Nature of the Groups and Group Behaviour
Introduction
In this blog, we are going to discus about group nature and group behaviour, development of effective teamwork. Group is the way to involve different people with different skill who working in same task. It is a powerful solution of achieving the target goals.
The nature of groups and group behaviour within Organisation
The word group can be explained as two or more people work or interact together for same purpose. When a group of people work together rather than individuals, the aim of the organisation can be simply achieved. However, working together is a multifaceted task. Group dynamics refers to the communications among the members of a group. Working together as a group in any organisation is the most essential for the social characteristics of workers in that company.
Nature of Groups
There are different types of groups which are created to get some specific results in any organisations. The team members agree to a general task, become mutually dependent relative in their action, and work together with each other to support its success. There are three views on the nature of act between team members. The first is normative, which explain how to carry out performance and manage the team. The second view is includes of a set of method, group building, role play, self managed groups and sensitivity training of the members. The third is referred as a team dynamic from the point of sight that the internal nature of any groups.
Dynamics of Team Formation
Group dynamics refers to the behavioural and attitudinal features of a team. Group dynamics discuss how groups form, their configuration and process, and how they intention. Group dynamics are related in both informal and formal groups of all types.
Formal Groups
A formal group is the systematic and conscious grouping of people in any organisation that the organisational target can be better to achieve. In formal group, structure of the organisation is very formal and gives responsibilities and assignment to different members with the aim of achieving the goals. Task groups and command groups are the example of formal group.
Informal Groups
Informal groups are the spontaneous and natural grouping members when they work together for long period of time. Informal groups are created by the getting closeness of need, support, interests or growth. Interest groups and friendship groups are the example of informal groups.
The Five-Stage Model
All groups pass through the Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing and Adjourning stages. This is known as five stage model.
Forming: forming is the first step of group creation, where team members’ aim is to identify suitable behaviour in the group. The team members try to design their behaviour as a part of the team.
Storming: Storming is the second step of makes any team. In this stage the members are disagreements about leadership. By the end, the members come to same point of view.
Norming: In this stage, group members are get together and motivate and cooperate with each
Performing: In performing stage, group members are work attentively toward target goal. Team members are friendly and helpful to one another.
Adjourning: This is the last step of any group as like task group formed to do some mission. The groups are stop to exit after this stage. Some of group members are happy about the achieving of target goal, some are unhappy to loss their friends after groups disperse.
Effective Teams Defined
One of the many ways for a business to organize employees is in teams. A team is made up of two or more people who work together to achieve a common goal. Teams offer an alternative to a vertical chain-of-command and are a much more inclusive approach to business organization. Teams are becoming more common in the business world today. Effective teams can lead to increased employee motivation and business productivity.
You may wonder how a team is different from an ordinary work group. Work groups are mainly for members to share information and make decisions so that each member can achieve his or her individual work goals. On a team, the members not only share information but also share responsibility for the team’s work. The idea behind teams is synergy. With synergy members can accomplish more together than they could on their own.
Characteristics of Effective Teams
Not all teams are successful at what they do. Perhaps you have worked on a team that spent too much time debating decisions or included members who did not take on a fair share of the work. Such teams would be ineffective. Let’s look at some of the key characteristics of effective teams:
- Ideal size and membership – The team should be the minimum size needed to achieve the team’s goals, and include members with the right mix of skills and talents to get the job done.
- Clear purpose – Everyone needs to understand and accept the team’s goal and their role on the team.
- Open communication – The team should value diverse points of view and encourage open and honest discussion. All members should feel that their ideas are welcome.
- Fairness in decision-making – Ideally, teams will make decisions by consensus. When consensus is not feasible, teams will use fair decision-making procedures that everyone agrees on
- Creativity effective team value original thinking and will produce new and unique approach to organizational problem
Effective teamwork
Effective teamwork is an important aspect of any organisation’s success. There are many benefits of Teamwork, most notably, an increase in motivation from your employees. A recent study by Stanford University showed that when people are treated as partners or team members – even when physically apart – their motivation increases. Motivation from your employees means more success for your company.
Developing an effective team in your organisation can seem like a simple and straightforward task, however it can be difficult to execute and put into practice. Members of your organisation want to be able to believe in the process and realise the wonderful outcomes that come from working together as opposed to individually; so it is up to the manager to ensure that enthusiasm is garnered and nourished.
The most important building block to develop and effective team is communication, so it is imperative to develop the necessary skills to communicate effectively with each other.
You want your employees to feel like they can put forth their ideas and express their feelings in an open environment, but you also need them to be keen listeners who are prepared to listen to the views of others. It can be easy for a team to fall apart quickly if its members favour their own personal goals over that of the team.
An effective team is one that has cohesion, to do this your team members need to exhibit the following skills:
- Openness – Team members need to be willing to get to know each other and open up about themselves, so they realised that they all have diverse backgrounds and interests. This helps them to be more open to new ideas and differing viewpoints.
- Trust – Team members need to trust each other enough to be comfortable with sharing ideas and feelings. As this trust builds, team members learn to be honest and respectful in their approach to each other.
- Respect – It is important for the team not to focus on who to blame when something goes wrong, instead they need to work out how to fix it and how to learn from the mistake. Constructive feedback and mutual respect rather than blame will help a team achieve results much faster.
What is Leadership
Leadership is a process by which an executive can direct, guide and influence the behavior and work of others towards accomplishment of specific goals in a given situation. Leadership is the ability of a manager to induce the subordinates to work with confidence and zeal.
According to Keith Davis, “Leadership is the ability to persuade others to seek defined objectives enthusiastically. It is the human factor which binds a group together and motivates it towards goals.”
