Learning Groups: Psychodynamics and Developmental Processes

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Leadership experience
Personal reflection
Conclusion
Reference List

Introduction

Understanding the perception and reaction to different situations is involving. A blend of different behaviours and personalities form a group. It is apparent that the behaviour or approach that one group adopt may not be the same as the approach of another despite existing in the same environment and doing the same thing. After several weeks of observation and participation in learning activities, I can now integrate different behaviour and perception of groups that exist in the same environment. Thus, this analytical treatise attempts to explicitly review the psychodynamics and developmental processes that occur within the Peer Learning Group (PLG) and Large Learning Group (LLG) in relation to behaviour theories in the learning experience. Specifically, the paper explores the interaction of these processes in the formation and development of different group activities during the last seven weeks of class activities on leadership. In addition, the treatise offers personal reflection and contribution towards fulfilling the tasks assigned to these groups.

Leadership experience

After reviewing and understanding different theoretical explanations of the elements that interact during the group formation process, I discovered that the elements of dependency within conscious and unconscious tenets are directed towards a leader of a formal or informal group. Specifically, Tyson (1998) opined that the elements of dependency within conscious and unconscious tenets are critical towards understanding the perception of each member of the group on the environment, expectations, and possible challenges (Tayson, 1998). In fact, in the first interaction during the LLG formation process, little eye contact may be witnessed since person meeting for the first time may face difficulties in building instant affinity. This is what happened to me during our first meeting as a small group. However, I was elected as a leader of the group. I realized that everyone was looking up to me despite being as new as everyone else. They keenly listened to everything I uttered, and they were expectant of me to show them the direction. Despite the minimal and slow interrelation, it was apparent that the interaction between the group and I was prevalent in line with what the transactional analysis states (Devito, 2006).

There were clear variances between the formation of my LLG and PLG due to different premeditated forces. For instance, unlike the LLG, my PLG formation was out of a conscious choice of locating the persons my mind perceived as being ideal teammates in fulfilling the primary task (Tyson, 2004). On the other hand, my LLG formation was influenced by the decision of different persons to pursue the same subject on leadership. This interaction informed my choice of group mates. Despite the conflict on time management, we got along since we were united by the same thought process (Payne, 1980).

Basing on LPI assessment that I have undergone through during the group selection stage, the practice enabled me to develop the following three personal competencies. First, I should be a role model. I need to develop self-confidence by elucidating my own individual values. I should set good examples through conforming to shared values of the community. Secondly, I need to enliven a common vision. Indeed, I should visualize the future through perceiving to achieve pleasant and excellent possibilities (Tyson, 2004). In addition, I should interact with various people to achieve common objectives that are important in group activities. Thirdly, I should learn through challenging inspirations. In fact, I should struggle to get opportunities and whatever I need in life as a way to develop and grow positively (McShane and Travaglione, 2005). Moreover, other people like to take risks in order to learn through experimentation. Indeed, learning is made possible by making mistakes. These elements were possible since I was able to balance my Psyche ID and Superego (Bass, 2000).

The series of dynamics that interacted between my group and that of other classmates in the phases of LLG and PLG modes experienced metamorphosis as the unconscious choices began to take shape. Since I was the leader, there were a lot of expectations from other group members to provide motivation and inspiration (Tyson, 1998). As a result, my PLG role was firmly established, and I was able to connect the vision, mission and values of the group to the individual values and needs. This gave our group a better picture of the purpose and how each member can contribute to that purpose (Burns, 2008).

Expressing loyalty is a noble act showing a sense of worth and gives meaning to life. However, it is not an easy task; it comes with lots of challenges as some people are naturally rebellious. I learned that in spite of the prodigious challenges leaders go through, they can still inspire loyalty and effort in their team. They trust that the decision made by the leader is in the best interest of the group at heart. This motives the followers to work hard, knowing that the achievement will be bigger than them. This creates a culture in the group because members feel they have shared values and beliefs (Tyson, 1998). The knowledge is promoted by the ART model proposed by Tyson (2004) to explicitly review the link between task and role as enshrined in the tenet of authority. To inspire loyalty and effort in my team, I learned that I have to be a good communicator with my teammates. I have to seek opportunities to communicate with team members. At the same time, I attempted to increase the volume and frequency of communication. Having in mind that 90% of communication is not about what we say but how we say it. Thus, as a leader, I was able to communicate with passion, humility and enthusiasm in line with the group aspirations (Bennis and Goldsmith, 2003).

