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Leadership is a critical factor for any group of people. Shared objectives are only achievable if there is a proper leadership. People often ignore important leadership roles without realizing the impact leadership vacuum have towards obtaining such objectives. This paper reports my role as a group leader for a college discussion group. The group operated within college premises and frequently met in college lecture halls during the semester. The group’s responsibility was to complete a class discussion assignment and prepare a report. The report’s grading was to form part of final individual grades for the course. The group was made up of ten students all taking the course during the semester.
Despite the fact that the group had some students, I had never previously had a close relationship with some members of the group, the working relationship turned out to be a cordial one. After being assigned groups by the lecturer, we met as a group to discuss a way forward. In the meeting, everyone emphasized the importance of working as a team towards the good of our education. The group chairman and secretary were selected as instructed by the lecturer.
I was selected the chairman. Immediately I informed the group members that successful cooperation would only be achievable if all members respected the role assigned, responded to calls for meetings, and most importantly, respected my leadership role during group meetings. The entire group therefore had to follow me due to a common purpose that had brought us together.
The quality of my relationship with followers turned out to be a good one. I immediately became the center of the group with everyone seeking information about the progress, meeting times, and venues from me. Additionally, members cooperated and although a few members missed some meetings, they all acted within confines of our agreed upon rules and sent apologies. They further adhered to decisions made in their absence.
Multiple scholars define power as ability to influence/affect the actions of followers. Influence is defined as ability to change followers’ attitudes, behaviors, values, and belief. My source of power was the group members. My leadership position was therefore based on legitimate power (French & Raven, 1959). Upon giving me the chairmanship position, the group conferred on me the power to control its activities, chair meetings and represent its interests.
My powers were solely used to further the objective of the group. As such my powers were limited to summoning members for meetings, assigning tasks within the group and ensuring that all members met their obligations to the group. Additionally, as a leader I exercised positional power. As the group chair I held the topmost positional power in the group. Additionally, I also exercised personal power, thanks to my persuasion power that saw all group members build a trust in me.
Group’s success was ensured through implementation of policies and practices that ensured everyone felt obliged to positively contribute to the group. Individual weaknesses and failures were turned to strengths by converting demoralization to motivation (Weinstein, 2002). This was achieved through a constant reminder that we were working to improve our final grades. Motivation can be created by wide array of policies but the most common is the benefit associated with it. However, having quality throughout the group can also bring motivation.
Other than leader-follower relationship as depicted in the case, there is the leader-member relationship (LMX). It is important to note that while all group members were cooperative and willing to engage in group projects, the potential of the group members largely differed. As a matter of fact, I ended developing more trust in one of then group members whom I ended up assigning most of the critical group tasks. This was mainly as a result of his diligence with his work as well as the in-depth knowledge he possessed.
There is a member of team that I considered invaluable and hence the efforts to ensure most critical tasks were assigned to him. In many instances this member completed his tasks early enough and even assisted others with their tasks. As sad as it may sound, there were those that I found to be less competent, and trusting them with sensitive work was just out of question. These members were assigned the less sensitive tasks, those that could be easily done if they failed and additionally did not require much work.
In essence the LMX theory as exhibited in the team revealed a unique way in which I interacted with other members of the team. It helped in understanding how leader-member relationships either promote individual contributions or impede contributions by some members. Evidently, the presumption that all group members are equal worth trusting and responsible is ideal and rarely is true.
In conclusion it should be noted that the case described presented a typical case of leader-follower relationships and leader-member relationships. The relationship depicted between me and the grouped members was one of a leader and followers coupled with another between me and the group members. In the end, it was evident that understanding the dynamics within these relations is vital for success of the group. The leadership approach chosen, whereby I sought to understand members from individual perspective based on strength and weakness and using this knowledge to the benefit of the group, proved a success. The measure of success was on success of the project’s completion both in terms of delivery time and quality.
Reference
French, J. & Raven, B. (1959). The Bases of Social Power. Ann Arbor: Institute for Social Research.
Grant, A. & Stober, D. (2006). Evidence Based Coaching. Hoboken: Wiley Publications.
Raven, B, H. (2012). A power interaction model on interpersonal influence: French and Raven thirty years later. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 7 (2), pp. 217-244.
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