Answer

Introduction

Literature on leadership and management has significantly changed over the past years. This includes transitioning from the great man theory, trait theory, behavioral theory, contingency theory, leader-follower theory, and transformational leadership model (Early, 2017). Modern models of leadership have been grounded on traditional concepts such as scientific management. Because of the demanding nature of the modern workplace, leadership models have integrated factors such as morality and ethics, systems leadership, and biological aspects namely behavioral genetics. Adopting these factors have enabled leaders to build high performance teams. Such teams are imperative not only to the performance and sustainability of the organization, but also in empowering, engaging, and motivating employees. According to Northhouse (2014) one of the essential attributes observed in modern leadership is the need for the leaders to possess superior interpersonal skills. Roe (2020) defines interpersonal skills as traits that people apply when communicating and interacting with others. Guided by this backdrop, this paper seeks to build a personal profile by analyzing and proposing an action plan for self-improvement to refine leadership traits for high performance teams.

Leading and Building High Performance Teams

Interpersonal skills are applicable to verbal and no-verbal communications. They include active listening, teamwork, responsibility, dependability, leadership, motivation, flexibility, patience and empathy (Roe, 2020). It is emphasized that strong interpersonal skills are important since they help leaders navigate the complex modern workplace, especially when diverse and multicultural workforces are involved. Backed by this understanding, this paper integrates literature on leadership to detail the process of building a personal profile by identifying weaknesses and strengths in my interpersonal skills that could be either be a hindrance or asset to team works. The paper further builds a plan of action that strengthen the positive aspects of my interpersonal skills in a manner that will assist contribute to the team environment (Zaccaro, Rittman & Marks, 2001). To achieve this goal, this paper further adopts behavioral theories that reinforce arguments, assertions, and specific leadership needs.

Culture denotes sets of behaviors that influence and determine how a company conducts its operations. It influences the behavior of the individuals and the organization as a whole. High performing cultures empower employees thus equipping them with the knowledge and skills to enable high performance at all levels (Vîrgă et al., 2014). In return, the organization benefits from high retention rates, low turnover, high productivity and increased engagement. Normally, turnover rate for a high culture organization is 14% while the annual turnover for those with poor cultures is estimated at 48%. This example reinforces the perception that high-performance cultures should integrate sets of norms and behaviors that motivate employees and other stakeholders to achieve superior results. Parker (2008) reinforces this statement noting that organizations create high performance cultures by encouraging team work. This is the first step to achieving collaboration in different spheres of the organization. For instance, teaming among people from the same department or in other departments, increases collaboration, and sharing which could foster knowledge management. Through collaborations, employees will complement each other’s strengths and weaknesses thus performing better. Other approaches to creating high performance culture is through innovation, agility, communication, support, supportive work environment, performance focus, and alignment of mission and vision statements.

My interpersonal skills are closely related to my personal traits. As noted in the analysis of my personality using the OCEAN model or the big five personality test, I scored averagely in terms of openness and agreeability, highly in conscientiousness and extraversion traits, and below average in neuroticism. A quick review of these traits shows that openness refers to the ability to learn and embrace new things. According to Salas et al (2013) this trait is very important in team work since it determines the ability for a person to accept and adapt new ideas proposed by teammates. The trait of conscientiousness denotes the ability to be methodical, thorough and well organized. Conscientious people value perfectionism and effectiveness. This trait is equally important to teams since it influences the quality of output realized by teams. Extraversion is the ability to engage others in conservations, be energetic, assertive, and enthusiastic. It is noted that extroverts often drain the energy of the other members of the group. However, when the trait is used effectively, extroverted people are like glue that brings teams together. Agreeableness is a trait that explains the friendliness of an individual. Such people are compassionate, kind, and sympathetic. Having such a personality is important in reinforcing teamwork. The fifth trait is neuroticism which explains the aspect of emotional stability of a person. Davis and Davis (2008) emphasize that emotional intelligence is an important aspect in modern leadership and teamwork. It is an important trait since the workplace is unpredictable and stressful. Therefore, it needs a leader who can control their emotions even when under duress.

