Role Clarity

Role clarity is a term that means that employees understand their specific responsibilities, duties, and expectations within their role and the overall organization. They know what tasks to perform, how their work contributes to team and company goals, and how their performance will be evaluated. When role clarity is established early, each team member’s responsibility and authority are clear from the start. One issue that should be addressed when establishing role clarity is that the roles should be matched to the various interests and competencies of team members. By matching competency with role, enthusiasm is ensured. When not, the team is not as sharp as it could be, and any projects undertaken by that team could fail (Sankaran et al, 2020, p. 1397).

The consequences of this are not only clear deadlines and deliverables, but also the establishment of “boundaries” (sorry for the pop psychology term). The responsibilities of a team member are like a territory, and the team member must hold this territory. Any input from the team leader or others must not be seen as usurping the team member’s authority, or worse, undermining the member’s self-confidence. Being able to accept constructive criticism while still holding the territory requires a level of maturity on the part of the team member. By doing this as part of a team, the team member’s self-confidence grows, and he becomes more mature (Adorno & Becker, 1999).

When role clarity is missing, or established late, the result is called a “hot mess” in the vernacular. Team members can frequently step on each other’s responsibilities. Without role clarity, it isn’t possible to answer the question “whose job is it to do this?” Team members are then put in an unenviable position: they lose motivation and “check out,” or they find themselves taking on more and more responsibilities. Neither alternative is good for either the psychology of the team member or the team as a whole.

Something else that is lost from an absence of role clarity are the formations of what can be called “informal workflows.” By this I mean processes that arise naturally in a team situation. Role clarity is needed here otherwise team members wouldn’t know who to pass an item of work in the next step of the workflow. These informal processes will arise in companies focused on total quality, and they could become established protocol as part of continuous improvement.

When there are well-established roles, perhaps documented in a team charter (Goetsch & Davis, p. 147), it is possible to identify gaps – responsibilities to which no one is held accountable. With gaps, the question “whose job is it to do this?” arises not out of confusion but because some tasks were left unassigned.

It is sometimes necessary for team members’ roles to change. This can happen for several reasons, for example a team member’s responsibilities are made redundant by those of another team member. Also, in companies that are large enough for there to be career paths (or when the company is rapidly growing), a team member may get promoted. Whatever the cause, changing roles occasionally is necessary to avoid boredom, personal stagnation, and lessened enthusiasm. Also, changing roles can be seen as a reward, as when a team member is promoted. Just as a company must continually improve, individuals within the company improve, and a promotion is recognition of that fact.

References

Adorno, T. & Becker, H. (1999). Education for maturity and responsibility. History of the Human Sciences 12(3), 21-34. http://www.edarcipelago.com/classici/AdornoTheodor/Articles/Adorno,%20T%20-%20Education%20for%20Maturity%20&%20Responsibility,%20(1999)%20123%20Hist%20Human%20Sciences%2021.pdf

Goetsch, D. L. & Davis, S. B. (2021). Quality management for organizational excellence: Introduction to total quality (9^th ed.). Pearson.

Sankaran, S., Vaagaasar, A. L., & Bekker, M. C. (2020). Assignment of project team members to projects: Project managers’ influence strategies in practice. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, 13(6), 1381-1402. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJMPB-12-2018-0285