The Accenture Leadership Center hosted UW-Madison School of Business associate professor Mary Triana to provide advice for business students on leadership and team cohesion Tuesday, in continuation of their leadership speaker series.
Triana's talk explained the several types of individuals and groups that leaders must work with. Within these specific and diverse personalities that make up groups, Triana said there are several ways of dealing with conflicts that may arise as a leader or group member.
Students in the audience brought up personal experiences on dealing with situations such as ""people in my group are not showing up"" and ""no one talks because they don't want to offend anyone, they are just agreeable.""
In tailoring the talk to the students' specific instances, Triana elaborated on what an effective leader must do to understand why a group is or is not functioning: have a framework for understanding team processes and performance, know something about the individuals and their personalities and know how to manage team conflict.
She said there is a ""Big Five Model"" of five different personality traits that include extraversion, openness to experience, neuroticism, agreeableness and conscientiousness.
According to Triana, some of these traits often lead to conflict. To alleviate potential issues among groups from these personality conflicts, Triana said leaders should be prepared for conflict resolution, collaborative problem-solving, goal-setting and performance management, communication and planning.
Triana also said she encourages students to use constructive confrontation, break down goals and assign specific roles to group members. She said this helps bring on motivation and cohesion.
According to Triana, doing this in a positive way in the beginning as an open forum sets a consistent norm on how the group functions and deals with issues.
""Never make it personal ... and be constructive."" she said.
The ALC will host the next speaker in its series Nov. 17. The topic will be on business ethics.
