Small Team Leadership

In my professional work I have the opportunity to observe and advise leaders of small project teams. I will begin a series of topics examining the roles, functions, and practices of small team leadership. First, it might be helpful to more succinctly define the term as applied to the entities I will observe.

I define "small" in terms of team headcount - the bell curve hump being between 5 and 15 persons.

I define "project" in terms of member composition - these teams being multi-functional, departmental, multi-firm (and sometimes with multi- and varied objectives and agendas!).

I define "team" only partly consistent with Katzenbach and Smith's definition - "A small number of people with complementary skills who are working to a common purpose". From Katzenbach's definition I replaced 'committed' with 'working', because I do not perceive unwavering commitment by all members. I did not include "..performance goals and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable", because I do not usually see a common approach (mostly because of the diversity of organizations who each like to do things in their own way), and the leader does not often establish standards of approach. Mutual accountability is also missing because that same diversity leads to separate standards for acknowledgement and reward (and punishment, if applicable).

This should be an interesting exercise, and I hope to yield some useful perspectives.