Roy Den Hollander

1. Roy Den Hollander Human Behavior Memo II
Team Player?
1

2. Whether I function predominantly in the role of team leader or member, my effectiveness varies
significantly. Regardless of the role I am generally comfortable working with others or in
solitude. In fact, I need times of solitude to re-energize, reflect and plan, just as I need the
interaction with team members in order to further my ideas and strategies and prod the team into
action, or in the words of D.B. Cooper, “Let’s get this show on the road.” Such impatience boils
out more readily when acting as a member due to the apprehension in moving forward with the
work product I am responsible for. In the leadership role, my efforts are more visible to the
outside world, so I believe more is at stake for me. I, therefore, consciously control my
impatience to assure everyone is committed to the team’s purpose, understands its goals and
agrees to make specific contribution to the team’s work product.
As a team member, I am content, to a point, in my “conserving-holding” phase: gathering
data, organizing information for practical use, listening and waiting with a touch of skepticism.
But when an intuitive idea hits me and appear doable, my “control-taking” behavior takes over. I
push, exhort and charge ahead for its acceptance, often inappropriately and, therefore,
ineffectively. For me, the innovative idea provides the opportunity to distinguish myself through
the quality of my performance, to exercise influence on the team’s overall result and to make my
contribution to the result visible. Obviously, a problem occurs when my ideas are rejected. My
defensiveness and stubbornness causes me to emotionally abandon the collective goals and
approach. In the words of the Animals, “You can’t tell me!” However, I keep the faith to
pursuing the purpose through my own roguish quest to successfully apply my idea.
Such behavior alienated me from a political campaign in Cambridge, Massachusetts when
my ideas on negative research were summarily rejected. I proceeded with my research anyway,
found a lot of dirt, but the candidate refused to use any of it. I still believe that is one of the
reasons he lost.

3. In the team leader role, I already know my contribution will have a visible impact on the
team’s result; therefore, the acceptance or rejection of my ideas are not as important. I still
advocate my ideas but not as feverantly because I do not want to turn a team of mutually
committed and contributing individuals into a hierarchical, authority-driven group. Ideas are just
one part of leadership and must be balanced against other requirements. Such as enrolling
members into committing to a clearly defined purpose, eliciting discussion and input on
performance goals and methods, allowing disputes but avoiding hostility, and encouraging
participation in decision-making; all so the members feels they have a stake in the group.
During a team’s process of establishing _______ performance goals, I often try to
maneuver, when necessary, members into taking on tasks that match their talents and motivations.
As the activities of a team proceeds, I try to maintain continual communication among the
members to reinforce the common commitment and receive input from all members in reaching
collective decisions to deal with various problems. Involving others and delegating
responsibilities enabled an eclectic group of radicals, including myself, to control one of the larger
Democratic clubs in New York City.
Weaknesses that occur for me in the leadership role include fear that another member will
usurp my position and a tendency to settle for less than complete success in order to not risk gains
already achieved. An employees strike at Columbia in 1973 ended sooner than it should have
because of those concerns. In addition, when a team’s success appears frustrated by external
factors, my intense identification with the team causes me to react vindictively towards the
outside influences, which may have prevented one of the team’s I lead from modernizing the
North Caucasus Railway in southern Russia (of course, the former Commies may have been
trying just to defraud us). In the end, I am first and last an individualist. Perhaps that is ____
_____ team experiences in the roles of leader and member have been mixed.