What is the definition of group leadership and why is leadership important in small group communication?

The benefits of building an effective team within the workplace cannot be understated. All effective teams need to understand the importance of group communication because it is crucial to their success. Effective communication within a team will build a common purpose among team members that will allow them to reach their goals. Frequent friendly communication can help team members develop a sense of belonging and strengthen relationships. Effective team leaders know that group communication drives organizational efficiency. As employees understand the standards for their work, they will be more willing to reach out for help when they need it and the team will become more capable. Strong group communication will create understanding and that understanding will create powerful relationships within a team.

Yet, after you’ve laid the groundwork for a great team, maintenance is the most important factor.

No one doubts the importance of team building in an organization, but the necessity to maintain the team and continually foster an environment where it can grow is sometimes overlooked. Just like any engine in a car, in order for all the pieces to function perfectly and reliably, the integral parts must be serviced regularly. Effective coaching for your team may mean the difference between significant long-term productivity and a slow decline into obsolescence.

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Maintaining Effective Communication Within a Team

Every system naturally has a tendency to break down. This isn’t just my opinion; it is the way of all human interaction. Without consistent lubrication and preventive maintenance to keep your people performing at their best, your team will digress into a meaningless, underoptimized machine. The key is to think creatively when renewing team purpose and commitment.

Why is Communication Important in a Team?

The most significant factor in any team is the ability to communicate skillfully. As a leader, it is extremely important for you to be honest in evaluating the team’s communication skills. How can you make sure your communication is driving unity and not sowing discord? How can you communicate in a way that empowers your team? Here are a few ideas on effectively communicating in a team.

1. Set Team Communication Goals

Setting team communication goals can help ensure team communication maintains its effectiveness. Develop goals that will enhance mutual understanding and collaboration throughout your team. Defining the challenges to your team’s communication will help you clearly see where you need to improve. While setting team communication goals can help define overall communication objectives, you can also use them to focus on specific aspects of communication that can be improved.

2. Don’t Reinvent the Wheel

Remember, no matter what kind of problem your team may be facing, chances are someone else has already dealt with a similar issue and has a unique way to approach it. Seek these people out with a passion; they will inspire both you and your team to excel. Standing on the shoulders of others is a critical key to the transformation and forward progress of your team. You may be able to apply the previously developed method rather than spending your valuable time on your own trial and error. Here are a few tried-and-true communication principles that can help you get started.

3. Make Time For Communication

Teams need time to communicate, which makes finding that time an important objective. Setting aside time for meetings and quick syncs or project updates can help your team build trust and communicate effectively. Giving your team time to communicate will also allow them the opportunity to celebrate each other or reach out about issues.

4. Keep Things Clear

If you have ever experienced complicated and confusing communication, you understand why straightforward, understandable team communication is so important. Oftentimes, organizational communication is intended to keep everyone on the same page, but it needs to be clear in order to do so. Make sure the purpose of your communication is easily understood whether you are communicating in person or digitally. Your team shouldn’t have to guess your desired outcome or the intended recipient.

5. Show Respect

In order for team communication to be effective, it’s important that it’s respectful. Showing respect in communication can be as simple as respecting your team’s time and keeping communication productive and streamlined. Constructive criticism also needs to be given and received in a respectful manner. There will be times when team members are wrong, but maintaining respectful communication can be the difference between a quick correction and a complete derailment.

The Secret to an Effective Team Communication Strategy: Check in Regularly

Good communication means just that–going the extra step to assure progress. Checking in with your team members means more than making sure their productivity is staying high. A teammate who is at the end of his rope when it comes to workload may seem productive; right up to the moment that he ‘breaks.’ When this happens, the personnel gap may cost you more money than if you had checked in frequently with the team member and discovered the issues before they became problems.

This post was contributed by Alisa Johnson, a guest writer, who writes about the top online business school. She welcomes your feedback at Alisa.Johnson1982 at gmail.com

Chapter 9 presents theoretical information about leadership, including sources of interpersonal power, styles of leadership, approaches to studying leadership, leadership emergence, and the concept of distributed leadership. The material is designed to help you recognize the relationship among communication behaviors and leadership approaches and styles.

1. Leadership is a process of using human communication skills to help a group achieve its goal. Leadership is the process by which influence is exercised, and the leader is a person who has been appointed, elected, or has emerged to fill the group leader position (or role).
2. Someone’s power to influence may stem from reward, punishment, legitimate, referent, or expert sources. Coercion is not considered an appropriate source of power in a group.
3. Leadership emergence can be captured in a three-stage model depicting how some members fall out of contention for leadership and others garner support.
4. Several approaches to the study of leadership were examined. Early traits approaches, which assumed that leaders were born rather than made, have been discredited. Styles approaches examine the effect of democratic, autocratic, and laissez-faire styles on such outcomes as productivity and satisfaction. Current contingency approaches assume that the style needed depends on the group and its situation.
5. Most contemporary researchers accept the contingency view of leadership. Important contingency theories include Fiedler’s, Hersey and Blanchard’s, the functions approach, and the communicative competencies approach.
6. Nine essential communicative competencies of effective group leaders were described.
7. Leadership is the property of the group because the behavior of the leader and the members constrains and shapes the behavior of the other. The Leader-Member Exchange model was presented as an example of how leaders and members affect each other.
8. A distributed leadership model suggests that in an ideal and mature group members are as responsible for the productivity and effectiveness of the group as is the designated leader.

