Sample Group Analysis Paper


Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to provide an insight to and analysis of the communication within the leadership team in XXX. First, I shall provide a thorough overview of the group itself, the business and cultural environment of the organsiation in which the group exists, and I shall briefly describe the individual personal characteristics of individual members. Then, I shall follow with the assessment, which will based on three key concepts: roles in the group, leadership, and conflict.

Overview of the Group
As described by Dainton in the class, all teams are groups but not all groups are teams. From this perspective, the leadership team is also a group because it was established in order to achieve a specific task, which is to lead the Czech subsidiary of XXX successfully in terms of business results, customer and partner satisfaction, and people development.
XXX in the Czech Republic employs around 250 employees who are all based in Prague. The leadership team consists of 11 members out of whom only 1 person is non-Czech native. The participants are the senior managers of individual business units who report directly to the managing director, who is also part of the team. All members have their own responsibilities for their individual units together with the targets they need to achieve and commitments they need to fulfill. The purpose of the leadership team is to develop and run the XXX business in the Czech Republic in a way to achieve the best possible results in all key areas as described above, implement a clear and consistent business strategy within the subsidiary, communicate effectively all messages and changes from and to the regional or corporate headquarters, make decisions related to and manage the performance of the subsidiary in a coordinated and effective way.

Members of the Leadership Team
1. G9 - General Manager
G9 is one of the youngest general managers appointed in XXX's history. He is very charismatic, highly creative, optimistic, and outgoing person. He has a very open-minded approach to things and keeps a very informal culture within the organization. He is known for his good sense of humor and he likes to give people around him nicknames. The names that I will be using are the nicknames that he developed for most of the individuals in the leadership team. G9 is regarded by others very highly for his strategic insight, his ability to develop things into a bigger picture, and also for his ability to maintain good social relationships with his subordinates. As a strong perceiver, however, he is very bad in time management and often comes late to internal as well as external meetings. He does not fully respect given deadlines, which is sometimes perceived as a lack of respect to the other participants.
2. Stella - Human Resources Manager
She managed to build the whole human resources department within two years and has become a strong support to G9. She is very optimistic, creative, but sometimes rather emotional individual. She is willing to take on big challenges and always tries to find solutions to the problems that arise. Stella is very good at building local best practices and presenting them at the regional level and thus selling the success and initiative of the local subsidiary. She is very proactive, however, since she has difficulties to say "no" people around her are concerned about her work-life balance and the ability to fulfill all the tasks at the highest quality and on time. She maintains good social relationships with all the leadership team members except the finance manager with whom she has continuous disagreements regarding division of workload and responsibilities between the two departments.
3. Tanya - Business and Marketing Manager
Tanya is a senior manager who has been with XXX for 10 years in various management roles. She is an experienced and a highly regarded professional in the field. Tanya is more directive than the other members in the group and is likely to take the charge in cases when the group seems to be lost. She maintains a very good social relationship with G9
4. Paul - Services Manager
Paul leads the consulting division in XXX and is regarded as a professional in his area of expertise. He seems to be relatively conservative and very defensive in respect to his department. Sometimes, he sets the priorities of his department before the goals of the leadership team. He prefers to keep correct working relationships but is happy to contribute to the social well-being of the leadership team with a wide range of jokes and fun stories.
5. Carl - Small and Medium Business Group
Carl is a strong leader and focuses on people's development. He usually needs time to think about things before he shares his opinion and is not regarded as a proactive person. Carl also does not like to disclose too many details about himself or his business group unless required.
6. Val - Enterprise and Partners Group
Val has been with the organization for 6 months and is one of the few people in the leadership team who do not have a nickname. He is perceived as a correct and professional manager, who is usually very sure of the way things should be done. He maintains relatively good working relationships with all members of the leadership team except the finance manager.
7. Marla - Public Group Manager
Marla also joined the leadership team recently and is the second person who does not yet have a nickname. She is an experienced professional in her area of expertise and well regarded as a people manager too. She sometimes deploys rather motherly and too protective approach to her subordinates which distracts her from fulfilling the business tasks. She is an open-minded and a caring team player. She maintains good social relationships with all the participants except the finance manager.
8. Mike - Developers and Products Evangelist Group
Mike is regarded as a tough and very direct manager. He is a very success oriented person and cares a lot for his personal achievements. During discussions, Mike wants to be the one who has the better solution, arguments, and so on. He does not pay too much attention to anything that is not directly relevant to him or that comes from lower levels that his peers or his boss.
9. Roland - Customer and Partner Experience
Roland is responsible for the Customer and Partner Experience at the regional level. He likes to challenge new as well as established ideas, processes, decisions, and usually plays the devil's advocate during the discussions. He is very creative and proactive person and cooperates closely with Stella.
10. Dave - Financial Manager
Dave is the only non-Czech representative in the group. He is American and joined the Czech subsidiary one year ago. Before, he used to work in xxx. Dave is primarily focused on restructuring of many financial and operational processes within the organization, introduction of controlling mechanisms and implementation of new internal processes and rules. Being a single foreigner in the team seems to be very hard for Dave, especially, when he often needs to make unpopular decisions that affect all the other members in the leadership team. Dave does not maintain very active social relationships with the other members of the group and is primarily focused on his individual working priorities.
11. Zara - Assistant to General Manager
I usually play the role of the in-between and focus on keeping the communication balance in the group. I have established relatively close social relationships with all the members of the leadership team and act as a weeping willow in times of conflict or communication crisis. I am considered as a trusted counselor and a maintainer of a social health in the team. I am usually very proactive and creative in the areas that are clear to me and which I feel confident about. I tend to be more passive during deep business oriented discussions.

