leadership in group assignment

83 Leadership Activities, Building Games, and Exercises

Leadership activities are associated with benefits to business, including increased performance and productivity.

However, perhaps the sign of a truly successful leader is a happy, healthy workplace. Interested in what leadership activities can do for your workplace or school? Read on.

With the activities below, there may be some overlap with activities found under certain headings – for example, activities suitable for adults may also be useful for groups, or with employees.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Positive Leadership Exercises for free . These detailed, science-based exercises will help you or others adopt positive leadership practices and help organizations thrive.

This Article Contains:

What are leadership activities, what are they used for, 8 examples of leadership activities, 4 leadership workshop ideas, 2 activities that showcase different leadership styles, 3 situational leadership activities and scenarios, 8 games and activities for kids to learn leadership skills, 6 leadership development activities for teens and youth (pdf), 3 classroom leadership activities for students in elementary and middle school, 6 leadership activities and games for high school students, 3 activities and exercises for college students (pdf), 7 leadership games and activities for adults, 5 leadership group and team activities, 8 leadership training activities for employees, 5 leadership building exercises for managers, 11 leadership exercises for team building in the workplace, a take-home message.

Increasingly, people are assuming positions of leadership in the workplace (Cserti, 2018). However, the journey to becoming a leader is lengthy (Cserti, 2018). Leadership activities are valuable on the journey to becoming an effective leader , and also develop confidence in leadership teams (Cserti, 2018; Stepshift, 2016).

Leadership activities may be conducted on or off site, and be physical or sedentary (Stepshift, 2016). Leadership activities can either be performed by a leader in their own team, or with an external facilitator (Cserti, 2018). They may take the form of specially organized themed events, such as scavenger hunts (Stepshift, 2016). Or, they may be smaller, office-based tasks built into an ordinary workday.

For example, leadership activities could consist of meeting openers or conference break activities (Stepshift, 2016).

Leadership activities can be an effective way for individuals to practice and strengthen their leadership and team-building skills (Cserti, 2018). They can also be fun!

The structure of leadership activities is essential. It is important that the participants can relate the activity to the workplace setting (Stepshift, 2016).

The working style, principles, and values of a leader is a crucial aspect in determining the behavior within an organization (Cserti, 2018). Leadership training can help leaders become role-models (Cserti, 2018). The behavior of leaders and what they consider the “norm” determines which behaviors are enforced and those which are punished (Cserti, 2018).

Given the importance of a leader’s behavior, it is also essential that they learn skills, such as:

Communication

Leaders need to develop the ability to clearly, succinctly explain to employees everything from the goals of a company to the details of specific work-tasks (Doyle, 2019). Many components are important for effective communication , including active listening, reading body language and written communication such as emails (Doyle, 2019).

Leaders need to inspire employees. They may do this by increasing worker’s self-esteem , by recognizing effort and achievement, or by giving a worker new responsibilities to further their investment in the business (Doyle, 2019).

Leaders can achieve this by identifying the skills that workers have, and as such assign tasks to each worker based on the skills they have (Doyle, 2019).

Being positive helps develop a happy , healthy work environment, even when the workplace is busy or stressful (Doyle, 2019).

Trustworthiness

By demonstrating integrity , workers will feel at ease to approach their leader with questions or concerns (Doyle, 2019). Building trust is one of the most essential leadership skills.

Good leaders are willing to try novel solutions or to approach problems in a non-traditional way (Doyle, 2019).

Leaders are constantly on the lookout for opportunities to provide team members with information about their performance, without ‘micromanaging’ their work (Doyle, 2019).

Responsibility

A good leader accepts mistakes or failures and instead look for solutions for improvement of a situation (Doyle, 2019). This skill also includes being reflective and being open to feedback (Doyle, 2019).

A leader should strive to follow through with everything that they agree to do (Doyle, 2019). It also involves applying appropriate feedback and keeping promises (Doyle, 2019).

Flexibility

Leaders need to be able to accept changes and creatively problem-solve, as well as being open to suggestions and feedback (Doyle, 2019).

While these skills are explained in a workplace context, they can easily be applied to other leadership situations such as sports or community groups.

Now that you have more clarity as to what leadership activities are, and what they are used for, let us look at a wide selection of activities. While some of the activities and games may not immediately appear to be ‘leadership activities,’ the chosen activities might develop and promote the leadership skills outlined above.

