The leadership of adult groups has often been a nerve-wracking job involving planning for people, arbitrating between people, steering people, thinking for people and checking on people. No wonder it has been difficult to get persons to accept leadership responsibility. A more comfortable and more effective concept of leadership is rapidly emerging, however. It will be our purpose in this lesson to learn something of the elements of “group dynamics”, on which this new concept is based, and their various applications.
STAGES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF A GROUP
It is possible to think of a group as a living organism, with needs it seeks to satisfy and other characteristics of the kind possessed by individual human beings. Groups seem to express their frustrations in much the same way that individuals do — by aggressiveness, withdrawal, disintegration, rebellion, and so forth. Groups seem to go through much the same kind of development as do individual human beings. During its beginning stage, for example, a group exhibits many of the characteristics of an infant child. It is dependent upon the guiding hand of a parent (the leader). It seeks his approval. It has difficulty in coordinating the efforts of its members. Its goals are likely to be poorly defined, so that it moves first in one direction and then in another. The first few meetings of a new group are likely to be taken up largely with the individual members testing themselves out on the group and trying to find acceptable status in it. There is likely to be considerable difficulty in communication. Terms will have to be defined quite often, and there will be frequent verbal misunderstanding.
The list of infantile behavior characteristics of the group could be extended. They appear, regardless of the relative maturity of the individuals in the group.
A later stage of development, like that of an adolescent individual, is characterized by the struggle between the desire for independence and the fear of leaving the protection of a guiding hand. A group has learned to do certain things so well that it feels capable of acting independently. Yet it is not sure that its judgment is sound. A group in this stage will frequently disagree with its leader and may express open hostility toward him. It may even request a change of leaders. But if it is threatened with being left without a leader it will quickly retreat.
When a group reaches “maturity” it functions as a well-integrated, independent organism. It accepts responsibility for its own actions. It faces its problems and solves them objectively. It divides its tasks among its members in keeping with their abilities. It organizes its procedures according to the requirements of each situation. The members of a mature group have shifted the center of their attention from their personal concerns (such as their status in the group) to the group’s concerns (such as making a decision that will be in the interest of all). There is evidence of group maturity when individual members make their contributions in the spirit that once they are given to the group they are no longer personal property that must be defended against attack or change.
The wise leader will understand this process of natural growth and will do whatever is necessary to assist the group toward maturity. The leader who does not understand the process or who refuses to “give up his authority” or “lose his control of the group” can easily keep a group in an infantile state, completely dependent upon him. On the other hand, a leader to whom permissiveness is a rigid principle can seriously retard the development of a group by failing to give it the kind of assistance it needs.
CONCEPTS OF LEADERSHIP
There are at least three approaches to the leadership of groups. They have some things in common, but each has its own emphasis. It is seldom that any one of them is used to the exclusion of the others. Almost any leader can detect some of each in his own practice, and his practice may vary with circumstances. Each approach is appropriate in others. This discussion is to enable one to identify the characteristics of each, and to select the one most appropriate for a given situation.
SOCRATIC, LEADER-CENTERED AND GROUP-CENTERED LEADERSHIP
A newer approach to group leadership has grown out of experimental research conducted by the late Kurt Lewin at the Child Welfare Research Station of the University of Iowa and his co-workers in the Research Center for Group Dynamics now located at the University of Michigan. Their conclusions have been extended and supported by studies in such diverse fields as counseling and psychotherapy, social psychology, industrial relations and education. The central lesson in all these studies is that leadership — and, indeed, all aspects of group functioning — is a problem for the group to solve, and is not the peculiar responsibility of any individual. To distinguish this approach from others we have chosen to label it the group-centered approach.
In one of his early studies of group behaviour Kurt Lewin and his associates investigated the effects of three different kinds of leadership on various groups. Democratic leadership, in which the leader helped the group to organize itself and make its own decisions, proved consistently to produce the best results in terms of things accomplished, co-operative relationships and personal growth. The groups under authoritarian leadership, in which the leader maintained rigid control, produced less and encountered a great deal more friction and frustration. The groups that scored the lowest on all counts were those under laissez-faire leadership, in which the leader maintained completely passive.
