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Roxanne Guider-Charles
A diverse workforce affords great opportunities for innovation and growth. Along with those great opportunities comes the great challenges to preserve individual thinking while optimizing the positive dynamics of group thinking.
One of the leaders' greatest challenges to harness both as "a team is able to work harmoniously when all members recognize and appreciate the importance of teamwork and acknowledge the contribution of each team member."
When members of a team assemble the individual behaviors of team members inherently influence the behavior of the group. When the dynamics within are positive, the ability to influence actions that members would otherwise not take (Uhl-Bien,2014 ) can work for the greater good of the organization.
Conversely when those same behaviors rather they be cultural difference in work ethics, morals, beliefs or work environment; are not in alignment with the overall desired organizational behavior the leader will need to work more thoughtful and strategically to understand the collective dynamics of the team members.
I find that leaders and managers struggle the most in this area. Virtual teams tend to operate based on the personal work style preferences versus the organization work habits. Virtual teams often more time independence to be more impact in their daily work though "self-managing teams have the challenge to make decisions regarding their tasks and to manage their internal affairs."
(Alpher, Tjosvold, Law, 1998). This can create a challenge in quality, consistency and core habit of the organization. Culturally diverse teams can come up against some of the same output challenges. Ultimately, the leader has to keep top of mind the role individual behaviors play, both in and outside of work environment, that effect teamwork efficiencies.