According to Toseland and Rivas (2005), group dynamics are “the forces that result from the interactions of group members” (p. 64). These forces refer to either the negative or positive influences towards meeting members’ socioemotional needs as well as goal attainment within a group (Toseland & Rivas, 2005), like within my class work group experience. Some of dynamics that continue to emerge and develop in my group is the effective interaction patterns and strong group cohesion, which has generated positive outcomes and group achievement thus far. For example, my group communicates quite clearly and effectively with one another, which has created more of a positive sense of equal interaction and bond between each member over the course. …show more content…
I believe this continues to helped members to demonstrate reliability, corporation, active listening and responding to discussions, as well as treat each other in a respectful and supportive manner. However, as positive and productive my group’s dynamic is momentarily, there were a few minor challenges that we had to address to get where we are now. Once my group established our social issue of homelessness, members’ roles and responsibilities started to take form.
Particularly, two members within my group began to emerge as leaders due to their knowledge, skills, as well as experience working with our chosen population. Although I always view them as ‘experts’ in this topic, our group became less focused on our goals and more concerned about the ‘power struggle’ between our two leaders, before we could reach any consensus. Essentially, our group had two authoritarians butting heads and trying to take lead throughout the beginning of the group process. Thus, the other members or ‘followers’ contribution, like mine, seem to not matter unless they adhered to either leaders’ opinions without question. According to Stringer (2014), “Leadership… Is defined according to its function of facilitating organizational and operational processes, rather than defining and controlling them” (p. 31). The researcher further states that active participation is the key to encourage and motivate group members to invest their time and energy to shape the quality of the group's production. Therefore, our group needed to find ways for all members to have a chance to participate fully and apply their individual strengths, in order to enhance our group’s
production. To overcome this negative dynamic, we had to strive and practice more group rather than leader-centered interaction patterns such as Round Robin and Free-Floating (Toseland & Rivas, 2005). These types of interactions helped guide our group to incorporate more of an equal level of hierarchy amongst all group members and reestablish more of a Laissez-Faire approach in our leadership (Zastrow, 2014). This approach still gave our ‘leaders’ a felt dependency on their knowledge and skills working with our particular population, but also provided plenty of room for members like me to contribute and take some ownership in the group process. One of my personal strengths that I bring to the group is my outgoing disposition and compassionate nature for others. I feel that I thrive when I can help others discover and enhance their knowledge and skills when working collaboratively in scholarly and professional pursuits. I am also open to receive member’s feedback, in order to guide and bring out my strengths such as my organizational and documentation skills, which is reflected in our weekly discussions and assigned tasks. In the beginning of our group work, members like me felt a little ‘helpless’ due to my limited experience with our chosen population, thus, I felt that I had very little to say and depended too much towards others in the group. But after we adopted group-centered interactions and approaches within the group, I had the opportunity to safely build my confidence and demonstrate my reliability and function as an active participant within the group as a team motivator and documenter. The main lesson that I continue to learn when working in groups, it that there will always be issues or disagreements that will rise and hinder members’ contributions from a group; members’ inability to communicate clearly with one another, trouble maintaining equal participation, as well as absence of or excess of leadership roles. Therefore, to help resolve conflict, members must deal with each issue as it arises, not engage in blaming, insist on appropriate and constructive criticism, as well as involving every member in the decision making process. Strategies such as these can help inspire and mobilize all members within a group to build trust, take ownership, as well as live up to the motto, ‘If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.’ Based alone off my class work group experience, I have learned that while difficult at times, working in a team-oriented atmosphere proves to be incredibly rewarding to me. Again, I have been able to safely exercise and rely on my unique knowledge and experiences when working with my group. This has helped me distinguish my strengths and use my skills to help achieve the end goal, beyond my experience or expertise working with the homeless population. One thing I would like to work on to enhance both my leadership and team member skills is my self-confidence as a person and professional. There are many times when I feel hesitant about situations, feeding my indecisiveness and procrastination. This connects to my fear of making mistakes on assigned, time-sensitive tasks, and letting others down. In these situations, I have to encourage myself to first think and then act on a decision, giving myself ample time to complete the assignment, as well as continue to receive and learn from constructive criticism. Essentially, I have to ‘learn to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.’ Although I may be nervous when first given roles and responsibilities as a group member or leader, I must try to remind myself that my state of inexperience is an experience within itself, which can help distinguish not only my strengths, but also my weaknesses. I know that once I gain more experience and continue my learning by being in situations like group work, the tasks I perform will seem like second nature.
Introduction According to the Oxford Dictionary, a leader is defined as “the person who leads or commands a group, organization, or country” (Oxford Dictionaries, 2013). Though there is a definition for what a leader is, people still have different ideas about what a leader should be and how he or she should act. There has never been a concrete idea of what a leader is; the only thing we know is that this person is the one in charge of the unit. We look at characteristics of those people we see as leaders and use those attributes to compare other people to see if they are able to be as good as, or even better than, those aforementioned leaders. We have to keep in mind that in different situations, leaders must do different tasks which indicates the need for different qualities.
Leadership is a process whereby individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal (Northouse, 2013, p. 5).
