8615book.qxd
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11 Interpersonal Skills, Decision-Making and Team Learning
TEAMWORKING Teamworking involves a fundamental change in the way people work. The use of team leaders for the new performance management model in schools may actually inhibit the development of teams because it concentrates on team leaders working with individuals, not as leaders of teams. Team-based organizations with the associated de-layering would require only three levels for all staff in a large secondary school. Teamworking is proving effective in some change situations when the new team leader role is very different from that of a manager, or even the traditional head of department. The team leader has a specific task to do and is then encouraged to work with an autonomous team. This is the philosophy behind the DVD, which the National College for School Leadership (NCSL) planned to make available to 1,000 headteachers in 2002 and which recognizes teams as understood in the wider organizational world. There are five elements of interpersonal competence in interpersonal relationships between individuals and within teams. These include the following capacities: ● ● ● ● ●
to to to to to
receive and send information and feelings correctly; evoke the expression of feeling; process information and feelings reliably and creatively; implement a course of action; learn in each of the above areas.
All these capacities can be learned and they are more complex to apply in a team with many relationships. West-Burnham (1992) confirms that teams need to be understood in this wider context. ● A team is a quality group and quality programmes depend on effective teamwork. ● Teams in schools are often teams in name only. ● Effective teams display nine key characteristics (see below). ● Clear values, pride and appropriate leadership are prerequisites to effective team working.
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