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Effective Group Leadership: Styles, Qualities, and Roles

This chapter explores the definition of group leadership, different leadership styles, personal qualities of effective leaders, knowledge and skills required, and roles and functions of group leaders. It also discusses the importance of co-leadership and group supervision in enhancing leadership effectiveness.

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Effective Group Leadership: Styles, Qualities, and Roles

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  1. Chapter 3 Effective Group Leadership Prepared by: Nathaniel N. Ivers, Wake Forest University

  2. Roadmap • Definition of Leadership • Leadership Styles • Personal Qualities of Effective Leaders • Knowledge and Skills • Roles and Functions • Co-Leaders • Group Supervision

  3. Leadership Defined • Disagreement exists about what a leader is. • However, some common responsibilities of effective leadership, particularly with groups, can be distinguished: • Envisioning goals • Motivating people • Achieving a workable unity in an appropriate and timely manner

  4. Group Leadership Styles • Authoritarian Group Leaders • Democratic Group Leaders • Laissez-faire Group Leaders

  5. Authoritarian Group Leaders • Envision themselves as experts • Tend to be rigid and conventional in their beliefs (Cheng et al., 1998) • Interpret, give advice, and generally direct the movement of the group • Demand obedience and conformity from group members • Theory X leaders

  6. Democratic Group Leaders • Are more group-centered and less directive than authoritarian leaders • Trust group participants to develop their own potential and that of other group members • Serve as facilitators of the group process • Cooperate, collaborate, and share responsibilities with the group • Are more humanistically and phenomenologically oriented • Are Theory Y Leaders (McGregor, 1960)

  7. Laissez-faire Leaders • Are leaders in name only • Do not provide structure or direction of their groups, creating a group-centered perspective of operation • Are considered Theory Z leaders (Ouchi, 1981)

  8. Personal Qualities of Effective Group Leaders • Poise • Judgment • Empathy • Ego strength • Freedom from excessive anxiety • A desire to help people (Slavson, 1962)

  9. Personal Qualities of Effective Group Leaders • Tolerance of frustration • Imagination • Intuition • Perceptiveness • Ability to avoid self-preoccupation (Slavson, 1962)

  10. Personal Qualities of Effective Group Leaders • Courage • Willingness to model • Presence • Goodwill and caring • Belief in group process • Openness (Corey et al., 2014)

  11. Personal Qualities of Effective Group Leaders • Nondefensiveness in coping with attacks • Personal power • Stamina • Willingness to seek new experiences • Self-awareness • Humor • Inventiveness (Corey et al., 2014)

  12. Group Leader Knowledge • Course work and experiential requirements • Knowledge of specializations, theories, and research as well as skills • Assessment of group members and social systems • Planning and implementing group interventions • Leadership and co-leadership • Evaluation • Ethical practice, best practice, and diversity-competent practice (ASGW, 2000)

  13. Specific Group Skills • Facilitating • Protecting • Blocking • Linking • Diagnosing • Reality testing • Modification • Delegating • Creativity • Emotion regulation

  14. Group Leadership Roles and Functions • Six essential roles and functions that a group leader must carry out: • Group member selection • pre-group preparation • Positive leader-member relationship • Group structure • Group cohesion • Leader communication and feedback (Riva et al., 2004)

  15. Group Leader Roles and Functions • Traffic Director • Modeler of Appropriate Behavior • Interactional Catalyst • Communication Facilitator • Conflict Mediator

  16. Group Leader Roles and Functions • Five specific techniques for managing conflict in groups: • Withdrawal from the conflict • Suppressing conflict • Integrating conflicting ideas to form new solutions • Working out a compromise • Using power to resolve the conflict (Kormanski, 1982; Simpson, 1977)

  17. Co-Leaders in Groups • A professional or a professional-in training who undertakes the responsibility of sharing the leadership of a group with another leader in a mutually determined manner in order to facilitate counseling, therapy, or group member interaction. • Occurs often, especially in groups with a membership of 12 or more.

  18. Co-leaders in Groups - Advantages • Ease of handling the group in difficult situations • Uses of modeling • Feedback • Shared specialized knowledge • Pragmatic considerations

  19. Co-Leaders in Groups - Limitations • Lack of coordinated efforts • Two leader focused • Competition • Collusion

  20. Group Leadership Training • Group-Based Training • Group Generalist Model • Educational and Developmental Procedure • Systematic Group Leadership Training • Critical-Incident Model and Intervention Cube • Skilled Group Counseling Training Model

  21. Group Supervision • Increases supervisees’ independence and self-confidence (Linton, 2003) • Helps supervisees broaden their understanding from a focus on individual issues to interpersonal and group-as-a-system issues (Rubel & Okech, 2006) • Peer group supervision is another way of providing group leaders with supervision.

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