Being in a position to offer personal authority is often motivated by past and present experiences, situational factors, and skills within the structure of a group. Using simple words such as ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ have a great impact to inspire the team. Maintaining eye contact, having a relaxed body and using a warm tone of voice does have an immense impact on the team members. As a leader, I can never be egocentric since it is not about me but the team. I have to listen to my team since this encourages them, and I also gain great ideas and insight as well (Feist and Feist, 2006).

In the PLG formation, I learnt that one has to remain consistent with the team by matching his or her words and actions as was practised by Brian. As opined by Nelson-Jones (1995), beliefs should match with actions as well as my results. With consistency, team members will see what you believe in. Every member of a group has to be clear about his or her beliefs and make them known to the team. At the same time, they have to remain disciplined and accountable to own values and guiding principles (Nelson-Jones, 1995). This would greatly inspire the members. I discovered that the leadership of a group has to be clear in the job description so that each member knows the expectations for every day. In order to be successful, the job descriptions should be prepared in advance in order to achieve the desired outcome. These should then be communicated to the team on what they are supposed to do and set out clear guidelines to be followed in order to limit space for vagueness or the contradiction of roles. This would show that the rules and regulations set down apply to everybody, including me. This indicates that a team is consistent(Nelson-Jones, 1995).

LPI assessment is important because it enables a person to perceive how people evaluate his or her leadership skills. Actually, LPI has helped me to be an effective team player in our small group. This is a self-assessment strategy that enabled me to inquire about people’s opinion in order to compare their suggestions with my perspectives as a way to improve my personality and leadership skills. For instance, during the topic allocation stage, I managed to control the tension and possible conflict that was growing in our team since nobody was interested in the final part of the assignment. I decided to take this part since the conscious and subconscious choices within my personality were well balanced (Sockeley-Zalabak, 2011).

As opined by Tyson (2004), past experiences may have a direct influence on the roles an individual takes in a group setting. I learnt that LPI assesses human acts which people utilize when interacting with different peoples (Tyson, 2004). This assessment is helpful, especially for leaders who intend to know how they influence people and how to communicate effectively. In addition, leadership skills are normally influenced by situational and personal experiences. First, the attitude of encouragement is important in a group (Tyson, 1998). Actually, people should appreciate and encourage positive contributions. Secondly, shared objectives are helpful because they guide a group to embrace desired outcomes while discouraging unfavourable attitudes.

Personal experiences are based on three aspects. First, the past reality that people have experienced influence people to be aware of which human acts have a positive outcome. Secondly, personal attitude usually influences people on how to interact with other people. Lastly, self-esteem enables people to develop inner strength in carrying out various actions. In relation to our group activity, we were able to apply the principle of self-assessment when making general statements to minimize ideological variances. As the weeks progressed, my PLG was maturing at a slower rate than my LLG since my subconscious mind had placed the LLG within the tenet of experimentation (West, 2006). On the other hand, the PLG remained relatively immature since our group had not completed the formation stage as incidences of weekly absenteeisms were reported. It took us a little longer to develop a strong group rapport and build trust amongst ourselves, as most of the members still had reservations on expression (Nelson-Jones, 1995).

As opined by Greenleaf (2002), a challenging experience normally compels a person to examine his attitude. Indeed, an individual will attempt to improve his approach to resolve a challenge (Greenleaf, 2002). I only realized the steady consequence of my leadership approach on my PLG in the stage of accomplishing the unit synergy testing exercise. I discovered that it is possible to change toxic followers through interpersonal assessment. The interpersonal assessment examines human acts which people utilize when interacting with different peoples. This assessment is helpful, especially for leaders who intend to know how they influence people and how to communicate effectively (Wren, 1995).

Self-leadership psychology theorists overtly argue that cognition alters task orientation behaviour. Specifically, the discursive approach in explaining and exploring shared and coordinated actions on roles and channels through which an individual’s framework functions in the exchange of information formally is of great essence towards understanding task orientation level (Hacker and Tammy, 2004). Despite task orientation being rated as a high self-leadership assessment strategy, action planning is of the essence to create a solution-oriented task and strategy implementation secession for quantifying task orientation levels as we discovered during the assignment activity review (Fishbein, 2007). Thus, we were able to achieve synergy since I offered efficient leadership.

