having younger employees in a team will probably cause a so-called ‘war for talent’ (Michaels, et al. 2007).
The current study will focus on the influence of team leadership in diverse teams with a focus on diversity in age, to create the highest team effectiveness. The purpose of this research is to contribute to the identification of the impact of age diversity in teams in relation with the leadership style that guides the team on the outcome of the teams.
2. Literature
2.1 Team effectivenessA team can be defined as two or more individuals that interact together, have one or more goals in common and achieve these goals by performing relevant tasks for the organization. Members of the team have despite their common goals, different roles and responsibilities. Nevertheless, they are embedded in the same organizational system, with identical boundaries and linkages in their task environment and therefore have a high degree of interdependence (Kozlowski & Ilgen, 2006). To give members a feeling of trust and loyalty to each other there is at least a moderate stability of membership, in order to have the time and opportunity to learn how to work together (Hackman & Wageman, 2005). Successful team actions require a clear overview of the tasks each individual performs, what their contribution is and how those individual responses can be best combined to have an appropriate team
action (Zaccaro, Rittman & Marks, 2001). According to Kozlowski et al., (2006) this can be explained with an input-process-output heuristic. Input is then the composition of the team included all the different characteristics of the individual members. Processes refer to the combination of the resources to work out the task demands of the organization. Those processes mediate between the input and the outcome in a way that team members interact and develop to reach their outcome. An outcome is the product that meets the team members’ needs, the performance that can be judged by relevant others, or the willingness of members to stay in the team (Hackman, 1987).
Team members are part of a dynamic organizational system, where team performance resolves the task demands, arising from the changes in the system and environment (Ogbonna & Harris 2011). Therefore teams must continuously adapt to unexpected changes in the environments. If then team members lack the necessary knowledge, skills and abilities to resolve these task demands, the team cannot be effective (Kozlowski & Ilgen, 2006). Therefore, to have effective team performance a number of fundamental characteristics should be accomplished. First, team members have unique roles and contributions that should be integrated in a collective action. Second, to survive in the complex and dynamic environment, team members need to adapt to the environment when coordinating their actions as stated earlier by Kozlowski et al., (2006). The third characteristic of effective team performance is team leadership. Those leaders reach team success by defining team directions included the team goals and by defining the team structure to maximize the progress, so having a developmental function (Zaccaro et al., 2001). The leader is seen as a problem solver for the team, by being instructional and regulatory in nature and is able to guide the members in their development by giving them feedback on their performance. Leadership in teams will be discussed at a later point in this study.
There are potential advantages of team work for the organization. Compared with an individual performer, the task can be larger and of a bigger scope of subjects. This automatically means that a task will be more meaningful and consequential for the organization and fosters higher motivation to work on the task (Hackman & Oldham, 1980). Working in groups or teams provides also a space for direct feedback and two way communication that could have a positive effect on the outcome (Hackman & Wageman, 2005). For a task with a larger scope it is often useful to have individuals with different expertises and specialities, leading to unexpected insight and outcomes. In contrast, for having good communication and creating a collaborative team, people might prefer homogeneity. The diversity part will take this into more detail. To give those potential advantages a chance,
team leaders can create an environment that could enlarge team effectiveness. One major objective is the specification of the direction that the team should follow. To energize the team most, a leader should provide the team with statements of direction of end-states that are completely insistent, but leave open the means the team can use to get to these outcomes (Hackman & Wageman, 2005). This challenges the team members just enough to use all the possible resources they have and to restrict them from under-employment. For the orienting phase of the team members toward its objective there should be clarity of direction given by the leader. In all the possible choices at least a feeling of clarity and concreteness should be present for the members to limit their decision making strategy to what is important for the current task. Finally, team members are more likely to engage with all their talents in executing the work when the task has clear consequences for the members, or it has an important effect on other people (Hackman & Wageman, 2005).
2.2 Diversity
For companies to get involved in the international and competitive markets nowadays they will experience a high level of uncertainty due to the increased levels of internationalization and competition. Therefore it is highly important to stand out and seek for ‘untraditional’ ways to lead companies and create employment outside the existing borders. Seeking for ways to think outside the box to lead a company, created a development in the employment market. To have a competitive advantage in this fast developing market is to create a diverse workforce (Richard, 2000). Companies choose to hire different people, with individual backgrounds to create mixed team. Those teams, with unique features, different resources and competencies, are difficult to imitate for other companies. Therefore, diverse teams could lead to higher firm performance and be sources of sustained competitive advantage (Collins & Clark, 2003). Although, the performance of these diverse teams is still not clear and results are inconclusive.
