MGMT1001
Everest Simulation Report
Managing People and Organisations

Executive Summary:

This report discusses the Everest simulation in relation to important management concepts. Particularly the report explores the role of leadership, communication and team work in task success, where success is defined in terms of task accomplishment, team member satisfaction and dispute resolution. Moreover, the requirement to eliminate communication barriers through changing mediums, cohesive and coherent team work and democratic leadership styles is explored throughout the report.

Table of Contents

Introduction 4
Leadership 5
Groups and Teams 7
Communication 9
Conclusion 11
Appendix
Naturally, the majority of the group became disinterested until two group members worked together to determine a successful outcome. Hence, a laissez- faire approach to leadership was successful in small groups. Overall, the democratic approach, like the laissez- faire approach, was enjoyable and good for conflict resolution, however using this approach we also achieved a solid team score.

In hindsight, I believe a more autocratic approach to leadership should have been employed in order to improve the team score and to minimise time wastage. An article by Judge, Piccolo and Ilies (2004) suggested an initiating structure of leadership is highly correlated to objective outcomes including “leader job performance and group – organisation performance” (Judge, Piccolo and Ilies 2004 pp36). If I, as leader, were more informed concerning the task at hand, this form of leadership would have been more efficient, in order to avoid the interminable decision making process.

Groups and Teams

In order to successfully complete the simulation, it was imperative that the group functioned as a coherent and cohesive team. This involved the fusion of task work and team work to create team effectiveness, as “task work represents what it is that teams are doing, whereas teamwork describes how they are doing it with each other” (Marks, Mathieu, & Zaccaro, 2001, p. 357). As team leader I aimed to create a balance between task work and