Problems for a leader

The idea of a group of people combining their skills and knowledge, acting together in cooperative activity under sound management and with a strong leadership is a powerful paradigm. It seems hardly worth even contemplating that there could be a more suitable alternative. However, there are several weaknesses with this kind of organisational structure when it is ported across to the world of the Internet - because it is suited only to relatively stable business environments.

Look again, at the list of eighteen initial assumptions above. Think about how they might affect a leader's duties and responsibilities. Ask yourself the following questions in light of the volatile nature of e-business:

1) How can a leader have a clear and unambiguous vision of the task that is required of a team?

2) How can a leader provide a team with a concise plan, with targets, specific goals and standards for the team members to achieve?

In other words, in e-business situations, leaders will have to lead by the seat of their pants where they will be using strategies of adaptation and reaction rather than predictive planning? Without a fully detailed plan in place, a leader cannot lead a team according to the accepted definition of an ideal leader.

The leader is not going to know all the technical and strategic options available to the team and is quite likely to make many errors of judgement. The team leader is also unlikely to be able to keep up with all the possible strategies of competitors, especially if they are taking advantage of new technological developments that the leader is either not familiar with or not aware of. These realities of the digital communication environment will greatly compromise the ability of a leader to be able to exercise firm judgement and provide clear direction.

In the world of e-business, with super fast communication and mass connectivity, competition responds instantly to take advantage of any inefficiencies. Any weaknesses in a managed team will soon show up as an inefficiency and allow the competition to get in. Consider the effect the following will have on the efficiency by which the team leader can function:

1) Rapidly changing technology and varying forms of competition are likely to cause continuously reoccurring mismatches between the knowledge and skills available within a team and the requirements of the competitive market place.

2) Teams as well as individuals can have severe knowledge and skill gaps which neither the team leader nor the members of the team will be aware of.

3) Teams tend to design solutions that suit their own skill and knowledge sets rather than design for optimum efficiency.

4) The ease with which team members can change employment in the environment of the Internet severely compromises the stability of any managed team.

These four realities of the e-business environment will make life very difficult for any leader trying to create a permanent stable team of contented members. With the nature of solutions continuously changing, it will be difficult to separate out inefficiencies, slackness or non cooperation. The team leader will have to adopt a flexible strategy, so, it would be impossible to avoid periods when certain team members are over worked while others are underused. It will be easy for team members to corner technical niches and create personal power bases. Such conditions can cause all kinds of problems, conflicts and frustrations within a team.

The vast variety of knowledge and skills that will be called upon will make it impractical for the leader to provide adequate coaching or lead by example. With a constant need to take new directions, concentrate on new priorities, react swiftly to new technology and competitive moves, how can a leader provide team members with a sense of security when the leaders is probably even doubting his or her own?

Unless the leader picks a team who are not using the Internet to enhance their knowledge and skills (a fatal mistake), the individual members of the team will have much greater knowledge in some areas than the leader. This ability of team members to so easily gain knowledge and experience by way of the Internet can create considerable imbalances in a team. A conscientious team member can very quickly become highly proficient in a specific area and see themselves as being specially valuable to the group for which they will need some form of recognition of compensation.

As discussed in a previous chapter, exceptional expertise in one area often sees specialists assuming they have exceptional capabilities in other areas and this can easily lead to them challenging each others views if a direction is not clear; perhaps even challenging the views and authority of the leader.

A leader faced with conflicting views from specialists in different areas where he or she has limited knowledge is not in an enviable situation. Decisions have to be made and if a team member feels their expert views are being ignored they can become disgruntled. Teams can easily break up into factions if the team leader cannot assert authority, but, because a team leader is certain to have knowledge gaps, such authority cannot be strictly enforced without causing animosity.

It may well be that a team leader, seeking to build a cooperative team in the conventional way, might have to make a choice between a team of people that lacked personal drive to use the Internet for self improvement or try to create a team of high achievers that are actively using the Web and risk creating a team of prima Donnas.

A very eligible bachelor I knew was once asked why he seemed to always be attracted by unattractive looking females. His answer: "They don't get stolen off of me as frequently as the attractive ones". This neatly sums up the problem that many team builders face: the more capable and expert their team members, the more likelihood of them being poached by another team. Worsening this situation: any lack of appreciation - real or imagined - detected by a team member can easily bring about a defection.

It does seem therefore, that the environment of the Internet with its massive connectivity could be a team leader's worst nightmare - even though they may be a perfect team leader in the conventional sense.