How often than not, UNICEF would put a team together to solve or find a solution to a pressing problem. A team leader appoints for the job and he or she stays as the boss of the project. The team leader may not be a specialist in the area of the subject agenda (that is better I think) but may have other expertise that the followers do not have.
The interesting question posed of team leadership is whether it is better to have one leader posted as team leader throughout the project or to rotate team members in the leadership positions as the project runs its course.
There is a point of view in that it is good to rotate team leadership during the different phases of the team project. Suppose a development project discussed needs a multi-disciplinary approach (of course, almost all forms of development calls for a multi-disciplinary approach), when the subject of child’s nutrition comes in vogue should the child nutritionist become the boss of the team and when logistics is the subject the logistics person takes over as leader? I know from my UNICEF experience that we have had a good record of recruiting people to teams and giving them sufficient leeway to contribute their expertise. However, if that expertise needed discussion over a few days, the expert was still not being the leader.
Perhaps, UNICEF New York and some European offices could possibly practice this theory of rotating leadership on team projects. It is always good to experience and test the results. However, if some members of the team are junior and they assume the team leadership position then they may feel obliged to hold back their ideas when they have their bosses on the team or higher-grade officers. Therefore, we have to take this theory and apply it around the makeup of the team.
Furthermore, in most developing countries a boss and a higher position will not succumb to taking questions or orders from a subordinate or lower position. Therefore this theory will not work. This is not to make any sweeping generalizations of nationality traits , but in most part, rotating leaderships will not work in a developing country setting. As a junior officer in New York I was once asked to stop speaking at a meeting and the organizer said that only my boss should speak (hopefully, those times have passed away in UNICEF!). In addition, no one should think UNICEF, New York is the same as working for a private organization in New York. The UN in New York and its agencies employ foreign nationalities that carry their national traits to the organization wherever it is located. Therefore, where you live and work and from where you are important matters for team psychology.
The key to teamwork management is to give comfort to team members that when they are on the team that there will be equal distribution of power. However, difficulty arises when workplace attitudes and values accept unequal distribution of power as the status quo and impose that power even in generating ideas from those in lower ranks. Thus, those in lower ranks will shy away from making even their most valid contributions. Throughout my 25 plus years of UNDP and UNICEF experience, I have come upon teams that gave its members equal power on the team and never made anyone feel inferior because of lower rank. HRM divisions in UNICEF in particular should underscore that egalitarianism is not in the title or post level of a team leader and its participants but is the result and outputs of the designated team. Clearly, this is a difficult issue and best be left to regional headquarters for a final decision. In most situations, agencies such as UNICEF can apply a hybrid of sorts since they also have many North Americans, Europeans and other nationalities posted in field offices and changing attitudes from many developing countries.
From my different country experiences, I have witnessed different leadership attitudes and values with expatriate staff assuming leadership positions at meetings. If a foreigner shared responsibility at a meeting, it was okay. If a local staffer shared responsibility of leadership, it judged that the leader was weak and thus was handing over the reins. Therefore, expatriate leaders have to be aware that leadership faces big hurdles in some cultures and that there is no one-size fits all; in many developing country situations, the leadership of the group appoints from beginning to end. That is what is great about international organizations such as UNICEF with its mixed staffing of different nationalities from around the world; it brings to the organization a specially interwoven culture that is not specifically country specific and thus everyone gains from the shared cultures. For instance, in the early 1970s when expatriate male staff treated women workers equally in the UNICEF Bangladesh office, that was a lesson in disguise for the locally recruited male staff that women are as good as men for their ideas and inputs. Unfortunately, though, UNICEF staffs do not tend to see those benefits at the time of employ but only when looking back several years later. We always know the rights and wrongs in retrospect.
The contributions of the individualistic societies versus contribution of the collectivist societies and perhaps the nurturing types are all co-mingled in an international setting in UN agencies such as UNICEF that bring in many attitude-style-hybrids of teamwork and leadership. No sooner, an individualist tries to set a far-reaching goal and push his or her idea through at any cost, a collectivist will nudge that the views of others should also receive attention. On the other hand, when any collectivist would gravitate towards loyalty then the individualistic is at odds with the collectivist’s orientation towards an over-reliance on teamwork.
Therefore, the final question is whether hierarchical leadership or group leadership is the best for working in teams. Probably there is no standard answer. Nevertheless, if teamwork bases mostly on loyalty then a host of team members could be free riders, not contributing to the team but riding on the coat tails of other member’s ideas. That is why a pinch of individualism is also an important input. The best leadership role in teams in international organizations should be a combination of hierarchy and knowledge, so that one appointed team member would be able to understand the outputs expected of the group and have the ability to motivate its members to participate and contribute. The best team performances I have seen in UNICEF are where the team members had the opportunity to challenge themselves and contribute to the team unrestrained, and that means that the success of the team wholly depended on its leadership.
One bit of caution to these team solvers. If your team is responsible for making recommendations on downsizing and right sizing, be cautious that the team members do not bring biases against people. Downsizing is necessary when technology can take some of the workload, or there is a need to downsize due to fall of revenue or change of focus. But beware of the limits that you can pack on people. If you carry too much weight you may get a stress fracture, ditto with being overburdened with too much work.
In a 2004 survey of American workers, 27 percent reported being overwhelmed "often or very often " by how much work they can do. And 29 percent reported that they did not have time to step back and reflect on the work they were doing. The study's authors concluded that a full one-third of of U.S. employees "can be viewed as being chronically overworked." I can assume the same percentages for UNICEF staff, especially those who work in the management and administrative areas and key program sectors.
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