The Disadvantage Of Self-Managed Teams

We all are working in some types of groups or teams that are managed or unmanaged, with a leader or without a leader, tracked or untracked, working towards goals or for noble cause and many more but the central idea of all the teams is to be efficient enough to achieve the basic cause that led to the formation of such groups or teams.

As a general observation, a team leader is there to take important decisions relating to the team activities. The actual task is still done by the team members. So, is there any need of the team leader if the decision taking part is handed over to the team? Will they be able to perform in same capacity as they would have done under a leader? Yes, there will be complications that may arise due to absence of a leader.

The purpose of the report is to answer whether a team can perform without a leader or not. It clearly describes the attribute of a leader and that of self -managed teams. The report discusses that need of a superior power to control and organise task versus the division of labour along with accountability. We have made assumptions that a team may or may not need a leader. Based on this assumption we have found the changes in the basic attributes (task handling, task completion, task division, role division, conflict management, etc.) of a team that are affected by the absence or presence of a leader. The research covers answers to the question; can a team perform without a

One of the organizations that have implemented this concept is Zappos. It is an American organization, based out of Las Vegas, Nevada, in the field of e-commerce. Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh adopted the concept of leaderless teams called Holacracy. It is a way in which the power from a management hierarchy is distributed to the team members with clear roles, for an autonomous execution of task. The work is actually more structured than its conventional counterpart. With Holacracy, there is a clear set of rules and processes for how a team breaks up its work, and defines its roles with clear responsibilities and expectations. Tony says “Research shows increase in the population of a city contributes to innovation being occurring more often. However, as a company expands the innovation index goes down. So we're trying to figure out how to structure Zappos more like a city, and less like a bureaucratic corporation. In a city, people and businesses are self-organizing. We're trying to do the same thing by switching from a normal hierarchical structure to a system called Holacracy