Spurred on by the successes of these early experiments, a great deal of energy has been devoted in recent years to research in group behavior. “Group dynamics,” according to two of the pioneer leaders in the field, “endeavors to study the why of what happens in groups. It is an area of research in the process by which groups work – discuss, reach decisions, plan action, and carry it into effect …. It is the application of research findings in producing greater group productivity, in developing the growth of groups, and in improving individuals in their sensitivity to what is happening in the group and in their ability to assume more efficiently group leadership and membership responsibility.
By pooling, the findings from research in group dynamics with the discoveries in other areas of social science, especially psychotherapy, education, and industrial relations, it is possible to set up some assumptions about group behavior and to suggest some tentative guiding principles of group-centered leadership.
SOME ASSUMPTIONS UNDERLYING GROUP-CENTERED LEADERSHIP
1. Although a group has many of the characteristics of a single organism from its earliest stages, it is composed of individuals who think of themselves as separate entities and who come into the group seeking the satisfaction of personal needs and desires. The problem in terms of the group’s welfare, is to help the individual satisfy his needs through serving the group’s needs, rather than by exploiting the group for selfish purposes. There is a wide choice of ways to satisfy the needs for recognition, ranging from bragging and monopolizing the discussion (individual-centered behavior) to contributing useful leadership services to the group (group-centered behavior).
2. Each individual has a fundamental urge to grow — to achieve greater maturity and self direction. Growth is encouraged in an atmosphere of freedom and mutual acceptance of responsibilities. It is assumed, therefore, that individual growth will take place best in a group that is free from authoritarian control and maturely accepts responsibility for its own direction.
3. Each individual exists in the center of his own private world of experience and reacts to reality as he sees it. Any attempt, therefore, to impose another person’s (such as a leader’s) view of reality on him is doomed to failure, even though he may seem outwardly to acquiesce and understand. A new experience, fact, or attitude is meaningful to a person only in terms of his own highly personal realm of experience.
4. Each person has his own concept of himself and tends to reject or deny anything that is inconsistent with this concept. An individual feels threatened whenever judgments are made about him (or implied in actions) that contradict his concept of himself. His reaction to this threat is to become defensive and hostile. A person cannot, therefore, be forced or even persuaded into changing a self-concept that is not in accordance with reality; but in an atmosphere that is free from threat, free from judgment about persons, an individual can begin to look at himself objectively and of his own volition, revise his self-concept. The meaning of this assumption for group leadership is obvious. A climate of warm understanding, acceptance, and permissiveness is essential to good group functioning and good learning.
5. A _ person who understands and accepts himself, and feels that others understand and accept him, will necessarily show more understanding and acceptance of others. There is mounting clinical evidence that a real change takes place in one’s attitude toward other people after he has had the experience of being fully accepted by others. This fact is probably the psychological heart of the Judeo-Christian religion. An attitude of love toward people engenders the same attitude in them.
6. Every group is a social system. Whenever people meet together they tend to systemize their relationships. Friendship patterns form, circles and cliques come into being. Status levels tend to be created with distinct symbols (such as manner of dress or speech, or signs of deference) setting off one status from another. Group efficiency is seriously impaired when its social system becomes stratified. Group members are likely to divert their energy from the group problem to competition for status; co-operative relationships may degenerate into intergroup rivalries; and the basis of efficient communication among group members may be destroyed through deliberate misinterpretation by hostile factions. The best social organization for group life is a one-level democratic social system.
7. Groups, like individuals, resist change. Present ways of doing things are almost always more comfortable than new ways–until the new ways are tried and found to be better. Resistance to change, if it is accepted as a normal reaction, can be turned to constructive use in helping a group grow into maturity. The points at which resistance occurs generally indicate the points at which change is most needed. A group can be helped to analyze the causes of its resistance objectively in a climate of acceptance and freedom, and to work out its own solutions. Resistance to change then becomes an instrument of progress.
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