Diverse teams can exist of differences in age, experience in working for the same business or company, moral values (beliefs and attitudes), and personality. The concept of diversity can be described in terms of the characteristics of the group, meaning diversity reflects the degree to which there are differences, objective as well as subjective, between people in the group (van Knippenberg & Schippers, 2007). It is important to note that diversity can only be a group characteristics and cannot be used on individual team members. Therefore, diversity deals with how group functioning is being affected by the differences between the group members. Diversity tells you something about how different team
members with all having its own characteristics functions together. Those differences can be objective and subjective. When team members believe there are actually differences among the team members this causes the effects of diversity being emitted (van Knippenberg, 2007). All the different personalities, behaviors and characteristics combined will define the outcome of their teamwork. For other companies to understand these diverse and dynamic teams it became more complex and therefore the innovative performance of these teams could have a great influence for the company as a whole (Hentschel, Shemla, Wegge & Kearney, 2013). Similarity-attraction theory suggests that team members who share similar values are likely to find it easy to collaborate with one another. When team members have those shared beliefs it can evoke innovation and improve decision making (Jackson & Joshi, 2011). There are various types of diversity that all have different influences on team effectiveness. A great limitation of studies thus far is that they only focus on a few types of diversity. Current studies have focussed on for example relations-oriented diversity which refers to attributes for shaping interpersonal relations but have no direct influence on task performance like age, gender, and personality characteristics. Another way of studying diversity is to look at the
task-oriented diversity which are potentially relevant to the team’s work, for example education, attitudes, skills and cognitive ability (Jackson & Joshi, 2011). The performance of these diverse teams is a topic well discussed in the literature, with inconclusive results though. Diversity refers to differences between individuals on attributes that may lead to the perception that another is different from you (e.g. Jackson, 1992; Trandis et al. 1994; Williams & O’Reilly, 1998). Proponents of diversity argue that diversity can have a positive impact on performance because of the unique cognitive attributes the individuals add to the team (Cox & Blake, 1991). Having members in the team with different ages and experiences creates a wider range of perspective and promotes discussion within the group what could improve decision making and having counter arguments instead of group think (Cox & Blake, 1991; Richard, 2000). On the other hand, many disadvantages of team diversity have been explored. High levels of diversity can actually delay the process of decision making since the cultural barriers and the diverse opinions can act as an obstacle to reach consensus (Horwitz, 2007). Therefore the leader that enacts on a diverse team should encourage the positive impact of diversity to enable an increase in group performance. Team members have to learn how to interact, share and develop their cognitive resources so that they use their diversity properly to enhance effectiveness (Somech, 2006).
As stated before the success of a company is nowadays not only the invention of a new product. Therefore, the services and products must fit the needs of the customers in order to
properly integrate the investments customers have to make with the products and services of a company (Richard, 2000). This can be supported and assisted by the team members that understand these needs of the customers. It is therefore important to have team members with different backgrounds especially in age and experience. Every experience adds a unique value to the already existing knowledge in the group. The older employees have gained a lot of experience during their lifetime and probably in different companies. The younger employees do not have that rich experience but have the skills for creativity and creating novel products and insights.
2.3 Age diversity
In this study the focus will especially be on the influence of age diversity in the team of employees. Age diversity reflects ‘the degree to which age related characteristics are objectively different or subjectively perceived as different between people within the group’ (van Knippenberg and Schippers, 2007; Ellwart, Bündgens & Rack, 2013.) Why and how would age influence individuals in the team and the overall team performance, will be studied here. Today many industrialized countries face the demographical changes that create difficulties, challenges and opportunities for the leader and the management of those teams and organizations (Hertel, van der Heijden, de Lange & Deller, 2013). Thus it seems important to know more about age-related differences to adapt the leadership style in an effective and sustainable way, states Hertel et al., 2013. For diversity in general and specifically on age diversity both potential benefits and challenges exist. High diversity in teams could increase creativity, innovation and problem solving skills of individual team members due to the different perspectives and backgrounds the employees have. Another side is that high diversity often come with the need for better communication and conflict management, due to differences in goals, expectations and styles they have while performing in the team (Hertel, van der Heijden, de Lange & Deller, 2013). Age diversity serves a quite big risk for social categorization and perceived in-group thread that might influence the team performance, because of lower collaboration (van Knippenberg, de Dreu & Homan, 2004).
The usefulness of age diversity in teams get some inconsistent results. Some research shows that teams with high diversity in age have a slower and more difficult decision process and communicate less. On the other hand, positive effects of age diversity are reported when looking at performance and total revenues. In trying to explain these mixed outcomes, van Knippenberg (2007) introduced the collaboration-elaboration model (CEM). The theory focuses on the evaluation of team members. When team members evaluate diversity as
positive this leads to an increased elaboration of task relevant information and therefore to higher team performance. However, when diversity within a team goes together with intergroup bias evoked by identity threats, negative effects of diversity on outcomes and information elaboration will be expected (Ellwart, et al. 2013).
