1. Page 1 of 3
Cohesive Teams
Role of Leadership in Developing and Motivating a Cohesive team
Waleed Anwar
Master in Software Engineering
Blekinge Institute of Technology
Karlskrona, Sweden
waan14@student.bth.se
Abstract— this article describes the properties of a strong
cohesive team in a Software Development organization and the role
of leadership in development and motivation of a cohesive team
according to the given scenario.
I. INTRODUCTION
This article is based on a scenario where there are 8
Software developers in a team, 5 of them have already worked
together in the past whereas 3 of them have been recently
employed. This article describes the team cohesion, Role of
leadership or project manager in development and motivation
of the cohesive team and recommendations to the project
manager for developing and motivating the cohesive team
regarding the given scenario.
II. TEAM COHESION
In scientific research, cohesion has been considered as the
most significant element of success in small teams [1]. Many
authors have attempted to define and describe this concept.
Traditionally, cohesion has been defined by Zaccaro in 1991
[2] and by Mullen & Copper in 1994 [3] as a unitary construct.
Their concepts were inherited to a large degree from the
contribution of Festinger in 1950 [4] who described the
cohesion as the total field of forces which act on members to
stay in a team. Cohesion is also defined by Forsyth in 1999 [5]
as similar to the glue that holds the team together. Thus, team
cohesion can be described as the attraction to the team and it
can be assessed by asking the team members how much alike
they are or how long they desire to remain in that team.
There are many factors which can affect the team cohesion
research showed that perceived or desired culture and control
variables such as job tenure and gender have a positive effect
on team cohesion whereas culture gap has a negative effect on
team cohesion. [6]
III. COHESION AND TEAM DEVELOPMENT
Team development usually follows a particular process.
The most common model for team development was created by
Tuckman in 1965 [7]. This model proposes that individuals go
through 4 different stages during team development process.
These stages are named as Forming, Storming, Norming and
Performing. The progression from one stage to another may be
supposed as linear, but in many cases teams can go back and
forth between these stages before actually moving to the next
stage.
 During the forming stage, team members try to determine
their place in the team along with the procedures and rules
of the team.
 During the storming stage, members become aggressive as
a way of stating their independence and resisting team
formation. Conflict between team members arises as
members resist the influence of the other team members
and they rebel against accomplishing the task.
 During the Norming stage, the cohesion and commitment
are established within the team by discovering new
methods to work together and setting norms for suitable
behavior.
 During preforming stage, the team develops skills in
accomplishing its goals and becomes more flexible in its
arrangements of working together. [8]
It can be clearly understood from the above paragraphs that
team cohesion is a very important factor that must be present in
the team in order to make it effective. A project manager can
follow some guidelines as given below during the team
development to achieve better cohesion in the team. [9]
1. A shared vision and unity of purpose should be developed
in the team.
2. Develop arrogance in team Membership and also develop
an Identity as a Team.
3. Create an interesting and motivating mission for the team.
4. Create balancing roles and synergistic teamwork.
5. Develop individual and mutual accountability within the
team.
6. Try to maintain positive team culture and cohesive team
atmosphere.
7. Build strong internal leadership from within the team.
8. Build open and authentic communication methods and
also build trust at all levels.
IV. COHESION AND TEAM MOTIVATION
“Teams, like individuals, are motivated by whatever they
believe will help them achieve their most important goals.”

2. Page 2 of 3
[10].The key word here seems to be “believe”; it is significant
that a team believes in itself and on its skill to work confidently
to attain their goals and to meet its objectives. The leader of the
team can do plentiful to raise this belief among team members.
According to Clark [10] there are five things a leader of a team
can do to build team motivation:
1. Encourage mutual respect for the expertise of all team
members
2. Help weaker team members believe that their effort is
vital to team success
3. Support a shared belief in the cooperative capabilities of
the team
4. Hold individual team members accountable for their
contributions to the team effort (to overcome social loafing,
measure and assess each team member’s contribution fairly
and make it visible to all.)
5. Direct the team’s competitive spirit outside the team and
the organization.
