Examining Group Leadership Roles and Dynamics in Stages

This report provides an overview of group leadership, focusing on the roles and functions of a group leader and how their dynamics change through various stages of group development. It highlights the importance of a leader in guiding team members towards success by providing purpose, fostering collaboration, and motivating the team. The report uses Tuckman's stages of group development (Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing) to illustrate how a leader's role evolves from a director to a visionary, adapting their leadership style to the changing needs and dynamics of the group. The report concludes that effective leadership is crucial for achieving team goals and maximizing the potential of each member.

Running head: GROUP LEADERSHIP
GROUP LEADERSHIP
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Roles and Functions of Group Leaders...........................................................................................2
Dynamics change in the various stages of the groups.....................................................................3
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................5
References........................................................................................................................................6

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Introduction
A leader is the one who shows the right path to the various group members and enables
them to succeed. A leader has to pave the bath for the members and enable them to proceed with
the task in hand (Kottler & Englar-Carlson, 2014). The given report throws light on the roles and
functions of a group leader. It also defines the changing dynamics of a leader in the different
stages of the group.
Roles and Functions of Group Leaders
The roles and functions of a team leader in any set up have been given as follows:
He is the one who needs to provide purpose to the group.
His main aim should be to build a star team
He needs to see to it that enough credits are given to all the members (Grundig & Ward,
2015).
He needs to hire people with full potential
It is his responsibility to develop a self managing team

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Figure 1: Role of a team leader (Source: Northouse, 2018).
His aim should be to spark interest in the given task
He also needs to motivate the team members
Facilitator of communication
Monitoring the members activities
Dynamics change in the various stages of the groups
When a group is assigned a certain task, their dynamics keep changing and the group
passes through various stages before they are able to reach their goal. The role of a leader during
these stages has been provided (Raes et al., 2015).
The Tuck man’s stages of group development have been used to determine this which
includes Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing.
Figure 2: Group Development Stages (Source: Raes et al., 2015).

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Forming: The group has been together for a new project and hence everyone is open to
each other. Hence, the leader needs to be a Director and make sure that they are
comfortable with each other.
Storming: In the Storming stage the members of the group provide their honest opinions
about the task or the situation in hand and various conflicting incidents tend to take place
between the various members and the leader. In this stage, the group leader needs to take
up the role of a Coach. As various emotions are being reflected by members, the group
leader needs to guide them effectively and make them achieve success.
Norming: In this stage the trust starts to build among the team members as well as the
leaders. If any arguments tend to take place it is generally between the members with
respect to the responsibility of the job (Northouse, 2018). In this case, the leader takes the
role of a Collaborator. He arranges various meetings and sees to it that the members are
aware of the various responsibilities that have been vested upon them.
Performing: The team has completely gelled with one another at this point. The trust
factor on one another is huge and the members feel that they can do anything together if
they want it. Even criticism is taken with respect. This happens when the members are
well aware of each other as they have been working for a long period of time and they are
used to each other. In this stage, the role of a leader changes to that of a Visionary. As the
members are already quite comfortable, the management style of the members needs to
be changed in order to achieve the goals.

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Conclusion
Therefore, a leader is the backbone of a group. Guiding the team through the various
stages is not any easy task and the leader needs to make sure that he or she is able to get more out
of the team in order to achieve the goals.

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References
Grundig, F., & Ward, H. (2015). Structural group leadership and regime effectiveness. Political
Studies, 63(1), 221-239.
Kottler, J. A., & Englar-Carlson, M. (2014). Learning group leadership. Sage.
Northouse, P. G. (2018). Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications.
Raes, E., Kyndt, E., Decuyper, S., Van den Bossche, P., & Dochy, F. (2015). An exploratory
study of group development and team learning. Human Resource Development
Quarterly, 26(1), 5-30.