In the study of age diversity older workers are stereotyped, compared with younger workers, as being less physically fit, as having more troubles with colleagues and preferring to have more time for their families than the job that should be done. They are less technological and less willing to adapt to a new environment and new rules (Ng & Feldman, 2008). Some other evidence supporting the negative relationships of age with performance comes from M.G. Rhodes (2004). The results suggest that older individuals have more difficulties with complex tasks that require higher executive functioning. Another field of lack in older workers is memory capacity. In goal orientation younger and older workers differ as well. Older individuals are likely to frame their goals around the maintenance of the current state or preventing loss. This is linked to lower productivity on the job. Whereas younger colleagues try to frame their goals in terms of striving for gains and new challenges (Ng & Feldman, 2008). Though, results about these common known stereotypes of older workers are not consistent. Kunze et al., 2013, found instead that older workers were less resistant to change than their younger colleagues. This result is explained by the authors based on the higher emotional regulation capacities of older persons. Because of this better emotional regulation and with more self-knowledge older workers have better skills to overcome difficulties in times of change and reduce stress experience at work. Interestingly, work engagement was measured higher on average for older than for younger workers. Moreover, perceived discrimination of older workers affected both groups (Timmerman, 2000). Both reacted negatively when age discrimination was intentional, this effect was even bigger for younger workers. Instead, unintentional discrimination had more demotivating effect for older workers (Hertel, van der Heijden, de Lange & Deller, 2013). This counts also the other way around; when diversity beliefs were positive among team members, individuals showed a better knowledge exchange and higher team identification. These results encourage the moderation of employees’ diversity beliefs by a leader or manager in order to facilitate positive age diversity effects in organizations. Furthermore, results of a multigroup analyses show a u-curve relationship between age, job control and learning-related behaviour. Where middle-aged workers show significantly more job control and learning-related behaviour (de Lange, Taris, Jansen, Kompier, Houtman & Bongers, 2010). A possible explanation is that middle-aged workers try to match their jobs with their self-concepts in order to have higher
levels of job control and still have the opportunity to transfer to another interesting position, whereas older workers do not have this opportunity anymore.
2.4 Team leadership
Team leadership is essential for team effectiveness. This holds on the extent to which team leaders can help their team members to actually achieve the synergetic threshold. This is the moment when collective effort is more than the sum of the individual abilities or effort (Zaccaro et al., 2009). The decisions that are made by the group are superior in quality than the decision made by the individual group members. But, because of processes of lost, it is hard to reach this threshold. In lost processes, team members fail to combine their individual capabilities and loose direction. Therefore, the most important task of the team leader is to provide direction for the group and keep the process of lost as small as possible.
By describing leadership all definitions have in common that leadership involves the process of influence. So stated differently all leaders have one or more followers in order to have the capacity to influence others (Vroom & Jago, 2007). One of the most critical factors in the success of organizational teams is to have an effective leadership process (Zaccaro, Rittman & Marks, 2001). A totally incompetent or destructive leader can ruin a team even when the team would otherwise function perfectly. But a leader that has all its willingness and gives its best effort sometimes cannot help a team succeed. Team processes can be constrained by factors a team leader cannot affect (Hackman & Wageman, 2005). What could a leader then do to facilitate team effectiveness? Theories of leadership focus on influencing their employees and attend to the integration of their actions, in order to develop and maintain team effectiveness. Interesting then is how leadership behaviors influence team performance outcomes. A leader can be effective to the degree that there will be ensured that all functions critical to the task will be done, with not necessarily focusing on the single person in the team (Burke, Stagl, Klein, Goodwin, Salas & Halpin, 2006). Leaders can help members work together to enhance their level of effort and to learn them how to utilize their skills and knowledge in a productive way. Leaders can help the team by promoting interaction and generating strategies that suit the task requirement (Hackman & Wageman, 2005). Another body of work presented by Hackman (2002) argued, that it is more important to identify conditions that leaders can create to facilitate team effectiveness and focusing on the individuals who build the team. For example giving feedback to team members in the role that they play for the team, serves to increase the motivation of team members. A same deviation of leadership is made by Fleishman et al. (1991). The leadership function is primarily to
provide a supportive organizational contact by using material resources and focussing on the tasks that should be done to maintain the organizational goals. But, leaders can also provide this supportive organizational contact through the design of reward systems and training opportunities. Then the conditions of team effectiveness instituted by the leader serve to shape the proximal outcomes, in order to increase team work and team learning (Burke, Stagl, Klein, Goodwin, Salas & Halpin, 2006).
Leadership can be functional in a way that the main job of a leader is to handle the needs of the group that can’t be done by the team members of the group it selves (Zaccaro, Rittman & Marks, 2001). This is a functional perspective in a way that the leader is seen as a boundary role in linking teams to their broader environment (Katz & Kahn, 1978). Further, those leaders also create and define environmental events for their team. They give an interpretation of those events outside the team. Leadership then involves the selection of what would be an appropriate solution in problem situations (Zaccaro, Rittman & Marks, 2001). The emphasis then is not anymore what leaders should do, but what actually needs to be done by the leader to have an effective team performance. Thus, group effectiveness can be specified in its particular environment as an outcome of the specific leadership actions. Alternatively, it is not the case that team effectiveness can be fully explained by the behaviour of the leader. A leader can be effective even though the team effectiveness is still poor. This can be explained by team composition and constraints in resources that influence the result of the team, despite the effort of the leader (Zaccaro et al., 2001).
Yet, to get an understanding of the behaviors that enable the leadership functions which lead to creating the conditions for team effectiveness, leadership can be divided into two broad categories. According to Kozlowski & Ilgen (2006) one leadership function is to guide and give instructions to the team members by creating task cycles with for example goal setting, diagnosis of the process, monitoring and giving feedback. Another leadership function is developmental. The leader role here helps the team to develop more personal skills and capabilities. This dual-role leadership process is viewed as the framework to create effective and adaptive teams for the continuously changing environments as discussed earlier.
Figure 1.
