Team Dynamics and Leadership: Social Networks, Leadership Models, Team Processes, and Team Charters

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering social network analysis, leadership models and styles, team structures and emergent states, and team charter development.

Social Network

The set of relationships between people or other social units, encompassing networks of advice, information, friendship, or trust and social support.

Social Network Analysis (SNA)

A method for mapping and measuring relationships and interactions among people, enabling leaders to observe how information, trust, and resources actually flow.

Milgram’s Six Degrees of Separation

A foundational network experiment in which participants in the U.S. forwarded letters to reach a target Boston stockbroker solely via personal first-name acquaintances, reaching the target in an average of six steps.

Node

An actor within a social network, such as an individual person, team, or organizational unit.

Tie (Edge)

A relationship or interaction that connects two nodes in a social network.

Path Length

The number of steps required to connect two nodes within a network.

Strong Ties

Frequent, close, and trusted relationships (such as teammates and close friends) that provide social support and social integration.

Weak Ties

Infrequent, looser connections (such as acquaintances) that connect individuals to diverse perspectives and serve as the primary source of new, non-redundant information.

Social Support

Psychological and material resources intended to benefit an individual's ability to cope with stress, including informational support (advice) and emotional support (empathy and caring).

Social Integration

Active engagement in social activities and relationships that fosters a sense of community, belonging, and identification.

Strength of Weak Ties in Job Finding

The empirical finding that individuals learn about job opportunities predominantly through contacts seen occasionally ($55\%$) or rarely ($28\%$), rather than frequent contacts ($17\%$).

Network Density

The proportion of actual connections existing in a network relative to the total number of possible connections.

Network Structure

The overall pattern of connections among people or groups that shapes the flow of information, decision-making, and distribution of influence.

Network Centralization

The degree to which a team's communication or interaction ties are concentrated around a single central member or a small cluster of highly connected members.

Structural Hole

A gap that exists when two dense groups or clusters within a network lack a direct connection or share only a weak connection.

Broker

An individual positioned to connect two otherwise separated groups, enabling them to mediate information flow, obtain non-redundant insights, and build informal network power.

Leadership

The process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals through motivation to achieve a common goal, independent of formal authority or title.

Management (vs. Leadership)

A business function operating through formal roles, authority, and control to maintain order, contrasted with leadership which is a relationship based on trust, inspiration, and motivation.

Trait Theories of Leadership

Entity theories asserting that leadership is driven by inherent, fixed characteristics ('leaders are born, not made'), predicting leadership emergence more effectively than actual leadership effectiveness.

Core Leadership Traits

Personality dimensions frequently linked to leadership emergence under trait theories, specifically extraversion, conscientiousness, and openness to experience.

Incremental Theories of Leadership

The perspective that leadership is an adaptable skill set shaped by situational factors, experience, deliberate practice, reflection, and learning from mistakes.

Random Selection of Leaders

A leadership selection method shown to yield superior decision quality and stronger group decision adherence compared to systematic selection, because it reduces leader arrogance and fosters shared team identity.

Leadership Style

The characteristic approach through which a leader influences, motivates, and directs others, requiring flexibility to match varying tasks and environmental contexts.

Transactional Leadership

A leadership style centered on structured exchanges of rewards and punishments to govern performance against clear goals, standard procedures, and routine expectations.

Transformational Leadership

A leadership style focused on inspiring, elevating, and intellectually motivating followers to surpass self-interest, innovate, and pursue long-term organizational change.

Idealized Influence

A core dimension of transformational leadership where the leader demonstrates charisma, integrity, and strong values, earning the trust and respect of followers.

Inspirational Motivation

A dimension of transformational leadership characterized by articulating a compelling vision that builds team spirit, optimism, and a shared sense of purpose.

Intellectual Stimulation

A transformational leadership behavior that challenges assumptions, fosters creativity, and urges followers to tackle problems from innovative angles.

Individualized Consideration

A transformational leadership practice of giving personal attention, mentoring, and treating each follower as an individual with unique needs and capabilities.

