The Victim Witness Unit

Deciding to use the Victim Witness Unit as the class’ Team Base Analysis Report, gave us an opportunity to see how ineffective leadership can foster lack of trust, poor communication and an atmosphere of competition.  We understand the mission of the Victim Witness is to give victims a high quality of service.  The measuring criteria for the unit, is the satisfaction of the clients.  Most clients are satisfied with services provided by the victim witness unit, which doesn’t give the leaders an incentive to promote an atmosphere of trust, positive communication and cooperation.

Executive Summary

Mission

        The mission of the Victim Witness Unit is to enhance prosecution efforts by delivering a high quality of services to victims, witnesses, as well as family members of homicide victims. The services include advocacy and court related support.  Their outreach efforts will be immediate, and their responses will be respectful, professional, thorough and consistent.        

        Though the clients receive a high quality of service, the team members work independently of one another and often compete for relationships with management, the prosecutors and the victims being served.  The leadership style of the management team continues to foster such atmospheres.  The competition, lack of trust and communication are symptoms of the ineffective leadership.  The causes of these symptoms are politics, cultural insensitivity, and lack of respect.  Following, you will find a break down of symptoms and causes.

Symptoms:

• Competition between team members
• Lack of trust between team members
• Lack of communication between team members

Causes:

• Politics (unequal opportunity for advancement)
• Cultural Insensitivity
• Lack of Respect

Outline of Recommendations

1. Trust
2. Community
3. Ethnicity
4. Rewards/merits
5. Working on building a team bond
6. For cooperation not competition