2.4.1 Task focused
Task focused leaders organize, define and coordinate team activities, maintain formal standards and provide explicit deadlines. They focus on the tasks or performance of the firm , for example planning, creating visions or goals for the organization, provide necessary support for employees and give them the assistance they need (Wang, Tsui & Xin, 2011). With task focused leaders, team members with different values (diverse team) might anticipate on one’s another’s actions, behave similarly and coordinate together. Leaders with low task focused leadership style, give little attention to planning. Only in teams that are not diverse this may not engender conflict. Sometimes input of team members are restricted by external resources. When work procedures are for example completely pre-determined the leader of the team cannot improve the task performance by developing a better strategy (Hackman & Wageman, 2005).
2.4.2 Person focused
Another behaviour of leaders is the type of leader that focusses on the person. This leader is committed to his or hers employees, including being supportive and helpful, showing
trust and confidence in the individuals, trying to understand their problems and appreciate ideas that employees come up with (Wang, Tsui & Xin, 2011).
Leaders high in person-focused leadership may create a weak situation, when these teams are quite similar this might creates a feeling of cohesion, so better work performance. But in diverse teams the person-focused leader could create frustration between team members. In order to manage and optimise the increasingly diverse workforce, exceptional abilities of managers and leaders are required. If they are actually able to properly manage those differences they will succeed in getting out the most productivity of the diverse teams (Visagie, Havenga, Linde & van Vrede, 2012). Useful is having people together working and motivated to contribute to the goals of the organizations. In order to manage those increasing diverse workforce towards the same organizational goal, exceptional abilities of managers and leaders are required. But, the ability of the leader to help improve the utilization of knowledge and skills of a team can be restricted by the predictability of the work activities. When actions that have to be performed to accomplish the task are routinely, a team is unable to improve its performance and leadership interventions would not make any difference.
A great difference between the two types of behavior described above is that the task focused role is related to defining the basic purposes of a firm and the future goals that are desirable for being achieved. Then the person focused style plays the role of motivator, in order to get employees achieve those roles. This is directly linked to employees’ attitudes towards their organization (Wang, Tsui, & Xin, 2011).
Figure 2
2.5 Situational influence
The distinction of leadership into two broad categories is based upon the model of Fiedler (1967). Fiedler defined a model, the contingency model that predicts leadership effectiveness based on task or relationship motivation orientation with reference to the situational control. It predicts that a change in the organizational environment will affect leaders of different orientations differentially (Bons & Fiedler, 1976). Leaders with a relationship orientated view, compared with task-oriented leaders, will have a more effective function in moderate control situations. As opposed to task oriented leaders who will be more effective in high and low control situations (Ayman, Chemers & Fiedler, 1995). Leader behaviour will be influenced not only by the capabilities of the leader but also by the situations the leader is confronted with (Schein, 1990). At some moments, for example in times of uncertainty or organizational change, leaders must operate under constraints. Leaders can act in two ways then. They can simple stay on the side line and let the team handle the situation by it selves. Or, what is perhaps more likely, they will take initiatives to help the team move in the right direction to ensure a successful outcome. On the other side, those interferences of leaders can be seen as negative and frustrate both the team and themselves (Hackman & Wageman, 2005). A strategy for leading under constraints and preventing those negative emotions, leaders can give their team basic tasks, roles and norms that will guide their behaviour. This can actually increase the likelihood of a good prepared team that will take action when needed.
Situations in this research will differ in a way that some teams have a higher degree of diversity than other teams and will therefore be a moderator and interacting with the behaviour of the leader. In fact, a case study will be done to study leadership behavior in the situations proposed by the diversity in the teams to carry out the highest team effectiveness. In this way, the overall effectiveness of the leaders can be determined by the outcome of each team.
The research question that will be studied in the current study is how can diverse teams being led in a way that they are most productive? Moreover, how can diverse teams be most productive with respect to the effects of leadership on those teams?
2.6 The propositions formed
Model 1, source: the author
As shown in model 1 team leadership has a direct and indirect influence on the effectiveness of the team. A leader can fit in one of the two broad categories, it is either a task focused leader or a person focused leader. Team effectiveness will be mediated depending on which category the leader will be focused on. Proposition 1a and 1b will focus on the different outcomes on team performance both leader types can engender.
Proposition 1a. Team leadership related to the type of task focused leader will show an effective team performance when focussing on the task the team has to accomplish.
Proposition 1b. Team leadership related to the type of person focused leader will show an effective team when focussing on the individuals the team exists of.
The effects of type of leadership on team effectiveness will be moderated by the team diversity. So the influence of team leadership on team performance and effectiveness is moderated by its effect on team interaction dynamics and how well diversity is coordinated by the team leader to reach the best team performance.
Proposition 2a. Team diversity will positively influence team performance and effectiveness when the team leader manages the team to perform in an integrated and cooperated way.
Proposition 2b. Team diversity will negatively influence team performance and effectiveness when the team leader engenders a lack of cooperation and process of loss in the team.
Moreover, differences in age can influence the team in a positive way when young and older employees have learned to cooperate in an effective way by their team leader.
Proposition 2c. Age diversity will have a positive influence on team performance when both young and older employees have learned to cooperate in a functional way by their leader.