In traditional teams, one of the major influences the leader
can make in a motivational sense is to make assured that
feedback mechanisms are in place so that it gives consistent
and well-timed information to team members about their work,
to enhance the team learning [11]. This is another space where
a team leader can actively seek to create ways for his/ her team
to get feedback, so that feedback can be processed in a timely
way, and establishment of atmosphere like trust or
“psychological safety” is created where the members are
capable to understanding of feedback received and to learn
from it [11] If a team does not have data about how it is doing,
there is no way it can learn. And if a team does not learn then
there is no way it can improve.” [11]
V. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE GIVEN SCENARIO
9. As in this scenario there are 8 software developers. 5 of
them have already worked together in the past whereas 3
of them have been recently employed. So as expected 5 of
them who have already worked together must have a
strong mutual understanding and they might be at the
performing level of team development but when new team
members are appointed then the developers may not
maintain their team building stage and they might have to
go through from all team building stages again from
forming to performing so that interaction between the
teams can be maximized. At the forming stage project
manager should interview the 3 new appointed members
regarding their skills and cultural background and he
should assign the tasks to the new team members
according to their experiences and interests. Project
manager should develop arrogance in team membership so
that members should feel pride in joining the team. Project
manager should also build strong internal leadership
within the team it will have a great impact on increasing
the cohesion. Project manager should provide the team
members with open and reliable communication methods
so that they can discuss the problems they are facing. The
responsibilities should be balanced for each team member
so that they don’t feel any burden and work is performed
precisely and synergistic teamwork should be created so
that they accomplish more than they could alone. There
should be interesting and motivating mission for the team
so that they are able to provide the good outcome by their
skills. There should be a respect given to every team
member so that he feels comfortable in environment. The
teams who are weaker should be helped and must be
realized that their effort is not in vain, it has a priority for
the team success. Project manager should tell the success
stories of senior team members to the newly appointed
team members it will increase the arrogance and
motivation of new team members to stay in the team and it
will increase the team cohesion.
VI. CONCLUSIONS
It seems that making the cohesive team from the given
scenario is not very problematic because 5 developers have
already worked with each other and they have a strong mutual
understanding and only the 3 new developers are added in a
team. So the senior developers have to go through the team
building stages i-e forming to performing so that the interaction
between the teams can be highly achieved. The environment
should be friendly, interactive, and acceptable for the newly
hired developers so that they can be easily adjusted within the
team. Newly hired developers should be pushed and given
respect for their effort and make them realize that their effort is
vital to team success. The establishment of cohesive team
could have been more difficult if the 5 employees who are
already in the organization did not worked together and they
did not have any strong mutual understanding because when 3
new developers got appointed then the project manager will
feel uncomfortable to use his senior developers as a source of
inspiration in front of new developers and there will be the lack
of communication and ego problems in the organization. Well I
have discussed factors needed to make a cohesive team which
seems to be important for making the cohesive team but
instead of that I think social factors, psychological factors,
family issues, Self-willingness these factors also play a vital
role in the development of cohesive team.
REFERENCES
[1] Carron, A.V., & Brawley, L.R. (2000). Cohesion: Conceptual
and measurement issues. Small Group Research, 31(1), 89-106.
[2] Zaccaro, S.J. (1991). Nonequivalent associations between forms
of cohesiveness and group related outcomes: Evidence for
multidimensionality. Journal of Social Psychology, 131, 387-
399.
[3] Mullen, B., & Copper, C. (1994). The relations between group
cohesiveness and performance: An integration. Psychological
Bulletin, 115, 210-227.
[4] Festinger, L. (1950). Informal social communication.
Psychological Review, 57, 271-282.

3. Page 3 of 3
[5] Forsyth, D. (1999). Group dynamics. Needham Heights, MA:
Allyn & Bacon.
[6] José C. Sánchez and Amaia Yurrebaso (2009). Group cohesion:
Relationships with work team culture. Psicothema 2009. Vol.
21, nº 1, pp. 97-104.
[7] Scholtes, Joiner, Streibel. The Team Handbook, 3rd Edition.
Publisher: Oriel
[8] Southern Cluster Continuing Development Training. Building
Cohesive Teams. Implemented by AmeriCorps*VISTA
Integrated Training Project. April 2006.
[9] Dave Yukelson. Group Cohesion and Team Building. Penn
State University
[10] Richard E.CLARK EdD. Research Tested Team Motivation
Strategies 09 feb,2007
[11] J.Richard Hackman (2002). Leading Teams: Setting the stage
for Great Performances. Harvard Business Press.