"How to Lead a Self-Managing Team"

Vanessa Druskat and Jane Wheeler

MIT Sloan Management Review

Summer 2004, pp. 65-71

The authors of this article studied 300 self-managing teams in a large manufacturing plant in the Midwest. The study focused on the external leaders of these teams. These leaders were the ones held responsible for the team's performance, and they also served as the link to higher levels in the organization.

Research has already shown that a key to the success of self-managing teams is the delegation of considerable decision-making authority and flexibility to the self-managed team. However, this study found that a number of leadership behaviors and activities could be identified as contributors to building the foundation for team empowerment. In all, the authors of this study identified four general functions and eleven behaviors that contribute to those four functions:

The first function is relating. "External leaders must continually move back and forth between the team and the broader organization to build relationships." Three behaviors that contribute to relating are:

• Being socially and politically aware—Superior external leaders showed an understanding of concerns and decision-making criteria of constituencies in various departments and the broader organization.
• Building team trust—Superior external leaders understood the importance of building bonds of trust with the team members. They demonstrated that they had were keenly interested in the success of the team, and that they could be relied upon to help work towards that success.
• Caring for team members—Superior leaders recognized that team members' personal problems were not merely impediments to getting the work done. They understood that these were opportunities to build relationships.

The second function is scouting. This refers to the proactive work needed to fully understand all aspects needed to make the team successful. The three behaviors that contribute to scouting are:

• Seeking information from managers, peers, and specialists—Superior external leaders were more likely to seek advice and technical information from others in the organization. This behavior proved useful both in influencing the team's decision making and in advocating effectively for the team.
• Diagnosing member behavior—External leaders are rarely physically present when critical events occur in the self-managed team. The superior leaders were more skilled at analyzing and making sense of second hand information from the team members.
• Investigating problems systematically—Superior leaders gathered more data and input, enabling them to make better-informed recommendations that would be acceptable to both external constituents and to the team members themselves.

The third function is persuading. The two behaviors that contribute to persuading are:

• Obtaining external support—Average leaders seek external support from the broader organization less frequently, and they are less successful in obtaining the support when they do seek it.
• Influencing the team—Superior leaders were more skillful in guiding their teams to decisions that were in the best interest of the organization.

The fourth function is empowering. The three behaviors that contribute to empowering are:

• Delegating authority—"average leaders tended to be more fearful about delegating authority, and they would often make decisions for the team and solve its problems covertly"
• Exercising flexibility regarding team decisions—"even when a team has to be reined in, superior leaders did so only after considering the proposal as open-mindedly as possible"
• Coaching—"superior leaders focused on strengthening a team's confidence, its ability to manage itself and its contributions from individual members. A common coaching behavior was for leaders to work with people who had just taken on roles of greater responsibility."

The authors sum up the results of their research by stating that superior leaders were able to develop strong relationships both within the team and with the rest of the organization. Average performers tended to do well with one or the other, but not with both.

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