Proposition 2d. Age diversity will have a less positive influence on team performance when both young and older employees refuse and have not learned to cooperate with each other by their leader.
Both task and person focused leaders will influence teams in a different way. When a team exists of individuals that perceive themselves are being different from each other, the team will probably perform better when a leader will focus on the task, direction and future goals for the team. When only some individuals are get complimented for their work or personality other individuals could feel miserable and an in-group and out-group is created. The process of loss will increase because of the incomprehension between the group members.
Proposition 3a. Person focused leaders will be effective when perceived differences in the teams are low.
On the other hand, with a person focused leader guiding individuals in being diverse, team performance can be high. Each individual should be accepted for their own background and adapt with each other to the existing environment. If a leader focuses on the individual team members with having their differences guided in an innovative and creative way this could engender an increased team effectiveness.
Proposition 3b. Person focused leaders will be effective when perceived differences in the teams are high.
When the focus of the leader will be headed to the task and the behaviour that will guide the actions necessary to accomplish the task, differences among team members could be helpful. In order to have different insight and novel discussion due to the different age and background the team members have. If team members would be low in diversity and the task will be already structured and presented in a clear way the chance of being creative and innovative by this group is very low. Therefore the next proposition is established.
Proposition 4. Task focused leaders will be effective when perceived differences in teams are high.
3. Methodology
3. 1 Research methodsThis section will describe the methodology used to fulfil this research. It contains a description of the research topic and chosen techniques. The research context is discussed in this section as well. This research is a qualitative study, where interviews, surveys and already existing data are used. In the following part the research design is described complemented with a description of the chosen approaches and why they are used.
3.2 The qualitative view vs the quantitative view
There has been done a lot of research into the elaboration of diversity in teams with both positive and negative effects for team performance. Why differences make a difference is a common known statement. For this study the effects of leaders on diverse groups is taken into account. Especially, there will be studied what leader behaviour and leadership styles influence diversity of teams in a functional way in order to achieve the best team performance.
Research about diversity and leadership are common subjects for doing quantitative research focussed on numbers or quantities. For this study, to provide more depth and richness of data a qualitative research will be added. Quantitative methods are not as well suited to measure complex aspects of employees as well as the leaders’ behavioral and thinking processes. To really understand their attitudes towards the company more in-depth research should be done. These more nuanced details are most appropriately examined with qualitative research methods.Qualitative methods can be used to understand complex social
processes, and to uncover beliefs, values, and motivations that underlie individual behaviors and feelings. Such research can also illuminate aspects of organizational context that influence organizational performance (Curry, Nemhard & Bradley, 2009). Qualitative studies are often exploratory and seek to generate novel insightsusing inductive methods, starting with observations and developing hypotheses, rather than deductive approaches meaning, starting with extant hypotheses and testing them with observations.
Since complex phenomena such as organizational processes, change processes over time and social interactions underlying specific outcomes may be difficult to measure quantitatively. Therefore, qualitative methods can be helpful in identifying and characterizing multifaceted organizational dynamics that can influence outcomes, including team diversity, leadership, and team-based interactions.In research done to the effects of leadership style and team processes on performance in diverse teams, qualitative research is a neglected field of studies.
Using qualitative and quantitative research is called triangulation and gives the researcher the opportunity to criticize the subject from different angels, while trying to keep the highest advantages of both research methods (Myers, 2009; Guba & Lincoln, 1994). Interviews and the resulted thick descriptions are the qualitative research methods used in this study. The quantitative research method is represented by an archival data collection and surveys. A big disadvantage of using only qualitative research is that it is quite more difficult to generalize the data to a larger population. This because of the often small sample sizes and the environment the research has taken place in. Therefore, a combination of both, quantitative and qualitative, is used in the current research (Myers, 2009).
3.3 Research context
For doing this study on the diversity of teams and the influence of a multinational insurance company is used. The department of the company provides team diversity that is high in age, educational background and goal orientation. The teams can be described as diverse and young and therefore according to the literature dynamic and creative. With on the other side teams with less diverse and older employees and therefore more stable and working on a routine basis. These are chosen because they could provide a good overview of the different sides the company has and the needed resources to provide the right information to the researcher are available. Of course, existing teams that are formed by the company and team leaders are used, however the researcher had full control of choosing which teams to use and which employees are interviewed.
4. Measurement
4.1 Interviews, surveys and annual reports
Diversity questionnaires will be used among the employees to measure the diversity within the teams. Surveys are also used to study how employees view their team leader to find out if the team leader is, according to the team members, a task or person focussed leader. This is also in contrast with the most previous studies where only the self-evaluation of the leader is taken into account. Based on the existing literature the team performance results should be opposites for the different teams, high and low in diversity. The department of Delta Lloyd where this study takes place is divided into four teams with each of them having a different leader. Those leaders will participate in an interview. This interview will be semi-structured, there will be some pre-formulated questions in order to get all important aspects answered by the interviewee. By having the interview not fully structured the interviewee gets in this case also the opportunity by giving their own thoughts on the subject. This could be used as additional information on the behavior of the team leader. The interviews were done in a closed room with only the researcher and the interviewee to ensure privacy and honest answers. A form of consent was given before the interview started and the rules were explained to give the interviewee the feeling of anonymity. In addition a voice recorded was used to have to complete interview to decrease the possibility of biased outcomes. Their reactions on each question will be collected into separate themes. These themes will represent the most important subjects for answering the research question.
