Scenario:

A team of highly competent members has become adept at organizing and managing itself. The self-sufficiency of the team is appreciated by senior leadership who assumes the team can respond to challenges without support or guidance, given the team’s legacy of success. Recent challenges incited the team to request assistance; when assistance was not provided, the team began to make independent decisions. The team members believed they were the only ones who understood their work and avoided asking for help. The leaders involved believed that no news equaled good news. Neither the leaders nor the team members considered their work within the context of the entire organization. As a result, the team’s level of emotional competence decreased, along with their productivity.

Consider this scenario and address the following.

• Identify three strategies to reduce friction and build unity between the parties using emotional competence as the framework.
• What outcomes would you identify to measure the effectiveness of each strategy?
• Consider an adversarial relationship that exists between leaders and departments in your organization. How does the culture of the organization affect the situation? What knowledge, skills, and attitudes do you bring to the organization? What would others say are your leadership strengths? How can these strengths be used to reduce the adversarial relationship?