Psychology of Leading Work Groups and Teams

Catalog description

Students will examine the psychological and social processes related to leading work groups and teams. PSY 814 Psychology of Leading Work Groups and Teams (3) The nature of work in contemporary organizations has been changing from being performed largely by individuals to being increasingly performed by work groups and teams. Furthermore, employees are often members of multiple work groups over relatively short intervals of time or even members of several work teams at one time. Add to this trend the increasing diversity of the workforce and the increasing use of work groups that are geographically and temporally distributed around the world, and the role of being an effective work unit leader is much more difficult than it was in the past. The multiple challenges that leaders face in their attempts to influence, motivate, and develop their employees require knowledge of the psychological and social factors affecting group performance and processes, and related skills in understanding the specific factors that may be relevant in a given organizational setting. This course provides a comprehensive examination of the psychological and social factors that underlie group and team processes in work and organizational settings. The course will focus on the development of the students' ability to think critically about the complexity of factors that influence group processes and the wide range of individual differences in behavior and emotions that can occur within a work group. Over the semester students will be exposed to relevant examples, cases, and discussions that emphasize the application of psychological theory and research findings to the practice of leadership functions in work settings that help develop effective work groups and positive intra- and inter-group relations. Particular attention will be paid to those factors that work unit leaders can directly create and maintain (such as developing and coaching individual employees and the intact team; recognizing effective work behaviors and motivation; task assignments and delegation of responsibility). Utilizing this method of deployment, students will be exposed to personal experiences of the instructor as well as those of other students, thereby encouraging the use of multiple approaches to analyzing situations and designing action plans. Emphasis will be placed on applying knowledge and theories to real world situations through both the use of case studies and discussion. Topics will range from basic definitional and theoretical framing, to critical evaluation of the utility of theories, as related to the students' goals as future organizational leaders.