The course discusses how both team members and team leaders can contribute to successful teamwork. As teams increasingly include members with different cultural, educational, and socio-demographic backgrounds, team diversity has become one of the most prominent concepts in recent team management. On the one hand, team diversity offers promising chances for effective team work such as increasing levels of creativity and innovation. However, on the other hand, diversity bears the risk of losses in coordination and communication, thereby challenging team effectiveness. Accordingly, the course aims at exploring chances and risks of working in diverse teams and provides recommendations for the effective leadership of such teams.
In the first part, theoretical considerations and empirical results regarding the effects of different types of diversity (e.g., gender, age, ethnicity) on teamwork and team performance will be discussed. Building on a large body of research in team diversity, it will be demonstrated that diverse teams do have to be managed carefully in order to realize their potential to the full. In the second part, we will discuss how team leaders may contribute to realize that potential. Effective team leadership includes considering requirements of both the team as a whole (e.g., by establishing a common team identity) and the individual team members (e.g., by fairly appreciating their individual contributions). In particular, so-called relations-oriented approaches to leadership (e.g., inclusive leadership, shared leadership, empowering leadership, and servant leadership) will be introduced.
Learning goals
In this course, participants will understand how teams in organizations work. In particular, they will receive an overview on how diversity effects the functioning of teams and how leadership may contribute to realize the potential of diverse teams. Accordingly, participants of this course will be able to reflect on the functioning of the teams they may have to work on in the future. For instance, they will be able to analyze the forms of diversity which are most relevant in their teams. Most importantly, participants will be able to select leadership behaviors adequate to enhance the chances of diversity while at the same time reducing the risks of diversity. Thereby, they will be able to consider promising relations-oriented leadership styles such as inclusive leadership, empowering leadership, shared leadership, and servant leadership.