Review Questions

1.         What is the difference between leader and leadership?

2.         How do leaders emerge in leaderless groups, according to Fisher?

3.         What are the main sources of power in a group, and how can an observer tell what types of power members and leaders have?

4.         Give an example of what a democratic leader, an autocratic leader and a laissez-faire leader might say to get a group to work on its task.

5.         In general, how do contingency approaches to leadership differ from trait or styles approaches?

6.         What are the main ideas behind the functions approach?

7.         What kinds of communicative competencies should leaders have, and why are they important?

8.         Explain the leader-member exchange model, and explain its relevance to small groups.

9.         What is distributed leadership, and in what situations would it be appropriate for a small group?

Discussion Topics

1.         Think of the best (or worst) group leader you have ever observed, and explain why you think that person was the best (or worst) leader.

2.         If everyone in the group is responsible for how the group functions, what do you think the leader should do?

3.         Under what type of leadership are you most comfortable working? Why?

4.         When you are a group member, what kinds of things can a group leader do to motivate you to work on behalf of the group?

1F. Sargent and G. Miller, “Some Differences in Certain Communication Behaviors of Autocratic and Democratic Group Leaders,” Journal of Communication 21 (1971): 233-52.             

 In class option for a group: Complete the Sargent and Miller Leadership Scale1 and discuss findings with classmates, as a class or in small groups.

Instructions: We are interested in the things that are important to you when you are leading a group discussion. Listed below are several pairs of statements. Read each pair of statements and place a mark in the one you believe to be of greater importance. On reacting to the statements, observe the following ground rules:

A. Place you check marks clearly and carefully.

B.   Do no omit any of the items.

C.   Never check both of the items.

D. Do not look back and forth through the items; make each item a separate and independent judgment.

E.   Your first impression, the immediate feelings about the statements, is what we want.

Sargent and Miller Leadership Scale

Scoring: Give yourself one point for each of your answers that agrees with those in the following key. A maximum score of 10 means you are very democratic in your responses; a minimum score of 0 means you are very autocratic.

Questions for reflection:

A. What do you understand to be the major differences in the behaviors of autocratic and democratic discussion leaders?

B.   Can we exercise power in a way that influences the behavior of other members of a group and still be democratic? If so, how?

C.   What contingencies affect the type of leadership most appropriate for a given situation? How can the leader diagnose and assess these contingencies?

Chapter 10 focuses on applying the theoretical principles described in Chapter 9. The material is intended to help you practice various leadership behaviors and observe the consequences to the group.

1. Good leaders provide the degree of coordination and structure appropriate to the group’s situation, yet encourage group members to mature so they can assume distributed leadership of the group. The leader acts as a completer, providing essential group services not provided by other group members.
2. Outstanding designated leaders, including leaders of virtual teams, articulate group goals clearly, adhere to high standards of performance, and promote equality among group members.
3. In the United States, group leaders are expected to provide administrative services, facilitate discussions, and help the group develop.
4. Designated group leaders should establish a climate of trust by modeling for the other group members the ethical principles presented.

Review Questions

1.         What does the leader as completer concept mean? How does this apply in small groups?

2.         What are the three major categories of duties that small group leaders are expected to perform?

3.         What are the different categories of written communication important to small groups? Why is each important?

4.         When leading discussions, what specific goals should the designated leader try to foster, and why are these goals important?

5.         What can a leader do to establish and maintain trust in the group?

6.         What ethical principles should group leaders follow?

7.         Are administrative duties for leaders of computer-mediated groups different than for face-to-face groups? How?

Discussion Topics

1.         When you are the group’s leader, what duties do you think are most important, and why?

2.         Think of the most creative group you’ve ever belonged to. What made this group creative?

3.         Think of the group you’ve belonged to that did the best job of thinking critically and carefully during problem-solving. What behaviors did people perform in this group that helped promote critical and careful problem solving?

4.         Think of the group you’ve belonged to that had the greatest trust among members. Why were people willing to trust each other in the group? How did this trust develop?

5.         What ethical principles do you want leader of groups to which you belong to follow?

 Questions to consider:

A. When someone has been appointed or elected chairperson of a committee, what do you want and expect that person to do? Not to do?

B.   In addition to those listed in Chapter 9, what other administrative functions are small group leaders sometimes expected to provide?

C.   Under what circumstances does it pay for a person with administrative responsibilities in a production or service organization to make decisions with employees or subordinates?

 If you know any individuals from the community who are leaders of a variety of task-oriented groups you could ask them a variety of questions.  Questions might include:

A. What is your philosophy of group leadership? What do you think an effective group leader should be and do?

B.   How do you prepare for a group meeting?

C.   Do you prepare a printed agenda for each meeting? How is it compiled? Distributed?

D. Do you have any special techniques that have worked well for you?

E.   What problem members have you encountered? How have you handled them? How well did that work?

F.   What is the biggest problem you face as a group leader?