Group Development Process in Management of Work Teams

The study defines the concept of group development process as a set of phenomena occurring in groups and work teams as well as in all formal and informal social units. The various stages of team development are presented and characterized, including: dependence, differentiation, crisis of responsibility, attack on the leader, creativity and real capabilities of the team. The attention is paid to the inevitability of the existing group process mechanisms occurring always in a specific order. These mechanisms may have varying intensity and duration, and are dependent on the situation, group composition, behavior and decisions of team leader. For individual phases of the group development process, negative and positive actions of managers managing work teams were selected. The practical part of this study presents the results of research conducted among the managers of every managing level, referring to the knowledge, awareness and use of group development process phenomena in achieving the objectives of the managed employee group. The study finishes with the conclusions and proposals for future research in the field of discussed issues.