I. Analysis of Group Roles

Introduction of the Group Roles Concept
According to Harris & Sherblom, every group that we join has certain assumptions about how people are expected to behave. The standards vary with each group and within each group according to the position and role being played by each group member, Harris & Sherblom (2005). The concept of group roles looks at how the use of norms and roles influences behavior and communication of the groups and individuals within the groups.
Norms play an important role in terms of determining the quality of performance of the group as a whole. They provide an operational framework within which the group decides to work. Without clearly defined norms, the group risks that it will loose focus on the key goal, will be constantly challenged by the question of prioritization, or will use its resources ineffectively.
Roles, on the other hand, are directly associated with the individual members in the group, their positions and status. According to Harris & Sherblom, there are three ways the roles can be created in the group. They can be determined by their nature, they can be assigned by the leader or they can emerge during the group activities. Harris & Sherblom also identify 3 types of roles: task, group, and disruptive roles. Task roles are primarily associated with the purpose of the group and its goals. Group or maintenance roles are important for the social behavior and support cohesion within the group. Unlike the former two types of roles, the disruptive roles identify the negative individual behavior in the group which can have a negative effect on the performance of individual as well as the group as a whole.
The concept of group roles also identifies functions of roles and how aspect such as status, access to resources, greater involvement in and identification with the group, or a need for more direction of and control over the other members of the group may create problems for the group, Bales (1950).

Norms in Leadership Team
Although our primary focus is on the group roles, it is very important to mention the role of norms in the leadership team, because the way the group uses norms reflects the effect of a very specific culture and has an influence on the way the group communicates. The effect of an open and free style supported by a very informal leader, G9, leads to the situation where the key focus is on an open discussion of every issue that any member in the group might have. Thus taking into consideration the types of norms as described by Harris & Sherblom, the implicit norms are more common in the Czech leadership team than the explicit norms. For example, G9 is usually late for almost every meeting. Therefore, despite a set time for a group meeting no one comes to the conference room on time, because everyone presumes that he will be late. Also, if the members have a new idea or proposal that they wish to implement, they are expected to present it at one of the leadership team meetings and get it approved without actually having this rule in a written form.
Because of a relatively high cohesion in the group, the team felt that formal explicit rules would be perceived just as a burden and as such to be unnecessary. However, with the arrival of some of the new group members, it became apparent that there is a meaning to having some important rules in a written form, when, for example, Dave sent out a communication to all employees that was nor presented to, neither approved by the rest of the leadership team. This need for explicit norms, however, diminished immediately once the group passed the forming stage of its development and all members got to know the standard implicit rules.
The lack of explicit rules also leads to the insufficient identification of crucial and peripheral norms, Herris & Sherblom (2005). Because all the team members perceive G9 as the overall leader, and as such the owner of all activities that are related to the development and performance of the leadership team, they expect him to set the rules according to which the group should operate and be the leading example. As a strong perceiver, G9, however, cannot operate effectively within too restricted framework of norms and rules and believes that once explained or said, the members will follow the guidelines that they agreed upon without the need to implement sanctions or punishments. For example, it is perfectly fine to bring a laptop to the meeting and do the e-mails if you do not get caught. Everybody does it, even G9. The only punishment that may occur if someone does his or her e-mails during the meeting is an admonition from G9 when he notices that someone does not pay attention to what he says.