Autocratic Leadership

A centralized style in which the leader makes unilateral decisions with little to no input from team members, ideal for fast action in crises or time-sensitive settings.

Democratic Leadership

A participative leadership style where the leader solicits input from team members, emphasizes collaboration, and relies on shared decision-making and consensus.

Shared Leadership

A collective structure where leadership roles and responsibilities are rotated and distributed among members according to each individual's domain of expertise.

Leader-Member-Exchange (LMX) Theory

A relationship-based leadership theory asserting that effective leadership stems from cultivating unique, high-quality dyadic relationships grounded in trust, support, and mutual respect with each follower.

Functional Team

A stable, manager-led team formed of individuals belonging to the same department or business function (e.g., Marketing, Finance) handling routine, ongoing activities.

Cross-Functional Team

A team composed of members from different departments or business specialties assembled to solve multidisciplinary problems or drive product innovation.

Task Force

A temporary project team assembled from specialized experts to resolve a specific, urgent, high-stakes problem or develop a system, disbanding once the objective is met.

Self-Managed Team

A team operating without direct supervision, where autonomous members collectively manage responsibilities such as hiring, scheduling, budgeting, and operations (e.g., Whole Foods store departments).

Team Process

The 'how' of teamwork, consisting of the interactions, coordination activities, and conflict management strategies that transform inputs into team outcomes.

Coordination

The process of organizing team members' activities, where the level of coordination required is dictated by the degree of task interdependence.

Task Interdependence

The degree to which team members must rely on one another to complete their work, determining necessary communication, structure, and coordination.

Pooled Interdependence

The lowest tier of task interdependence, in which team members perform their tasks independently and combine their separate outputs later with minimal coordination needs.

Sequential Interdependence

A task workflow that flows one-directionally from one member to the next in a specific serial chain (e.g., sales representative to underwriter to approving manager).

Reciprocal Interdependence

A workflow structure where taskwork moves back and forth over time between a limited number of specialized team members (e.g., interaction between marketing, engineering, and design).

Comprehensive Interdependence

The highest level of interdependence, where members interact, collaborate, and adapt simultaneously across all team members to solve complex, novel challenges.

Emergent States

Dynamic properties of a team that develop over time from member interactions, functioning simultaneously as outcomes of prior processes and inputs into future processes.

Cognitive Emergent States

Team emergent properties characterized by shared mental representations, structures, and knowledge systems (such as shared mental models and transactive memory).

Shared Mental Model

An organized common understanding shared among team members regarding key dimensions of their work—such as tasks, goals, member roles, and processes.

Representational Gap (r-gap)

A divergence or inconsistency across team members' mental models regarding task goals, processes, or problem definitions, resulting in confusion and conflict.

Transactive Memory System (TMS)

A shared cognitive system for encoding, storing, and retrieving knowledge within a team, operating as a 'collective brain' defining 'who knows what.'

Components of a Transactive Memory System

The three core elements of TMS: Specialization (distinct individual expertise), Credibility (trust in others' expertise), and Coordination (knowing where to source knowledge efficiently).

Affective Emergent States

Shared emotional, relational, and attitudinal conditions arising from member interactions over time that influence how a team feels and functions together.

Team Cohesion

An affective emergent state marked by emotional bonding, mutual commitment, and a strong sense of unity among members ('we're in this together').

Psychological Safety

A shared belief that the team environment is secure for interpersonal risk-taking, ensuring members can voice questions, ideas, or mistakes without fear of humiliation or retribution.

Team Charter

A written agreement collectively designed by team members outlining shared purpose, performance and process goals, roles, communication norms, and accountability mechanisms.

Performance Goals vs. Process Goals

In a team charter, performance goals focus on tangible outcomes (e.g., quality, grades, deadlines), whereas process goals specify behavioral standards (e.g., active listening, constructive conflict, mutual respect).

Generative AI as Team Coach

An approach where Generative AI serves as an efficiency and synthesis tool to draft profiles and charters, while human team members maintain decision-making authority by validating, challenging, and refining the output.