In addition, surveys are given to the team members. The surveys consist out of questions measured on a five-point Likert scale, 0 meaning ‘not at all’ and 4 meaning ‘frequently or (almost) always’. Taken both measures together, extra validity will be provided if the answers match with each other. In line with the suggestion of Yukl (1994), this study will focus on the perception of both, the team members and the team leader. Earlier research is mostly done based on the leader’s self-evaluation, therefore this study will take both measures into account. For researching the team effectiveness also questionnaires are used for the subjective ratings of team members about their performance, the functioning of the team and maybe the team conflict. Also the annual reports of the company are used as an objective measeure of team performance. The daily processing reports of 2014 are used for this study. This will be discussed later in more detail.
to support or reject the propositions made. These results will provide this study with possible recommendations and conclusions that might be beneficial to the company and the teams this study is done with. Moreover, it could also support further studies and research on this subject.
4.2 Moderator
As Teachman (1980) already described population diversity is ‘the distribution of population elements (which are not limited to humans or the characteristics of humans) along a continuum of homogeneity to heterogeneity with respect to one or more variables.’ In this study the population is seen as the four separate teams and the diversity element is based on age.
Age diversity was measured by an instrument recommended by Teachman (1980) that measures heterogeneity (Appendix A). In this study it is used to measure age diversity, but could be applied to other demographic diversity dimension. In this measure, (H) is the age diversity index, in other words, the qualitative variation measure and P is the proportion of a given age group among one total team. When this measure (P) has reached a balance, diversity index (H) will show the highest value, because of the equal distributed groups. For this study, the higher the value of (H), the greater the representation of the different ages in the team. Therefore, the greater the diversity of the team.
4.3 Team effectiveness
For measuring team effectiveness two measures of productivity are used. The first is the subjective measure of the team. Question like ‘how effective does your team cooperate’ and ‘how productive is the team’ in the survey will be related to team effectiveness. Team effectiveness consist of two overarching dimension, team performance on one side and team development on the other side (LaFasto & Larson, 2001). Therefore, question like ‘are there set goals in your team and are they reached’ ‘is the team leadership effective’ together those questions form the team effective measure.
As stated before Kozlowski et al., (2006) explained the team effectiveness process as an input-process-output heuristic. Input is then the composition of the team included all the different characteristics of the individual members. The process part are the interactions of the
team members directed toward task accomplishment. So the process can be explained as the section where team inputs are transformed into outcomes (Mathieu, Maynard, Rapp & Gilson, 2008). Outcomes are results and by-products of team activity that are valued by one or more constituencies, in this study team leadership. As is shown in figure 3 and model 1 the input in this study is the team, consisting of the individuals performing the tasks influenced by factors like team leadership, the given task structure and age diversity. All influencing the output, the task accomplishment, or in other words the team effectiveness.
Figure 3
To measure the output, reports of daily processing are used. These reports are weekly overviews of the input and output of each team, the percentage of input that is processed within five days and the percentage of input within ten days, the amount of days input should be processed the latest according to norm of the company. Also the arrears based on the five day norm are reported. For this study the weekly reports for 2014 as a total overview and therefore, the average of 2014 for all teams is used.
4.4 The company
This study is executed at a Dutch Insurance company, with a lot of contacts and partnerships with international companies. It has offices in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.
4.4.1 Delta Lloyd Group
entails that the Delta Lloyd Group exists of more than one brand, as for example OHRA and ABN AMRO verzekeringen belong to the Delta Lloyd Group. They develop and provide services for customers for different target groups and pricing strategies via intermediates, bank offices, internet and the contact centers. This study will be conducted at the claims department of the Delta Lloyd insurance company. The claims division is directed to realize all the services of business insurances. The culture in the company is informal which makes the communication structure easy accessible, therefore the quality of service is one of the highest priorities of the company.
In 2012 the department of Delta Lloyd claim focused on the following:
1. Customers are the most important concern
2. Easiness of products, making clear what the customer gets 3. Management of claims
4. Operational and customizable performance 5. Kind hearted employer
The organisation has a clear division in the commercial part (customer services, marketing and sales) on one side and development, administration and the processing of products on the other side. This is a way to connect with the wishes of their customers and to keep a clear structure.
5. Results
First the results section will explain the interviews by a so-called thick description. The founder of this method of analysing is the North American anthropologist Clifford Geertz’s (1973). Many qualitative inquirers emphasize the importance of “thick” description. ‘Thick description is not simply a matter of amassing relevant detail. Rather to thickly describe social actions by interpreting the circumstances, intentions, motivation and particular characterizations’ (Ponterotto, 2006). After, the results of the surveys will be divided into important subjects and explained. The age diversity is measured by the age diversity index (Teachman 1980) and last team effectiveness will be explained.