Task Roles
The task roles in the leadership team are in many ways determined in a sense that all the group members are subordinates to G9 and they hold responsibilities that are determined by this relationship. On the other hand, each of the members is assigned a role in the organization which he or she is responsible for and he or she is expected to represent that role in the leadership team. For example, as an assistant, I am assigned or usually emerge as the recorder and a coordinator, Harris & Sherblom (2005). I am responsible for organization of all activities of the leadership team, scheduling the meetings, coordinating inputs, taking minutes during the meetings, and following up on action items.
In case of G9, it is hard to assess whether his role is determined or emergent as he is perceived as a leader from the point of his status and position in the organization. On the other hand, he tends to emerge as a leader and a strong initiator, Harris & Sherblom (2005), also during open discussion due to his innovative and creative personality. The main strengths of his initiating roles are that he offers different perspectives and points of view to the rest of the participants, and encourages the group members to be more productive and active. His initiating role is sometimes combined with giving opinions, Harris & Sherblom (2005), where he uses his knowledge of facts and figures, historical relations, connecting information, and experience and thus provides a valuable feedback for the owners of the ideas.
Based on the nature of her work, Stella usually provides a wide base of information, ideas, suggestions, and proposals related to human resources, people development, and so on. She keeps the leadership team updated on the area of human resources, thus giving information, Harris & Sherblom (2005). Due to her creative and very proactive personality, she also takes on the role of initiator, Harris & Sherblom (2005), when proposing new ideas or ways of doing things.
On the other hand, Tanya usually links the proposed creative ideas to the real situation, while also offering alternative solutions or forms of decision-making. From this perspective, she plays the clarifying, consensus testing, and proposing procedure roles, Harris & Sherblom (2005). Tanya is one of the few members of the group who is likely to emerge as a leader and an initiator, Harris & Sherblom (2005), at difficult decision-making situations or when G9 is absent or unable to contribute.
Paul and Roland usually seek information when a new idea is presented. They both ask additional questions, critiquing the suggestions and assessing possible effects and consequences of the solutions. Thus they tend to take on the evaluating, summarizing, and opinion giving roles, Harris & Sherblom (2005).
Carl, Val, and Marla usually come forward only if they have an important or interesting input to share. In the group communication, they usually provide their opinions to the suggested ideas or provide information about progress of their business units, as these all are the main sales units and thus of a great importance to all. From that perspective they act as the providers of information and opinion givers, Harris & Sherblom (2005).
Mike and Dave have a tendency to take on initiating roles, Harris & Sherblom (2005), that focus primarily on new ideas that are relevant only to their own departments. In case other ideas that are presented affect their individual business units, they usually provide opinions or critiquing the concepts that are introduced based on the knowledge of their specific areas and the impacts the suggested ideas might have on them.

