IOP 470 Week 5 Team Effectiveness and Leadership Example

Did the Heat Task Force Work? Judging Team Effectiveness and the Chair's Leadership

[Student Name]

University of Phoenix

IOP/470: Group Dynamics

Week 5 Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The task force, its members and its outcomes are composites written for a model paper; research findings come from the sources listed.

Over the course, the Phoenix Heat Response Task Force formed, struggled with roles and power, clashed over shelters and nearly missed key data in a decision. A year after its report, this final paper asks whether the team was effective and what the chair's leadership contributed.

A Framework for Teams

Kozlowski and Ilgen (2006) pulled decades of team studies into one account of how teams grow and operate across their life span. They described team effectiveness as depending on team processes, both cognitive, such as shared mental models and team learning, and interpersonal and motivational, such as cohesion, efficacy and conflict, and they identified leadership, training and team design as key levers for improving those processes. They emphasized that effectiveness has several dimensions: task performance, members' satisfaction and well-being and the team's viability for future work.

Criterion One: Task Results

The task force's charge was to recommend measures to reduce heat deaths. The council paid for all three proposals, including the bus routes as revised in Week 4. A pilot overnight cooling center, the subject of the Week 3 conflict, also opened for twenty nights, and its intake design came from Whitfield's staff, as Lee had proposed during the repair conversation. The following summer, county data showed fewer heat deaths among people experiencing homelessness, though overall heat deaths were similar.

Causal claims require caution. That summer had fewer extreme heat days, and other programs expanded. The task force's work likely contributed, but its exact effect cannot be isolated.

Criterion Two: Member Experience

Interviews with members a year later were mixed. Most valued the experience and especially the working relationships formed after the midpoint. Several said the first three months felt wasted, and two admitted they nearly quit the group in its second month. Dana Whitfield and Marcus Lee described their conflict as painful but said the repair conversation built respect; they now speak monthly about shelter capacity and summer staffing. The utility and neighborhood representatives said they felt valued only after the chair began inviting them to speak first.

Criterion Three: Future Capacity

The task force's most lasting result may be new connections. The fire department and homeless services nonprofit now share data on heat-related calls, the utility alerts outreach teams to households with recent shutoffs during heat warnings and members asked the mayor to make the task force permanent. A team that leaves behind stronger relationships and processes has built capacity even beyond its report.

The report took six months; the habit of the utility calling outreach teams before a heat wave may last for years.

Processes and Emergent States

Mathieu et al. (2008) surveyed ten years of team studies and stressed shared conditions that build up over a team's life, such as trust, closeness and confidence in the group, which then shape its work. They also stressed that teams are dynamic, so inputs, processes and outcomes influence one another across a team's life rather than in a single sequence.

The task force's emergent states changed markedly. Early, trust was low and members acted as agency delegates. After the midpoint and the conflict repair, trust and a sense of shared purpose grew, and information began to flow, as the revised bus routes show. The improvement in emergent states preceded the improvement in decisions.

Inputs That Shaped the Team

Some of what happened was set before the first meeting. The mayor's broad charge, the mix of nine agencies with different interests, the six-month deadline and the lack of a dedicated budget for staff support were all inputs the team could not choose. The broad charge contributed to the slow start, and the deadline produced the midpoint shift. The absence of staff support meant the chair spent hours on logistics that a coordinator could have handled, time she might have spent drawing out quiet members.

What a Coach Might Have Added

Team research suggests that coaching is most useful at three moments: at the start, when a team needs help orienting to its task; at the midpoint, when it is ready to rethink its approach; and at the end, when it can reflect on what it learned. The task force received outside help only at the midpoint, when the mayor's office pressed for focus. A short facilitated session at the first meeting, clarifying goals and norms, and a closing review would likely have shortened the slow start and captured lessons for the permanent group now being formed.

The Chair's Leadership

Burke et al. (2006) pooled studies of team leaders and found that organizing the work and caring for the people both paid off, with giving members real authority tied most closely to how much teams learned.

Dr. Rosa Villanueva's leadership changed over the six months. Early, she summarized and managed the agenda, task-focused behaviors, but left the goal too broad and did not draw out quiet members. At the midpoint, she narrowed the goal sharply, a decisive task-focused act. After the shelter conflict, she led a repair conversation and began inviting the least-heard members to speak first, person-focused and empowering behaviors that changed the team's processes. Her slowness to act in the first three months, rather than any style, was her main weakness.

Lessons From the Course

Several lessons emerge across the five weeks. Set clear direction and membership at the start. Expect a midpoint shift and prepare to use it. Watch who speaks and make norms explicit. Keep conflict on the task and repair relationships quickly. Gather unique information before deciding. And judge success by results, people and future capacity.

Conclusion

By three criteria, the Heat Response Task Force was largely effective: its recommendations were funded and likely contributed to fewer deaths, most members valued the experience despite early struggles and agencies now work together. Research on team effectiveness and emergent states explains why its second half outperformed its first, and research on team leadership shows that the chair's shift toward clear direction and empowerment made the difference.

References

Burke, C. S., Stagl, K. C., Klein, C., Goodwin, G. F., Salas, E., & Halpin, S. M. (2006). What type of leadership behaviors are functional in teams? A meta-analysis. The Leadership Quarterly, 17(3), 288-307. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2006.02.007

Kozlowski, S. W. J., & Ilgen, D. R. (2006). Enhancing the effectiveness of work groups and teams. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 7(3), 77-124. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1529-1006.2006.00030.x

Mathieu, J., Maynard, M. T., Rapp, T., & Gilson, L. (2008). Team effectiveness 1997-2007: A review of recent advancements and a glimpse into the future. Journal of Management, 34(3), 410-476. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206308316061