Thesis Statement: Even though a working group is a collaborative effort, someone has to lead the group so it stays focused and on schedule.
Leadership in a Working Group
(intro)
Leadership in a group is concerned with control and power in a group. Leadership can
be focused on either maintaining the interpersonal relationships in the group or
encouraging the group to achieve its task. The leader can be appointed or elected to the
position. There are three main perspectives on leadership. First, some researchers believe
some people are born with traits that will make them a good leader. A second perspective
is that the group's leader selects an appropriate leadership style for the given task. A third
way of understanding leadership says that to some degree, leaders are born with traits that
make them good leaders, but that they also learn how to become a leader and use
strategies appropriate to a given situation
Shamir, House, and Arthur (1993) argued that transformational leadership
can enhance the potency of groups or teams by making participation in a
group’s efforts more meaningful and tied to the collective identity of the
group. Leadership by groups can highlight the importance of the task and
how the group has greater capability to take on difficult challenges. Burns
(1978) described transformational leaders as people who work to increase the
salience and importance of the group, providing members with reasons to
sacrifice their own self-interests for the greater good of the group, community,
and society. Stated another way, people are more likely to sacrifice for
something they believe in and can identify with versus something seen as a
task one is obligated to perform. By collectively building faith in a better
future, transformational leadership among team members is expected to
enhance the overall feelings of potency within a team. To...