Group Roles
G9's personal characteristics determine him to take not only the leading role from the task perspective, but make him a social leader too. He is very entertaining and keeps the good spirit within the group. Many members enjoy being part of the group, especially, because of the open-minded, creative, and friendly atmosphere that is primarily driven by G9.
My position in the leadership team provides me with a direct communication access to all members of the group. Building on my task role of the coordinator and recorder, Harris & Sherblom (2005), I use my strong feeling and intuition characteristics to help release tension when conflicts emerge, encourage the quiet members to share their ideas or act as a counselor trying to maintain the communication flow between the group members. My task role of the coordinator also determines me for the group role of setting the standards, Harris & Sherblom (2005), which I have attempted to perform too. However, due to the negative perception of rules and norms by G9, the results of my attempts have not been very successful.
Stella and Tanya can be also classified as strong group roles players. Their social group roles emerge partially, because especially Stella brings more feminine approach to a male-dominated group, which tends to relieve the tension caused by highly competitive male participants. Stella develops this role even further based on her background in human resources and is very good at supporting the other group members in their participation and giving an open feedback on the way the group is functioning. In her process observing role, Harris & Sherblom (2005), she, for example, provides feedback to G9 when his jokes or long-talks reach their limits. The rest of the group members tend to emerge as the group role contributors at specific situations.

Disruptive Roles
As mentioned in the personal characteristics, there is an apparent tension between several group members and Dave. I believe that the negative perception has a very complicated background which combines several aspects. As Dave is the only foreigner in the leadership team and does not speak the Czech language, the group sometimes ignores his presence and jokes around or continues negotiations in Czech, which consequently, must be very intimidating and frustrating for Dave as he feels socially blocked out from the group. From this perspective, he tends to withdraw, Harris & Sherblom (2005), from the discussions and activities of the group that are not directly relevant to his own business interests. When, however, a topic that is of an interest to him arises, Dave, on the other hand, turns to a zealot, as described by Dainton, who insists on his point of view that he believes is the best because of his experience in the corporate office and tries to convince, sometimes very aggressively, other group members that his way is the only way to go.
Although G9 is admired by all as the unified leader in both, the task and social aspects of the group performance, this high status and increased level of admiration make him a relatively dominant figure in the group, which may have a negative consequence on the group performance in a number of ways. First, his lack of respect for time, deadlines, norms and rules, affects effectiveness of the group performance and occasionally shifts the focus of the group away from the primary goals. Secondly, his dominance is also disruptive to the group members as they always look to him for new ideas, suggestions, and alternatives. The group has become so dependent on his contribution that it might have problems to perform well once he leaves the group.
Occasionally, some other group members also emerge, for example as a stage hog in case of Mike, who needs to have everybody's attention at a specific point and enjoys being a star although the idea that he presents is not significantly relevant to the rest of the group. These occasional emerging disruptive roles, however, get stopped relatively quickly as the group members do not hesitate to confront the disruptor, except G9, immediately by providing a direct feedback, sometimes in front of the others, sometimes during face to face discussions.

Assessment and Recommendations
Based on the analysis, we may conclude that the leadership team presents strong marks of cohesiveness. The task roles are primarily determined by the individual roles in the organization whereas in social roles we may observe the dominance of a very socially active leadership driven by G9. In combination with perceiving nature of the leader, the group tackles the problem of effective performance with respect to the time efficiency and focus. Further to that, by taking on the role of the task and social leader, G9's power in the group has increased and so did the influence of the group's decision making as well as the direction of the group itself. This may lead into problems, when G9's idea or perception proves to be wrong, which in an extreme situation could result in groupthink.
It is apparent that, although the atmosphere in the group is very open, no member is willing to take on the corrective action in order to balance the way the leadership team communicates and acts, despite the fact that the members realize that there is a problem. The first step that I would recommend relates to the size of the group and the way the group functions. According to Brilhart, Galanes, & Adams (2001), the optimal size of the group is five to seven members. However, following the Thelen's principle of least-sized groups, it is almost impossible to reduce the size of our leadership team from initial eleven members, as for the group to perform effectively it is important to have all the knowledge and expertise that is available while keeping the group size as small as possible. Provided that this group of eleven people makes decisions on behalf of 250 employees, the elimination of any of the units from the team would lead to an incomplete picture of the business agenda. Therefore, if the number of members is to remain the same, then there is an increased need to tackle the problem of complexity which naturally emerges from the individual relationships and interactions between the group members. Therefore, a certain level of self discipline from G9 and stronger enforcement and respect of certain norms that would set a framework which would enable the group to operate effectively would be beneficial.
Secondly, in order for the norms to work, one or more members of the group should break the barrier of passive acceptance of the dominating leadership presented by G9 and use combination of reciprocation and confrontation, Dainton (2006). Personally, I believe that if I was more persistent in setting and observing the standards of the group performance and challenged G9 as well as the other disruptive individuals, such as Mike or Dave, the members might have initiated some type of penalty system that would be enforced against the disruptors including G9. From this perspective, I would recommend to myself to introduce the reciprocation technique, trying to behave in a way the group members should behave in order to be effective. Stella, on the other hand, would be a perfect candidate for the confrontation technique, which would enable her to utilize her observation role and the ability to provide direct and open feedback to all members of the team including G9, and perhaps, become his coach in this respect.

