Preamble.
Leadership is a process by which a person influences others to accomplish an objective and direct the team in a way that makes it more cohesive and coherent. That means, Leaders aim to influence and guide others in pursuing particular objectives and visions of the future and to simulate them into wanting to follow (Ian Brooks, 2009). Therefore leadership is about managing people, and in managing people, team must be formed. A team can be a group of people coming together to collaborate to reach a shared goal or task for which they hold themselves mutually accountable. They are interdependently geared towards the achievement of a common goal or completion of a task.
From the discussion question, among other things, I am require to ‘demonstrate my power of influence’ Ian Brooks (2009), over my team members in achieving this goal or completing this task. I can carry out this process by applying my leadership attributes, such as beliefs, values, ethics, characters, knowledge and skills. Although, my position as a Technical Professional lead, gives me the authority to accomplish certain tasks and objectives in my organization or team, this power does not make me a leader, it simply make me a boss. Leadership differs in that it makes the followers want to achieve high goals, rather than simply bossing people around.
SHARED MENTAL MODELS. This mental models or knowledge structures allows each teammate to generate predictions and expectations about their teammates roles and task demands which in turn, allow them to make adjustments in order to maintain effective team performance Cannon-Bowers, Salas, & Converse (1993). To be successful, you need to engage planning, organizing, setting performance goals, assessing the team’s performance, developing their own strategies to manage change, and securing their own resources
Critically analysing the discussion