Task
You have been asked to lead a global, virtual, cross-functional new product development team with the following members:
- US, male, marketing professional, aged 3
- Chinese, male, accountant, aged 23
- Swedish, female, scientist, aged 40
- Indian, female, engineer, aged 25
- Japanese, male, operations manager, aged 39
All team members have equivalent qualifications and have been with the company for over 2 years. You have not worked with any of them before.
The team member responsible for the engineering and product development is not sharing enough information, at the right time and with enough detail, with the other team members. As a result the operations components may not be ready in time and the finances are still not confirmed for the launch. There is considerable tension within the team. What would you do lead this team to success?
In your response consider the following:
- What kind of diversity exists in this team?
- Where are the potential faultlines?
- Which team process(es) are impacted on in this scenario?
- What team leadership functions can you use to intervene and improve the team’s performance?
- How will you demonstrate your leadership competency and integrity to develop trust within this team?
- What would you do to optimise the effectiveness of this team?
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