II. Analysis of Leadership
Introduction of Leadership Concept
As defined by Hackman and Johnson, "leadership is human (symbolic) communication which modifies the attitudes and behaviors of others in order to meet group goals and needs." The key point of the leadership is that it needs to be accepted by the group members. If not, it becomes dominance, not a leadership, (Dainton, 2006). The concept of leadership as described by Brilhart, Galanes, & Adams assesses the influence of power and communication skills on the quality of leadership. Although in the minds of many people leadership is associated with power, from the group perspective, the power of the leader relates to the way he or she can use his or her communication skills in order to influence the behavior of other group members. The power and ability to control the group, from the leadership perspective, resides also with the individual members. Such power can be derived from various sources, such as position in organization, access to resources, attraction to other person or people in the group, or special expertise or knowledge, Brilhart, Galanes, & Adams (2001).
Based on the definition provided by Dainton, there are four types of leaderships. First, assigned or appointed leadership exists when the leader is appointed based on his or her external connections. Secondly, elected leadership relates to the leaders who are elected by group members. Thirdly, emergent leadership is believed to be the best form as the leader who emerges within the group needs to exercise a number of traits that as identified by Brilhart, Galanes, & Adams and that are associated with the true leadership skills. These traits contain self-monitoring, which is the ability to monitor one's own behavior while paying close attention to the social cues. Further to that, emergent leaders usually have very good communication and task-oriented skills, and more masculine behavior, Brilhart, Galanes, & Adams (2001). Fourthly, shared leadership is believed to be the ideal form of leadership as the leadership role is shared by all members in the group, which on the other hand, can be more time consuming.
According to Brilhart, Galanes, & Adams, there are three theoretical approaches to leadership. First, the traits approach which examines the influence of traits on leadership. Secondly, the styles approach focuses on the way the leaders behave in the group setting. From this perspective, Brilhart, Galanes, & Adams identified three types of leaders: democratic leaders who encourage participation of all members, autocratic leaders who perform exhibit very directive behavior towards the rest of the group, and laissez-faire leaders who take almost no initiative to lead or structure the group. Thirdly, the contingency approach believes that based on the increasing complexity of working environments and the groups, the leaders need to be more flexible and should exercise this flexibility depending on situations that occur or towards different personality types of people in the group.

