Page 12 - Leadership Basics 3

Procedures and Protocols

Procedures that organise and control the team's work strongly influence its performance. A team
needs to establish procedures or protocols to guide or regulate its activities and how it works together.
Teams can rapidly become dysfunctional if not enough time and energy is put into clarifying
procedures and protocols.

The protocol can range in complexity from “What time will we meet?” to, “How will we deal with
contentious issues?”

As an example, consider the protocol for setting meeting times. In schools this can be an important
decision that affects the team’s performance. Teachers’ time in front of students is considered to be
essential and non‐negotiable; unlike many other businesses, dropping everything by a teacher for a
quick team meeting is simply not possible. Similarly, teachers’ time after school can be seen as a
working conditions issue and therefore a resource that needs to be rationed; again, unlike many other
professions, the working lunch or breakfast or the late night team meeting are rare in schools.

One of the most important procedures and protocols to be established by teams is the procedure for
dealing with contentious issues, which are matters where there are serious differences in opinion
about the preferred outcome which result in expressions of strong emotions and interpersonal
concern.
Another essential procedure to be established is the procedure for measuring team performance. This
must be decided early in the work of the team and be stated very clearly.

Relationships

In any team situation disagreement will occur. Disagreement and vigorous discussion of ideas and
differences can be healthy. But poor interpersonal relationships between team members can often
result in a team that is dysfunctional. Lack of trust, conflict between specific team members and
dislike of a person's style of speaking or way of dealing with stress and other factors contribute to
problems. To be effective a team must learn to meet the emotional and social needs of its members
and develop ways to resolve any interpersonal problems that arise.

But relationships are concerned about more than simply dealing with conflict, investing time in team
members getting to know each other is also important. This can be facilitated through social events
such as ‘footy tipping competitions’, celebrating teachers’ birthdays and the all‐important ‘morning
teas’. In other words, celebrating successes and recognising personal achievements is also an
important part of relationships. People are social beings, so when they group into teams to
accomplish mutual goals they need to have the opportunity to engage in social‐building activities. If
we were a troop of baboons, we would engage in mutual grooming; unfortunately, for teams of
teachers there can be an unwritten professional rule that they separate working life from home life
and so many shy away from any social activity that is not directly connected to their teaching load.
Team leaders need to find ways of overcoming this anti‐social position.

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