An analysis of my scores in the five traits shows that I am strong in conscientiousness and extraversion, average in agreeableness and openness, and weak in neuroticism. Curşeu et al. (2019) point out that there exists a strong relationship between personality, interpersonal skills, and contribution to teamwork. A theory-driven approach to evaluating the relationship shows that personality traits of conscientiousness, agreeableness, and extraversion have an inverted U-shaped relationship with teamwork. This statement is justified by a research study which used a sample of 220 participants. The findings showed that the traits of conscientiousness, extraversion and agreeableness are curvilinearly related to peer-rated contribution to interpersonal skills and teamwork. This means that as the personality scores increased, the contribution to team work increased until a peak where increasing the three personality traits further led to negative contribution to teamwork. Guided by the research, Curşeu et al. (2019) propose that future models relating personality traits to teamwork should consider non-linear assumptions rather than being fixed on linear analysis as it was done in past research. They further propose that employers should look at personality when employing and assigning people to teams. The change in relationship along the U curve arises when extremely high scores in the three traits lead to unwanted results as illustrated in table 1 below.

Table 1: Teamwork‐relevant maladaptive traits (Curşeu et al., 2019)

Note: The letter C represents Conscientiousness, E represents Extraversion, while A refers to Agreeableness.

                Guided by this analysis, I am convinced that I can work well in a team because I possess a favorable balance of the three traits described by Vîrgă et al. (2014), namely; consciousness, extraversion, and agreeableness. The author emphasizes that interpersonal skills of a person will rise as the percentage score of the individual rises until a plateau which is normally 80% as exhibited in figure 2. A further rise in the score of the traits will lead to decline in interpersonal skills. For instance, improving conscientiousness above 80% will lead to tendencies of perfectionism, inflexibility and obsession while extremely low levels below 50% could lead to disorder, carelessness and wastefulness. In terms of interpersonal skills, high personality scores in conscientiousness will make the teamwork leisure-less, defensive and hypersensitive or moody. Low personality scores in conscientiousness will cause neglect and uncontrollability among team members. An excessive amount of extraversion trait will lead to diminishing contribution to team work since it leads to being superficial, exaggerative, egoistic and dominant. On the other hand, low levels of extroversion, which is an equivalent of introversion causes reclusiveness, and detachment from the group. In regard to interactions, extroversion could make someone overly reactive and showy, while introverted traits could make a person distant and solitary. Northhouse (2014) adds that a person with high agreeableness will be lenient and submissive while low levels of this trait lead to unhealthy competition in teams and harshness. In terms of contribution to interactions, low levels of agreeableness could make a person deceitful and heartless while high levels cause gullibility and makes a person deceivable.

Figure 2: Quadratic relationships between conscientiousness, extraversion, and contributions to teamwork

This section details how to build a plan of action to strengthen the interpersonal skills in a manner that will foster contribution in team environments. Guided by the analysis in the previous sections, improving team contribution should focus on gaining skills that improve conscientiousness, agreeableness and extraversion to optimal levels of around 80%. Improving beyond this percentage would have a negative impact on interpersonal relations and individual contribution to teamwork. A suitable action plan will not only focus on improving these three traits, but also give some attention to the development of openness and neuroticism. Northhouse (2014) proposes that I can improve my conscientiousness score by repeated practice. Through practice, the conscientiousness muscles develop incrementally thus becoming more instinctive. Agreeableness can be improved through exposure to positive mentors and role models with high agreeableness qualities. Extroversion can be enhanced by engaging in more team work activities. I can become more open by pursuing new adventures, creative activities and experiences. These activities will make me open-minded. Roe (2020) notes that neuroticism trait can be improved through therapies namely cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) which is helpful in managing emotions.

Conclusion

This paper chronologically explores a number of themes. It uses literature on leadership and teamwork to highlight the relation of teams, leadership, high-performance cultures. It emphasizes the need for high-performance cultures, which can be built through motivation, collaboration, active listening, and empathy among other interpersonal skills. Behavioral theories of management play a vital role in justifying the linear and non-linear relationship between interpersonal skills, personality traits and team contribution. As noted in the paper, the traits of extroversion, conscientiousness, and agreeableness play vital roles in influencing productivity of teams. However, increasing these traits does not guarantee the best performance. As the scores reach optimum levels, mostly 80%, the contribution of the team members begins to drop. This shows that an excess of these traits is harmful to team work. Guided by the analysis, an analysis of my personal traits justifies the need to improve in all the five traits.