Leadership in xxx Leadership Team
The type of leadership that is exercised in the leadership team can be defined as appointed or assigned. The role of the general manager commits G9 to lead his direct reports towards clearly defined goals as defined earlier. Although he is assigned as a task leader, G9 also emerges as a social leader in the group, which is mainly due to his personal characteristics and the level of social involvement within the group as well as the organization.
By assessing personal characteristics of G9, it is important to highlight that he has very strong communication skills which enable him to interact with all members of the team and find effective communication strategies as well as tactics to communicates with and motivate individual participants. For example, when he wants me to execute an idea that he presents, he needs to step aside from the creative level and provide me with all the necessary details that I need in order to do the task. Furthermore, he uses his ability to identify different personal types to motivate, encourage, challenge, praise, or provide a direct feedback to the individual members in a way they accept it and appreciate it.
From the perspective of self-monitoring, Brilhart, Galanes, & Adams (2001), G9 is a great presenter and a public speaker because he pays attention to the characteristics of his audience, the social cues that emerge from the structure of the audience and the topic that he presents. On the other hand, being a perceiver, he often strives to express his ideas in the best possible way while loosing the track of time, which can then turn into his disadvantage if the effect of the time overlap is greater than the effect of his speech.
Based on the Insights analysis, a test of personal characteristics and communication preferences, G9 works primarily with yellow and green forces, which make him a very people minded person, who cares more about the others and the good of the group than his own interests. Consultants who work with this type of personal analysis tend to say that the yellow force, out of the four that define specific personality types, is the only one that is not good for the leaders. This belief proves to be true when observing G9's leadership style. His preference for the group involvement and teamwork combined with a very outgoing and friendly attitude make it hard for him to combine the two leadership roles, task and social, and reach the effective equilibrium. Thus, the task orientation sometimes gives in to the social preferences, which imposes more pressure on the individual group members as they are required to fulfill their commitments regardless how effective or ineffective the performance of the leadership team is in terms of tasks.
On the contrary, in his assigned role, G9 tends to deploy the democratic style approach to leadership, Brilhart, Galanes, & Adams (2001), by giving other members space to express their ideas, encouraging discussions, and motivating them to take over the initiative while taking the position of an observer. Especially, when G9 steps back from the discussion or takes the role of the observer, the dependency on him becomes very apparent. In these situations, Tanya usually emerges as a leader. Despite being a woman, she is relatively competitive with the ability to deploy more masculine behavior, which is a great advantage in the male-dominated environment. She is also a very skilled communicator and much more task-oriented than G9 which makes her a suitable leader for the group.
Surprisingly, no other managers in the group have the tendency to exercise their expert powers or leadership skills and try to help the group reaching the task and social orientation equilibrium. From that perspective, the leadership team is also partially responsible for the lack of effectiveness of the group performance as they take the advantage of the fact that G9 takes on the role of a leader at a task as well as the social level. They feel comfortable with one leader performing both roles although they resent the fact that the imbalance between the two levels leads to waste of everybody's time and negatively affects the effectiveness of the group.

Assessment and Recommendations
Based on the analysis above, we can conclude that the leadership team deploys two types of leadership. The assigned leader role is represented by G9 which is given by his position in the organization. In terms of social health of the group the leadership role is also taken by G9, however, this time as emergent. According to Dainton, such situation where both task and social roles are led by one person is very unique. In this respect, it is apparent that G9 feels more comfortable in his emergent social leadership role which is closer to his personal characteristics. Although he is required to lead the leadership team, he could identify specific tasks, such as business and marketing update, which he could delegate to Tanya, who has proven expertise in task-oriented leadership. He would still be responsible for defining the structure of the group and the way it would operate, but by delegating leadership roles in specific areas to the other members of the group, he could then focus on his strengths, such as communication, creativity, strategic view, and thus become more effective leader.
Furthermore, there seems to be a problem on the side of the other group members, who are not willing to step outside of their comfort zones despite their dissatisfaction with the group performance in terms of tasks and time management. This is truly a challenge because to change the behavior of one person is hard enough, but to change the behavior and perception of majority of the group is a long-term continuous process. In this respect, G9 should be more persistent in encouraging other group members to take more initiative and proactively involve in leadership roles when they feel they have the ability to do so. In order to do that, G9 would need to deploy a lot of self-discipline as he has a tendency to get involved in the discussions directly once he feels he can contribute, which automatically leads to him emerging as a leader in that situation. Instead, he should strive for an alternative shared leadership, (Dainton, 2006), by stepping aside and encouraging other members to emerge as leaders while observing the direction of the discussions or decision-making processes and step in only when he feels the group looses the direction.

