| Teams are considered a powerful management structure with the potential to increase productivity, improve quality, empower people and enable organizations to successfully meet changing demands. Management by teamwork in academic libraries provides an organizational design that recognizes the changing needs of workers and the organization and provides the flexibility and adaptability needed to respond to ongoing pressures in terms of accountability, decreasing budgets, evolving technology, rising user expectations, and competition from other providers of information. There is much in the literature about the importance of the leadership role in teams despite the different ways of conceptualizing the role; and there is agreement that the role and function of the leader is very important to successful team outcomes. Teams do offer the power and potential to accomplish the goals of the organization and to satisfy the needs of individuals for participation, but they represent a different way of working that requires new manager skills and behaviors for team effectiveness and success. This is a case study of the leadership role of teams at the University of Connecticut Libraries. The study objective is to determine the new skills and behaviors needed to be effective as a team leader. The study uses the experience and insights of team leaders, senior managers, and team members to assess the effect of the organizational change to teams on the leadership role. |