5.1 The interviews
5.1.1 Thick description, team leader 1
The interview with Reinout Camphuijsen, team leader of the MZS team, took place in a room with two white walls and two walls of glass on the 18th of December. The door was closed and no other people could hear what was said inside. People passed by sometimes looked inside but never stood before the window. In the room there was a big table with 6 chairs. On two of them we were sitting. The interviewer was sitting on the head of the table, the interviewee was sitting on the right side of her. There was a phone in the room and a white board with some pencils. The only people in the room were the interviewer and the interviewee, but sometimes because of the two walls of glass it could feel like other people
could see what happened inside. For the interviewer it did not feel like the interviewee did even notice the others passing by. Before the interview started the interviewer and the interviewee drunk coffee together, probably therefore the atmosphere felt relax.
The first minute was quite a general talk: Period of time of being a team leader were discussed and after the first question of the interviewer was stated. In depth the changes the team leader had made in the first few moths were discussed. Details about laying off staff and new methods of working have been mentioned by the team leader. The feeling of being timid the first months were very clear. After those months the ‘new’ team leader felt he could make decisions on his own, because he had gained (some) trust of his team. After the team was reformed and employees got used to their new positions the team leader could give the employees a little bit more space. Structure was known by the team members themselves and there was not needed a time frame from minute to minute. Goals are still set and when talking about those it was noticeable the team leader liked to be good in his work or even to be the best. There is always room for improvement but not at any price. Work ethics and a work environment where employees felt good were seen by the team leader as most important. The next subject that was given to the interviewee was employees and coaching. To get to know if the team leader was a task oriented leader, questions about the importance of training and coaching were asked. A task oriented team leader would according to the literature, (Wang, Tsui & Xin, 2011) have a great impact on employees and therefore often used as a tool to make employees and teams better. Reinout, stated more that once that he valued training and coaching programs but that it did not solve problems. Thinking of their personality and their personal development for example could make employees aware, but are not a way of changing their personality. As a following up question, the involvement of the team leader with his employees was discussed to get to know if the team leader was a person focused leader. Several times he responded with answers like the employees had freedom within a set framework. He liked to be involved with his employees but admitted he was not the type of person that did ask about personal feelings of employees very often. He knew there were employees who missed that more that others.
The next subject discussed was diversity of employees. It was noticeable for the interviewer that answers on the questions about his involvement with his employees were harder to answer than the question about diversity. This team is very diverse and then he initiated talking about the diversity in personality, but the interviewer was especially interested in the diversity in age. Therefore, when the interviewee mentioned that some employees were working for the same company and team for over 30 years, the interviewer
could ‘push’ the conversation to the influence of age in this team. It came up, that according to the team leader age had influence. Stated in the literature of (Kunze, et al. 2013) differences in age did not matter. Older employees are as willing and capable as young employees to learn new stuff. This differs from the existing literature. Also Reinout thought age would have an influence on the functioning of employees. In his team when he fired some employees and there came new, young and higher educated employees they saw the need for change of old habits. Older employees who have the same job for a very long time are less willing to change, because they are used to the old way of working. Change of behaviour is then quite hard. The young and new employees brought energy to the place, ambition to move on. Reinout was very clear in stating that the young employees took care of the older ones in a way that made them change as well. Otherwise, there would be no change and everything was stuck in the old manners.
Speaking more of diversity made the team leader very serious in what was said. It was important for him, because the way he handled it, by hiring new people and made them work really together, was why he was seen as a good team leader, according to his employees. When people look like each other, he said, it does not mean they can work together in a good way. When people are young they move on and on but in their enthusiasm they could also miss a lot. Therefore, people who keep the younger employees on track are essential.
.Another important point during the interview was appreciation. The team leader being interviewed valued appreciation for his employees. Sometimes he felt it was hard to complement an employee, so the way he does it had to fit him. For example, he told, when being with staff he always said, thanks to him or her, we have reached the current state. So what I do know for sure, is that every one of my team trusts me, he said.
When asking if there was anything he wanted to say, he told me that it was important that things did not become a routine, then you lose vigilance and that is never a good thing. After that I thanked him for his cooperation and told him once again the interview would be handled carefully and would not be shared. He did not seem to care very much about the anonymity. During the whole interview the atmosphere was very comfortable, sometimes he had to think of his answers, but everything he told me felt very honest. By the end who walked from the room back to our working place and got back to work.
5.1.2 Thick description, team leader 2
and technical insurance team. I did not knew her as well as my own team leader so when we walked to the room I probably had to figured out how to behave. When we came into the room, it was quite the same as the first room. The walls were made of glass and people were passing by. We first had a coffee from the machine around the corner. After that I explained the rules, that I would not share the interview and that everything was only for my own use. She agreed and we started the interview. The first question was her name and age, to have it on my recorder. Then she told me it was her birthday today. Of course, I did congratulate her, with a handshake and three kisses on the cheeks. It felt easier to talk now.
Because I did not know this team leader very well, I figured out first to have a general question about the team. So we start talking about the size of the team. That was a little less big than the team of Reinout, with almost 20 employees. Then I asked her how effectivity was created in a team with around 20 employees. The interviewee told that in this department there were always too less employees. Therefore, it is important to be as efficient and effective as possible. She tried to learn her employees to stimulate and help each other. When someone has difficulties go there and help him or her. To learn from each other was very important in her eyes.
