ABSTRACT
In today’s chaotic business climate it is to be expected that managerial and general employee rigidity and faith in authoritarian control will rise with the feelings of insecurity and uncertainty associated with a major organizational problem, although such faith is largely misplaced. What are needed are ‘authority’ relationships in the organization not ‘authoritarian’ relationships. In ‘authority’ relationships the ‘supervis or’, in this case the team sponsor, as explained in Chapter 2, sets the boundaries and context for the team’s work. As described in Cha pter 2, the supervised individuals, that is the team leader and team members, have the right to negotiate changes in the boundaries. This is an example of both emergence and empowerment! Lack of control is counterproductive – if the team sponsor abdicates this responsibility, team development and overall results will suffer as team members become more rigid and are made to feel responsible for tasks and outcomes that they cannot control; however the sponsor must take care in outlining the project framework not to become too inflexible in negotiations with the team leader and potentially with team members.
