Idea 1: Task, team and individual

In leadership there are always three interacting elements or variables:

1. The leader: qualities of personality and character.
2. The situation: partly constant, partly varying.
3. The group: the followers, their needs and values.

It is helpful to look at leadership in relation to the needs of work groups. Work groups are always unique – they have their own group personality – but like individuals, they share needs in common:

1. Task need: to achieve the common task.
2. Team maintenance needs: to be held together or to be maintained as a team.
3. Individual needs: the needs that individuals bring with them into the group.

These three needs (the task, the team and the individual) are now the watchwords of leadership and people expect their leaders to:

• Help them achieve the common task.
• Build the synergy of teamwork.
• Respond to individuals and meet their needs.

Why needs? Working groups come into being because there is a task to be done that one person cannot do on their own. A pressure to accomplish it builds up. If the group is prevented from completing the task, it will experience frustration.

The other two needs are more below the surface. Groups are prone to fragmentation, and the forces that are holding them together – team maintenance – need to be stronger than the forces that are pushing them apart. The creation, promotion and retention of group/organizational cohesiveness are essential, on the principle of ‘united we stand, divided we fall’.

The individual needs are the physical ones (e.g. salary) and the more psychological ones of:

• Recognition.
• A sense of doing something worthwhile.
• Status.
• The deeper need to give and to receive from other people in a working situation.

Task, team and individual needs overlap, as in the diagram.

For example:

• Achieving the task builds the team and satisfies the individuals.
• If team maintenance fails (the team lacks cohesiveness), performance on the task is impaired and individual satisfaction is reduced.
• If individual needs are not met, the team will lack cohesiveness and performance of the task will be impaired.