Adopting the model of development processes, task orientation leadership skills on an individual task management level in ethics encompass actual and expected outcome. Through designing personal task management model levels, my task orientation module was activated towards developing dependence of interest attached to an activity, creating proactive relationships, and monitoring their interaction with physical and psychological health. Eventually, this paid off since I learnt to appreciate the essence of tolerance and need to stay active when interacting with a group consisting of different personalities (West, 2006). I should improve on excessive independence and intra and interpersonal communication since the two influence the level of task orientation with the third party (Kidd, 2006). In fact, I could not challenge the group for their habit of showing up late for the discussion due to the fear of being rejected.

As the weeks progressed, basic assumptions of the group were replaced by an interactive process which was characterized by a mature exchange between the containers (members) and the projector (leader) to steer the valence in line with the Bion’s workgroup model (Tyson 2004). In order to achieve transformational leadership, it is vital to recognize the presence of the vice of postponing activities. This should be followed by creating a strategy to address the possible causes of indecisiveness. Through prioritising and proper scheduling of activities, it is easy to manage this leadership module. Finally, the strategy becomes complete when the individual is in a position to actively assimilate transformational leadership strategies. At present, I am implementing transformational leadership strategies and have been successful in time management and limiting unpleasant detractors such as lateness, diverted attention, and discussion of private issues during the assignment discussion meetings. I have been successful in self-reward creation (Wren, 1995). However, the main challenge was to identify an independent reviewer of personal transformational leadership initiatives since I sometimes failed to make sure that other members were committed to the group activities.

I discovered that situational leadership engages in the active process of learning through promotion, facilitation, and rewarding collective learning results in the practical arena. The three building blocks of situational leadership include learning intrapersonal performance; supportive learning environment, concrete learning processes, and practice leadership that reinforces performance. Through using the diagnostic tools, an individual can assess the areas of personal, situational leadership that require urgent improvement, moving the person closer to an ideal leadership sphere (West, 2006).

Self-initiative in situational leadership plays a significant role in setting up the leadership environment for situational occurrence management from external factors (Hui-Wen et al. 2010). This self-guided approach is based on collaborative procedures that involve designing specific leadership experiences to organize situational management goals on how to monitor automatic response; recognize the relationship between these responses and cognition ways to test the validity of the relationships, and measures to apply to substitute the distorted thoughts with more realistic situational redress. Since research methods focus on the development of a range of skills that are designed to help the individual to cope with a variety of life situations, they remain indispensable to the personal initiatives I had internalised in practising a proactive balance in self situational leadership management within the conscious decision-making process to choose group members (West, 2006).

During the week of reviewing ‘Bion’s Riddle’, I widened my LLG formation. Unlike my LLG, my PLG was constructed throughout the learning weeks as a result of the strong valence and leadership abilities. Despite the commitment to direct my PLG towards proactive leadership, I had to deal with the challenge of uniting the group and its primary task. I have realized that I have the valence of leadership in LLG and even PLG since I was able to handle fears of the other group members besides my own anxieties (Tyson, 1998).

I have been successful in applying the three types of leadership styles involving a realization that a challenge exists, the transformation of this challenge into a development goal after which implementation step concludes by developing a solution to the challenge. However, there is a need for improvement in keeping my situational management parameters within goals and duties at hand. Common hurdles in leadership management of a group activity include internal and external influences that slow down productivity and ability to proactively handle challenges of the assignment. Therefore, it is factual that productive leadership is directly and positively proportional to the productivity level exhibited in an individual. In my view, it is important to minimize these hurdles to promote and encourages goal achievement within a set plan. I am currently monitoring counterproductive behaviour as a negative parameter which limits leadership productivity as a result of these hurdles. Generally, this unsolicited behaviour is often associated with ineffective performance (West, 2006).