III. Conflict
Introduction of Conflict Concept
Conflict can be defined as "an expressed struggle between at least two interdependent parties who perceive incompatible goals, scarce rewards, and interference from the other party in achieving their goals", Hocker & Wilmot (1991). The concept of conflict identifies the sources of the conflict, also known as substance, Harris & Sherblom (2005), and forms of the conflict know as the patterns, Harris & Sherblom (2005). Based on its substance, the conflicts emerge either due to scarce resources which could be financial, time, or human resources; diverse backgrounds which include values, believes, religions, nationalities, various amounts of experience and knowledge, different levels of education, and so on; various orientations to task accomplishment such as the level of involvement in the group, and the amount of effort given to the group task, depth of understanding of the task, Harris & Sherblom (2005).
On the other hand, the patterns of conflict describe the form of communication and engagement between the participants in the dispute. Harris & Sherblom identified five different styles of conflict management that are defined by the relationship between the level of assertiveness and cooperativeness, in other words the orientation towards the task or the social aspect of the relationship. First, avoidance appears when the participant or participants show low respect for the task as well as for the mutual cooperation and look for an immediate withdrawal from the conflict. Accommodation comes to place when one party gives up all or most of its power for the common goal of the group as a whole. Further, compromise or negotiation means that all parties in dispute give in part of their positions for the sake of the common goal. If, however, one party is significantly task oriented and is determined to do everything to achieve the goal, then the situation is called competition. On the other hand, when all parties have high orientation towards task as well as social relationship then they are most likely to engage in collaboration.
According to Dainton, we can also identify other types of conflict. Pseudo-conflict appears when there is actually no conflict, but the parties in dispute do not understand that they argue about the same points of views. Simple conflicts are usually held over the content of the dispute, whereas ego conflicts arise due to personalities clash.

Conflict in XXX Leadership Team
First of all, let us concentrate on the sources of the conflict, as described by Harris and Sherblom (2005), that arise in the leadership team. From the description of the group members, one of the primary sources of the conflict is immediately apparent. With the arrival of Dave, the diversity of the group increased, however, because the majority of the group is relatively homogeneous from the perspective of local knowledge, culture, experience, relationships, and language, both, Dave and the rest of the group find it difficult to adapt to the new situation.
Further to that, conflicts also arise due to different approaches towards the work in the group. The analysis of group roles identified that some members of the group incorporated the group goals into their own commitments, such as G9, Stella, Tanya, and myself, and thus work much harder than the other group members who perceive the participation in leadership team only as an information-sharing platform. For example, when the regional Vice President announced his visit in the Czech Subsidiary, G9 and myself prepared the preliminary agenda and asked other team members to come forward with ideas for partner, customer, or internal meetings. Once agreed, Mike, who was the owner of one of the external meetings, did not prepare any background information for the Vice President that were supposed to be submitted at a certain deadline, thus ignoring all my e-mail notices and reminders for that specific task. Further to that, he did not even contact all the external parties that were expected to participate at the meeting because he supposed that it will be done by G9 and myself.
In respect to conflict patterns, different styles of conflict appear depending on the point of view or emerging situation. For instance, I personally use the accommodation strategy in situations when I feel that my role of setting the standards does not have a real effect on the behavior of the group. The result is that I give in additional amount of time so that the specific discussion can continue, despite the fact that I have other individual commitments scheduled at that time.
Frequently, the leadership team uses the compromise and negotiation styles to address the conflict. Especially, in discussions about scarce financial or human resources, the parties in dispute use negotiation techniques to reach the agreement. For example, when Carl and Tanya had a dispute over who should do the follow up on the marketing campaigns that were running for Carl's segment, the conflict arose because Carl expected Tanya to assign this task to someone in her team automatically. On the other hand, Tanya's unit was only responsible for the execution of the campaign and the follow up was already considered to be the task of Carl's sales team. After some negotiation, Tanya and Carl came to an agreement that Carl would establish a new headcount which would be shared by his unit and the marketing unit and Tanya would provide financing for half of that headcount.
Although the leadership team is relatively highly cooperative, there are situations when competition among the group members arises. As mentioned at the beginning, the leadership team consists of the managers of different units, which can be in direct or indirect competition. For instance, the enterprise and partner group partially focuses on doing business with xxx partners, who also include consulting organizations. By developing this area, the enterprise and partner group "steals" business from the services unit, which provides the consulting and implementation services to our customers directly and thus becomes its competitor.
There are also situations, when the group achieves consensus, however, these situations do not tend to be very frequent as they require a very clear definition and understanding of the conflict and the effect of the proposed solution on all participants and their businesses. Also, the size of the group and very strong individual characteristics of the group members make the ability to reach the consensus relatively difficult.
In conclusion, most of the conflicts that arise tend to be the simple conflicts or pseudo conflicts, as described by Dainton, where the members disagree with the content or a form of execution of a certain task or just do not seem to understand each other's point of view. This cannot be avoided, especially, in a group with such a specific level of diversity as the xxx leadership team. In respect to ego conflict, such situations are scarce in the large scope, however, some tensions are apparent between some of the group members and Dave as mentioned earlier.

