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Topic: Knowledge work is becoming increasingly team-based. Does the shift to team-based knowledge work mean managers and organisations need to question the appropriateness of traditional models of leadership in the contemporary workplace? Use evidence from academic references on leadership and teams to support your position.
Introduction
In our contemporary workplace, team-based knowledge work has often been valued over traditional models of leadership among many organisations and managers. Teams have become an important component of organizational life, as knowledge work is becoming increasingly team-based. With this mounting emphasis on teams, we need to question whether traditional models of leadership (from the top-down leadership paradigm) are well suited to this today’s business environment. In other words, which type of leadership, vertical or horizontal, is most effective in performing knowledge work. On the surface, moving to team-based knowledge work seems to be more effective and is becoming a management innovation, although it may impact on the traditional way of management and cause major re-engineering in organisation structure to maximise the performance of team-based knowledge work.
In organisational management, knowledge work is the voluntary contribution of intellectual capital and significant investment in the practice by skilled profession. Robbins, Bergman, Stagg, and Coulter (2003) define team-based knowledge work is tasks/practices performed by self-directed teams that make up of interdependent individuals with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose. Responsibility for various work processes is shared between team members. Traditional models of lead ...