In order to understand the impacts of productive and counterproductive leadership on performance and productivity of each group member, my strength has been the ability to establish the scope and characteristic of each behaviour module associate with leadership huddles. However, the strategy requires systematic and periodic review of the parameters of professionalism, organization, respect, optimal performance, and discipline. Unfortunately, these indicators are difficult to quantify. Therefore, productive leadership behaviour stresses the need for active cooperation between personality and the roles assigned in the planning and execution of the set targets for the assigned roles within the parameters of situational leadership, task-person orientation, and transformational leadership (Wren, 1995).

Personal reflection

Despite task orientation being rated as a high self-leadership assessment strategy, action planning is of importance to create a solution-oriented task and strategy implementation secession for quantifying task orientation levels. Through designing personal task management model levels, my task orientation module has remained active in developing dependence of interest attached to an activity, creating proactive relationships, and monitoring their interaction with physical and psychological health. Eventually, it has paid off since I have learnt to appreciate the essence of tolerance and the necessity to stay active. However, I should improve on excessive independence, intra and interpersonal communication since the two influence the level of task orientation with the third party (Lipgar, 2006).

Specifically, transformational leadership identifies a range of problematic situations an individual face in his or her social environment, and generates multiple alternative solutions to those problems; he/she lays a series of procedures that are necessary to achieve desired results rather than postponing response strategies. I have been successful in time management and reducing unpleasant distractions. I have been successful in self-reward creation. However, the main challenge was to identify an independent reviewer of personal transformational leadership initiatives. I would suggest an improvement in the urgent matrix for duties since it doesn’t remain constant in different situations (Kouzes and Posner, 2002). Situational leadership engages in the active process of learning through promotion, facilitation, and rewarding collective learning results in the practical arena. I am a motivator of situational leadership management (Wren, 1995).

Conclusion

Conclusively, the learning experience and group assignment reaffirmed my leadership skills and ability to manage group dynamics. Apparently, due to the high group synergy level in the LLG formation, it is a more effectual group as compared to PLG. Generally, my PLG and LLG proved to be effective since I was able to balance the group dynamics and the primary task.

Reference List

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Bennis, W., & Goldsmith, J 2003, Learning to Lead, Basic Books, New York.

Burns, J 2008, Leadership, Harper Row, New York.

Devito, L 2006, Human communication, Addison Wesley, Auckland.

Feist, J., & Feist, G 2006, Theories of personality, McGraw Hill, Boston.

Fishbein, M 2007, Attitude and prediction of behavior, John Wiley, New York.

Greenleaf, R 2002, Servant leadership: A journey into the nature of legitimate power and greatness, Paulist Press, New Jersey.

Hacker, S., & Tammy, R 2004, Transformational Leadership: Creating Organization of Meaning. Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Quality Press.

Hui-Wen, V., Mu-Shang, G., & Darwin, B 2010, “The relationship between emotional intelligence and leadership practices: A cross-cultural study of academic leaders in Taiwan and the USA,” Journal of Managerial Psychology, vol. 25 no. 8, pp. 899–926.

Kidd, B 2006, Bion’s Riddle, Swinburne University of Technology, Swinburne.

Kouzes, J., & Posner, B 2002, The Leadership Challenge, Jossey-Bass, San Fransico.

Lipgar, R 2006, “Counselling and Health”, European Journal of Psychotherapy, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 79-91.

McShane, S., & Travaglione, T 2005, Organisational Behaviour in the Pacific Rim, McGraw Hill Australia Pty Limited, Australia.

Nelson-Jones, R 1995, Counselling and Personality: Theory and Practice, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards.

Payne, R1980, ‘Exploring Individual and Organisational Boundaries: A Tavistock open systems approach’, Journal of Occupational Psychology, vol. 53, no. 2, pp. 171-173.

Sockeley-Zalabak, P 2011, Fundamentals of Communication: Knowledge, Sensitivity, Skills, Values, Allyn & Bacon, New York.

Tyson, T 1998, Working with Groups, MacMillan, Hong Kong.

Tyson, T 2004, The ART model: a model of behaviour in groups based on the relationship between authority, role and task, Swinburne University of Technology, Swinburne.

West, J. D 2006, “Leadership and the Professional of Counseling: Beliefs and Practices,” Counselor Education and Supervision, vol. 46 no. 5, pp.3-7

Wren, J 1995, Leaders Companion Insights on Leadership, The Free Press, New York.

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