Assessment and Recommendations
Due to its relatively big size and complexity, the leadership team needs to address a variety of conflicts, which are sometimes resolved effectively, and sometimes less effectively. For instance, the accommodation of myself to the rest of the group might be perceived as a good thing by the other members of the group, however, if the group does not follow the deadlines and set agenda, the risk is that it will become ineffective. To change the behavior of the leader is hard especially when such behavior is embedded in his personal characteristics. The recommendation to myself would thus be to attempt to focus the efforts on the individual discussions about the effectiveness of the performance with G9 and try to negotiate a compromise which will be acceptable to him and simultaneously not harmful to the performance of the group.
From the perspective of diversity, there is a lot of work that the leadership needs to do. Despite being a multinational corporation, the Czech subsidiary of xxx is relatively homogeneous in terms of nationalities and cultures. Vast majority of the employees are Czechs or Slovaks, except few foreigners including Dave. In the future, however, the diversity is expected to increase due to reorganization of the region and increased flexibility of employee transfers within the European Union. Therefore, if the leadership team wants to be able to cooperate and reach agreements effectively and efficiently, it needs to reconsider its behavior towards the foreign members in the team.
Further to that, in order to address some of the simple or pseudo conflict, Dainton (2006), which usually arise due to misunderstanding because of the language barriers, or because the argument is held over the e-mails, the individual members of the group should rely less on the electronic communication when anticipating or addressing the conflicts. Rather, they should invest more time to personal communication which is usually more effective and leads to better and faster results than the other forms of communication exchange.

Summary
This analysis provided a deep insight into the communication patterns of xxx Czech leadership team based on three concepts. After providing background information about the leadership team, I examined the way roles are established in the leadership team and how different types of roles are performed by individual members in the group. During the critical examination, I identified a number of areas, such as the emergence of two major disruptive roles performed by Dave and G9, and provided recommendations on how they should be addressed in order to increase the effectiveness of the group and satisfaction of the group members.
Then, I moved to the assessment of leadership in the group. The analysis of the leadership types and approaches that are present in the group indicated that this group has a unique leadership structure where one leader is assigned to the task role and subsequently emerges in the social role. I identified the strengths and weaknesses of G9 as a leader and provided a set of suggestions that might lead to the correction of some of the emerging problems.
Then, I provided an insight into the leadership team from the conflict perspective. I identified the key sources of conflict in the leadership team and assessed different styles of conflict management in the group. Based on the analysis I provided recommendations to the key challenges such as effectiveness of some styles of conflict management, diversity, and use of communication tools in conflicts.

References
Harris, T.E., & Sherblom, J.C. (2005). Small group and team communication (3rd ed.)
Bales (1950). Four functional characteristics of roles that can create problems for groups. (definition of the theory)
Brilhart, J.K., Galanes, G.J. & Adams, K. (2001). Effective group discussion: Theory and practice (10th ed.).
Hackman and Johnson. Definition of leadership (definition in Brilhart, Galanes, & Adams)
Hocker & Wilmot (1991). Definition of conflict (definition in Harris & Sherblom)
Dr. Marianne Dainton (2006). Group Communication Course, Master's in Professional Communication and Public Relations.
Insights Analysis, Training and Coaching Doors, s.r.o.