Group dynamics, team building and leadership
A group grows through Tuckman's five stages and becomes a team through shared goals. Leadership theories moved from traits to behaviours to contingency and transformational models.
Group dynamics essentials
| Concept | Key point |
|---|---|
| Formal vs informal groups | Formal: command and task groups set by the organisation. Informal: interest and friendship groups |
| Tuckman's stages | Forming → storming → norming → performing → adjourning |
| Punctuated-equilibrium model | Connie Gersick: inertia, a transition at the midpoint, then a burst of activity |
| Cohesiveness | Attraction among members; high cohesion with high performance norms gives the highest output |
| Social loafing | Less individual effort in a group (Ringelmann's rope-pulling) |
| Groupthink and groupshift | Janis: pressure to conform blocks dissent. Groupshift: group decisions become more extreme than individual ones |
| Sociometry | J.L. Moreno: mapping likes and dislikes among members in a sociogram |
| Group decision techniques | Brainstorming (Alex Osborn), nominal group technique, Delphi technique |
Team building
- A team differs from a group: a shared goal, collective performance, mutual accountability and complementary skills (Katzenbach and Smith).
- Robbins' team types: problem-solving, self-managed, cross-functional and virtual.
- Belbin's nine team roles: plant, resource investigator, coordinator, shaper, monitor evaluator, teamworker, implementer, completer finisher, specialist.
- Team-building interventions: goal setting, role clarification, interpersonal process sessions and joint problem solving.
Leadership theories
| Approach | Theory and author | Key idea |
|---|---|---|
| Trait | Great man and trait theories (Stogdill reviewed traits) | Leaders are born with special traits |
| Behavioural | Iowa studies (Kurt Lewin) | Autocratic, democratic and laissez-faire styles |
| Behavioural | Ohio State studies | Initiating structure and consideration |
| Behavioural | Michigan studies (Rensis Likert) | Employee-oriented vs production-oriented; Likert's four systems run from exploitative-authoritative to participative group |
| Behavioural | Managerial Grid (Blake and Mouton) | 1,1 impoverished; 9,1 authority-compliance; 1,9 country club; 5,5 middle of the road; 9,9 team |
| Contingency | Fiedler's contingency model | LPC score; situation = leader-member relations, task structure, position power |
| Contingency | Hersey and Blanchard's situational leadership | Telling, selling, participating, delegating, matched to follower readiness |
| Contingency | House's path-goal theory | Directive, supportive, participative or achievement-oriented leader clears the path to goals |
| Contingency | Vroom-Yetton (later Vroom-Jago) | Decision tree for how far subordinates should take part in decisions |
| Contingency | Tannenbaum and Schmidt continuum | Range from boss-centred to subordinate-centred leadership |
| Modern | Transformational (Burns; Bass) vs transactional | Inspiring and changing followers vs exchanging rewards for performance |
| Modern | Leader-member exchange (Graen); servant leadership (Greenleaf) | In-groups and out-groups; the leader serves followers first |
Fiedler vs Hersey-Blanchard
French and Raven's five bases of power: legitimate, reward, coercive, expert and referent. Raven later added information power.
NET asks you to sequence Tuckman's stages, decode Managerial Grid positions, and match leadership models (Fiedler, Hersey-Blanchard, House, Ohio State) with their key concepts.
Typical MCQ: “What are Fiedler's three situational variables?” Leader-member relations, task structure and position power. Trap: follower readiness belongs to Hersey and Blanchard.
Typical MCQ: “What does 9,1 mean on the Managerial Grid?” Authority-compliance: high concern for production, low concern for people. Trap: the first number is production, the second is people.
Tuckman: form, storm, norm, perform, adjourn. Hersey-Blanchard: tell, sell, participate, delegate as readiness rises.