“A manager manages using authority-or the right to get others to do things by virtue of their positional power. While a leader leads through the ability to influence other people to do things using a certain degree of personal power or charisma” (McLean, 2005, p. 16). By definition, leadership is about influence. Therefore, it is impossible to discuss the theme of leadership without including followers or to try to explain the idea of team building without explaining the influence of a leader. While each concept is unique, both have a direct affect on the other. A leader is not a leader without someone following him or her and a team will always develop a leader whether indirectly or directly appointed. However, leadership and team building are much like the preverbal chicken and egg; and many theories have developed over several years trying to explain the influence on each other and the successful development of teams and leaders.
Bass, 1990, explains that the word ‘‘leadership’’ was initially used to explain political influence and control of the British Parliament in the 1800s. He further elaborates that leadership was based on heritage and appointment and used to take place often in Anglo-Saxon countries (Bass, 1990, p. 11). Katz and Kahn, 1966, p.334 expands that leadership is to acknowledge the skill to influence others on organisational relevance. Michener et al. (1990) described leadership ‘‘as a process that takes place in groups in which one member influences and controls the behaviour of the other members towards some common goal’’ (cited in Denmark, 1993, p. 343), signifying that the control of employees was a required aspect of effective leadership. The assumption therefore is that if someone is to lead, he should extend beyond influence. This comprises motivation and helping others to accomplish the goals of the organisation.
The International Federation of Social Workers defines Social work as ‘a practice-based profession and an academic discipline that promotes social change and development, social cohesion, and the empowerment and liberation of people. Principles of social justice, human rights, collective responsibility and respect for diversities are central to social work. Underpinned by theories of social work, social sciences, humanities and indigenous knowledge, social work engages people and structures to address life challenges and enhance wellbeing’. (IFSW, 2014). While quite long winded and very broad, this definition does give an overview of the profession but there are also many conflicting views what social work should look like in practice.
Leaders are the individuals who help to create options and opportunities. They help in identifying the choices and solve the problems. They build commitment and coalitions. Leaders do this by inspiring others and working along with them to construct the shared vision of the possibilities and commitments of a better group, organization or community. They engage the followers in such a way that most of the followers become leaders in their own right. The variety of demands of an increasingly complex world very often require that leadership be shared by most of the members of an organization, in appropriate ways for different situations. A leader is the on...
Comparison of Group Dynamics Group dynamics shifted greatly from the start of the semester to the end of the semester. We started out as a room full of people who were for the most part uncomfortable with one another, to a group who supported and worked well with each other. I remember being personally nervous the first time we came together as a group, but during the roleplays at the end it was actually fun and enjoyable. I have a good feel for most of my classmates’ personalities and I know a lot more about them than the first day of class.
Social Workers must be knowledgeable on how to facilitate and lead group sessions with clients. They must be cognizant on their responsibilities as a facilitator, and diligently work to meet the needs of all group members collectively and individually. According to Toseland, Ronald, & Rivas, Robert (2009) group work practice focuses on Social Work practice with a broad range of treatment and task groups and the group’s environment (pg. 2.). It is significant for Social Workers to be equipped with the knowledge and skills to be able to properly assess and assist in group atmospheres. At my field placement which is at the Covenant House, a homeless shelter in Detroit that services youth from ages 18-24. I am responsible for co-facilitating along with the agency’s Social Worker, a
Dynamics are the forces at play that influence the behavior of a group. The feelings of inclusion or exclusion and who is responsible for what or how happy they are with it are some of the dynamics. How the meeting place or office is laid out, openly or as cubicles can affect how a team communicates. The enabling of hidden or side communication verses open group communication can adversely affect a team and the attitude. Rewards and recognition for great ideas and jobs well done should be given fairly and equally. No one should seem to be getting more privileges than others in a team. This could harbor feelings of resentment with the other members of that team. The way in which a team goes about solving problems, company policies or, the "status quo" can also affect the performance of a team (Team 2013).
During the maturation of the group, lots of effective features were present; however communication and the purpose of the group stand out more. An effective communication is when the group members are open to each other ideas and feelings are encourage (Kozier et a...
There is a natural tendency for people to gather in groups for mutually beneficial purposes. Through groups, individuals accomplish goals and relate to others in innovative and productive ways (McClure, 1990). People would not survive, let alone thrive, without involvement in groups. This reliance and interdependence is seen in all types of groups from those that are primarily task-oriented to those that are basically therapeutic. In order to be effective, group leaders must be aware of the power and potency of groups.
1a. NASW is the National Association of Social Workers and it has 150,000 members. Its four main functions are as follows: professional development, professional action, professional standards, and membership services (Suppes: 31).
Leadership is not always in the hands of members and it continually meet with dilemmas and difficulties.
Many people associate leadership with a specific job title or form of power within an organization. However, through personal experience, I have concluded that leadership can come in many forms and position as well as from multiple sources of roles and job titles both with and without power. Based on the definition of leadership, anyone can be considered a leader as long as they have the ability to influence people to achieve a particular result or goal which benefits the organization or group as a whole. Individuals with a secure sense of self and understanding, acceptance of diversity within an organization tend to be the strongest leaders that not only make others want to follow, but they also encourage other leaders to gravitate to their
Group dynamics can be defined as the interactions that influence the behavior and attitudes of individuals when they are in groups. This is very important in the areas of sociology, psychology, and communication studies.