Characteristics of Leadership
- It is a inter-personal process in which a manager is into influencing and guiding workers towards attainment of goals.
- It denotes a few qualities to be present in a person which includes intelligence, maturity and personality.
- It is a group process. It involves two or more people interacting with each other.
- A leader is involved in shaping and moulding the behaviour of the group towards accomplishment of organizational goals.
- Leadership is situation bound. There is no best style of leadership. It all depends upon tackling with the situations.
Nature of leadership
- Leadership derives from the power and is similar to, yet distinct from, management. In fact, “leadership” and “management” are different. There can be leaders of completely unorganized groups, but there can be managers only of organized groups. Thus it can be said that a manager is necessarily a leader but a leader may not be a manager.
- Leadership is essential for managing. The ability to lead effectively is one of the keys to being an effective manager because she/he has to combine resources and lead a group to achieve objectives.
- Leadership and motivation are closely interconnected. By understanding motivation, one can appreciate better what people want and why they act as they do. A leader can encourage or dampen workers’ motivation by creating a favorable or unfavorable working environment in the organization.
- The essence of leadership is followership. In other words, it is the willingness of people to follow a person that makes that person a leader. Moreover, people tend to follow those whom they see as providing a means of achieving their desires, needs and wants.
- Leadership involves an unequal distribution of power between leaders and group members. Group members are not powerless; they can shape group activities in some ways. Still, the leader will usually have more power than the group members.
- Leaders can influence the followers’ behavior in some ways. Leaders can influence workers either to do ill or well for the company. The leader must be able to empower and motivate the followers to the cause.
- The leader must co-exist with the subordinates or followers and must have a clear idea about their demands and ambitions. This creates loyalty and trust in subordinates for their leader.
- Leadership is to be concerned about values. Followers learn ethics and values from their leaders. Leaders are the real teachers of ethics, and they can reinforce ideas. Leaders need to make positive statements of ethics if they are not hypocritical.
- Leading is a very demanding job both physically and psychologically. The leader must have the strength, power, and ability to meet the bodily requirements; zeal, energy, and patience to meet the mental requirements for leading.
Leadership Styles Based on Authority
Leadership styles refer to a leader’s behavior toward group members. The behavior pattern is that the leader reflects his role as a leader is described as style.
Leadership style is the results of a leader’s philosophy, personality, and experience and value system.
Leadership styles based on authority can be 4 types:
- Autocratic Leadership,
- Democratic or Participative Leadership,
- Free-Rein or Laisse-Faire Leadership, and
- Paternalistic Leadership.
Let’s know how these leadership styles work and know about their’s advantages and disadvantages;
Autocratic Leadership
Autocratic Leadership relies on coercion, and its style is paternalism, arbitrariness, command, and compliance. The autocratic leader gives orders which must be obeyed by the subordinates.
He determines policies for the group without consulting them and does not give detailed information about plans, but simply tells the group what immediate steps they must take.
Diagrammatically it may be shown in the following way;
However, some autocratic leaders may happen to be “benevolent autocrats.”
Generally, they are willing to hear and consider subordinates’ ideas and suggestions, but when a decision is to be made, they turn out to be more autocratic than benevolent.
Advantages of autocratic leadership
- It is the speed with which decisions can be made; the leader does not have to obtain group members’ approval before deciding.
Disadvantages of autocratic leadership
- Autocratic leadership does hurt group morale.
- Members may resent how decisions are made and thus support them in only a minimal fashion.
Democratic Leadership
The style of leadership that uses legitimate power can be classified as democratic leadership.
A democratic leader usually gives instructions only after consulting with the group. He sees to it that policies are worked out in group discussion and with the acceptance of the group.
That means democratic leadership solicits employees’ participation and respects their opinions. Diagrammatically it can be shown in the following way;
Advantages of democratic leadership
- It often enhances the morale of the employee’s.
- It increases the acceptance of management’s ideas.
- It increases cooperation between management and employees.
- It leads to a reduction in the number of complaints and grievances.
Disadvantages of democratic leadership
- It accounts for slow decisions, diluted accountability for decisions.
- There may be possible compromises that are designed to please everyone but does not give the best solution.
Free-Rein Leadership
The leadership style which allows maximum freedom to followers may be called free-rein leadership. It gives employees a high degree of independence in their operations.
A free rein leader completely abdicates his leadership position, to give all responsibility of most of the work entrusted to him to the group which he is supposed to lead, limiting his authority to maintain the contact of the group with persons outside the group.
This is also known as the permissive style of leadership.
Diagrammatically it may be shown in the following way;
Advantages of free rein leadership
- Opportunity for individual development is offered to group members.
- All persons are given a chance to express themselves and to function relatively independently.
Disadvantages of free rein leadership
- It may result in a lack of group cohesion and unity toward organizational objectives.
- Without a leader, the group may have little direction and a lack of control.
- The result can be inefficiency or even worse, chaos.
Paternalistic Leadership
Under Paternalistic Leadership, the leader assumes that his function is paternal or fatherly.
His attitude is that of treating the relationship between the leader and the group as that of a family with the leader as the head of the family.
He works to help, guide, protect, and keep his followers happily working together as members of a family.
He provides them with good working conditions and employee services.
This style has been successful, particularly in Japan because of its cultural background. It is said that employees under such leadership will work harder out of gratitude.
This mode of leadership produces good and quick results if the followers are highly educated and brilliant, and have a sincere desire to go ahead and perform with responsibility.
Leadership Qualities That Make Good Leaders
Want to become a great leader? Here are fifteen leadership qualities that can make you a good leader.
B.C.A study 