Then the interviewer was wondering if in her eyes efficiency goes together with structure. Because of the division of her team into two parts, the ‘fire’ and the ‘technical’ part, she could very good see the difference. In the fire part the structure was clear. A senior is part of the team and he keeps a very good eye on the structure. A thing the team leader could fall back on when needed. He coaches employees and learns them how things could go better or how things should change. Until this part, for the interviewer it seemed she especially focused on the task of her employees. Therefore the next question was about training and coaching. The interviewer wanted to know how she thought of giving employees training opportunities. The interviewee answered with the statement she had some chaotic employees in her team. For them, it is a good way to learn some about structure, for example ways to communicate. But you cannot change people all the way. Knowledge is obligatory, social skills can be learned if they want to and they can count on my help if they like.
When talking about training if became clear she wanted to help her employees. In the beginning she seemed much more closed then she actually is. For work related tasks, she told me, she decided what to do and what is important. However, how that is done, is the decision of the employee. They know what to do, those tasks have to be done and that is the given framework. In her team they did not like structure that much, so it feels better then to let them decide for their own. The interviewer then wondered if it was maybe inconvenient to not have
full control over them. As the feeling she gave me she is someone who likes to have control. The she explained she still had the control, because she knows what needs to be done and she can (and will) check if it is done. It might be quite hard to tell you really like to have control, therefore by admitting the control issue, the interviewer was convinced of her honesty.
Then after some seconds of rest and some coffee the interviewer stated the next question, about the relationship between the team leader and the employees. The interviewee had to think for a while. Actually, she is on both sides she said; part of the team but also the person in charge. Sometimes she felt even that she was too related with tasks the team should fulfil and she started working with them. Now she knows it is important to be a little bit more directive and give the employees the freedom to fix it. But still, she declared that for her it did not feel right to be on a position above the team. It has to be professional, but people do not have to be scared to come to you. Therefore she is also committed in a personal way, not too much, but she knows birthdays and sends a card when someone is sick. According to her, it helps to have an attachment with her employees, but it does not to go that deep to visit each other during the weekends.
The next subject was diversity. The interviewer now knew the interviewee was comfortable as well, therefore it was the right moment to ask about the differences of employees and maybe conflicts because of that. Her employees are very different. She had some real stubborn and extrovert employees, but also really quiet and docile ones. The mix is great, but you have to find a way that they can all work together and communicate. She now knows how they do things for her, which button you have to press. By saying that she wondered if her employees knew that from each other as well, how they get things done by their colleagues. Especially because some of them are working together for years. That was a good moment to ask about diversity in age, because that is the interest of the interviewer. It became clear very fast she did not have that prejudice of old employees who did not want to learn anymore. They are actually willing to learn from young people, for example with computers. The interviewee stated it was sometimes fascinating to see how they could learn from each other. The young and new employees do want a lot but they sometimes need to be inhibited and that is where to older employees come in. They are lighting up when they can explain something they know to the younger ones. You have to find the right mix, but when you have that it absolutely works, she said.
Conflicts are not a big deal in her team, maybe because of that right mixed, but maybe because ‘claims people’ are not very risk taking. Therefore she wanted to have some younger and new employees who do dare things, but that takes time. Rewarding someone who shows
some courage is therefore gratified by her. For the interviewer a good moment to ask how the interviewee gives her employees the feeling of being important for the team. She smiled and stated she only does that when she is very very satisfied of someone. When someone did something really good, or bad, she goes there and tell it. At the moment of telling this she seemed very convinced. The interviewer felt you have to be really good to get a compliment of her but when she thinks you are good, she will show you and be grateful.
The setting of the room was still the same. The interviewer was sitting on the opposite of the interviewee. The atmosphere during the interview was really kind and friendly. It was not that they talked really before, but uncomfortableness was not needed. The question about the feeling of her employees to trust her was next. She did not dare to say everyone had trust in her, but she really hoped so. By saying this she showed emotion as well, maybe even a little humbleness and because of the strong personality it felt as a good thing. She wants people to learn things and be part of their development. In order to have employees being grateful for what they have learned from this team leader. It is my task to help people but also to improve Delta Lloyd. But, she said, she is not a really someone who sets goals. She wants to make a contribution to the people and the company. She likes to improve things, so maybe her goal is to make things more efficient and better. Therefore the interviewer asked her if she is structured in working. She laughed, because she would answer it with a ‘no’, but actually she knows she gets done things in a quite organized way. Not with lists, but maybe it is in her head. Therefore, she is probably more structured then she would admit. The last question was something the interviewer was wondering. The team showed an increase in performance, the employees have learned how to cooperate and goals are not really there. What is then your vision of the future, the interviewer wondered. The team leader told her to be excellent and that seemed to be a good finishing word. The interviewer thank her for the time and stated once again it would not be shared with anybody. The interviewee then asked if she could read it before. The interviewer agreed and they walk out of the room in the same direction.
5.1.3 Thick description, team leader 3
The third interview for the interviewer was with Gerda Schuurman. She is the team leader of the department transport claims. When walking to find a room we took coffee from the machine and went into a room with two walls of glass and a big table. The first the interviewer saw were the calculations on the whiteboard. Some of them really understandable, others not. The interviewer and the interviewee try to figure out what it was saying, but after a minute or two they started the interview.
