It has perhaps become a cliché to say that team working is vital to organisational success. As Meredith Belbin says in his foreword to the book, “Even the most autocratic managers will proudly point to their suppressed underlings as members of their teams.” He believes that the real meaning of the word “team” has become diluted and under‐valued and that the author of this book’s challenge is to introduce readers to the subject in a way that gives them both a broad perspective of the issues and sufficient depth. This seems a good test against which to benchmark Mastering Team Leadership.
Roger Cartwright is a consultant and writer specialising in management skills. He is the author of a range of books that are part of the Palgrave Master Series. These are designed for both students and practitioners, especially new managers.
The book has a very simple structure being organised into 11 chapters. It starts by introducing the key concepts – leadership and teams. It then looks at the individual at work and at team behaviour and development. A chapter is given over to the idea of team roles, before turning to the concepts of leadership and power. Two particularly useful chapters focus on the advantages and disadvantages of groups and teams (by looking at synergy and “groupthink”) and issues facing teams in the twenty‐first century. The latter looks at virtual teams, new organisational forms and leaders as change agents. The “learning architecture” is straightforward. It comprises a simple statement of learning outcomes at the start of each chapter, think/discussion points throughout, concise chapter summaries and three or four questions to develop the reader’s understanding of the subject. There are suggestions for further reading and a full bibliography, though I found the links and additional material to assist study on an ancillary Website rather limited.
These details may sound unexciting but will be important to Mastering Team Leadership’s likely readership. The book will be particularly useful for anyone studying business subjects as undergraduates or on a Certificate or Diploma in Management. It does, as promised, make good use of “current examples from across the globe” and blend these effectively with its discussion of theory. The book also says that it intends to inform the debate about how teams should be employed in work situations. Although it informs it, I am not sure that it really develops the debate. That said, I do not really see this as a weakness. It sums up very effectively, for students the key theories, concepts and ideas in the area of team leadership. Tuckman and the stages of team development, Hastings et al. on high performance teams and of course Belbin on team roles, are all there and are very effectively presented.
There are a couple of gripes. The chapter on “Thinkers on teams and leadership” is rather superfluous. It covers 16 authors, most of whose work is discussed elsewhere in the book, and gives more of a potted biography than a summary of their ideas. For example, readers are told that Stephen Covey’s views are “challenging” yet we are not told more about what they are. My other gripe is about product placement! The chapter on team roles mentions the Margerison and McCann team wheel but largely to introduce “… the team role theory of Meredith Belbin that forms the subject of the bulk of this chapter.” That is fair enough but after a discussion of Belbin’s team roles there are sections on the software package that helps to identify preferred team roles and on work roles and work sets. This is accompanied by a smattering of trade mark and copyright signs! This may restore the balance as Margerison and McCann have a number of books that promote their own approach and system, but I found it unnecessary and potentially confusing for students.
These gripes should not put readers off. This book is both a useful introduction for students of team leadership and summary of the key concepts. It passes the test we set. I like the saying: “If it looks like a duck; walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then it probably is a duck!” This book says that it is about mastering team leadership, says that sets out to explore the nature of leadership, team work and team building for those new to management or studying the subject and has straightforward chapters exploring the key concepts. In short, Mastering Team Leadership does just what it says it will do on the jacket!