Here are eight such activities:

• Sports Sports provide the experience of being a team member and developing leadership skills (Flavin, 2018).
• Cross-cultural experience Experiences with a different culture provide new, potentially uncomfortable situations and help develop communication skills that may not be learned elsewhere (Flavin, 2018). Overseas travel, or working with a different cultural group within your community can provide an opportunity to learn new skills, or may involve barriers that must be overcome – all teaching leadership (Flavin, 2018).
• Social groups Involvement in social activities helps potential leaders develop a well-rounded, confident personality which enhances their capacity to lead a team (Flavin, 2018).
• Internships Taking an internship position demonstrates initiative in finding opportunities to learn and seeking practical work – valuable skills in leadership (Flavin, 2018).
• Volunteering As well as showing ambition, volunteering shows that you are willing to commit yourself to something that you are passionate about (Flavin, 2018).
• Student government and organizations Specifically considering students, being involved in co-curricular organizations help individuals develop leadership (Flavin, 2018). Being involved in student government or organizations can provide opportunities to demonstrate leadership and have an impact on those around you (Flavin, 2018).
• ‘Passion projects’ Showing commitment to a passion for better communities; for example, mentoring shows that you are likely to focus on the greater good for a team (Flavin, 2018).
• ‘Teamwork’ This can be anything at all, from helping out with planning a family event or participating in a volunteer day, will demonstrate and develop leadership skills (Flavin, 2018).

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Effective leaders are aware that continuing professional and personal development is the key to ongoing success (Higgins, 2018). As such, they recognize that leadership workshops are important (Higgins, 2018). What activities can be used in such a workshop?

Here are four suggestions:

Idea 1: ‘Tallest Tower’ (from Stepshift, 2016)

Participants are provided with everyday items such as toothpicks, wooden blocks, uncooked pasta and so on. The task is to build the tallest possible free-standing structure from the materials provided. This activity is designed to encourage creative problem-solving and developing collaboration skills.

Idea 2: ‘Centre Stage’ (from Higgins, 2018)

Select four team members as volunteers. One team member plays the role of an employee who has missed meetings or been late to work in recent times. Each of the other three participants demonstrates a different style of leader (to save time, nominate the particular personality trait). Ask all participants to form a circle, and put two chairs in the middle of the circle.

After each demonstration of how to deal with the employee, ask the whole group to reflect on the different leadership approaches. For example, the group could consider what worked and what did not. Finally, to conclude this activity, ask the group to consider what the ‘ideal’ leader would do in the scenario.

Idea 3: ‘Minefield’ (from Stepshift, 2016)

This activity helps build trust and improve communication skills. It involves participants working in pairs, with one team member being blindfolded. Then, using only specified communication techniques, the pair negotiate their way around or over a ‘minefield’ of obstacles.

So, for example, the participants may be told they are only able to use commands such as the words ‘left’ or ‘right,’ ‘forwards’ or ‘backwards.’ The aim is to help the blindfolded team member to navigate the ‘minefield’.

Idea 4: ‘Magic Carpet’ (from Higgins, 2018)

Provide a small tarp or rug, which has enough room for all workshop participants to stand within its boundaries. Then, inform the group that their task is to work together to flip the rug or tarp over without any participant stepping off. If (or when) a participant steps off the teams have discussed all of the paragraphs or tarp, the team must begin again.

These are: autocratic (also known as authoritarian), delegative (also called ‘free reign)’ and democratic (which is also called participative) (Clark, 2015; Johnson-Gerard, 2017).

An autocratic leader makes decisions without first consulting others, while a delegative leader allows the staff to make the decisions (Johnson-Gerard, 2017). Finally, a democratic leader consults with the staff in making workplace decisions (Johnson-Gerard, 2017).

Here is an excellent resource for exploring different leadership styles.

The workbook also provides some helpful worksheets.

The following two activities help participants think more deeply about styles of leadership. The group should be divided into small groups of 3 – 4 participants. The participants work in groups for the first activity, and then they work individually on the second activity.

Activity One (Clark, 2015)

Provide a list of approximately 10 – 12 scenarios displaying the three different leadership styles. For example, “a new supervisor has just been put in charge of the production line. He immediately starts by telling the crew what change needs to be made. When some suggestions are made, he tells them he does not have time to consider them”.

The group then works together to figure out which leadership style is used in each scenario and to talk about whether it is effective, or if a different style could work better.

Encourage participants to think about themselves in a similar situation and their reaction to the particular leadership style.

Activity Two (Clark, 2015)

Provide participants with the statement ‘consider a time when you, or another leader, used the authoritarian (autocratic), participative (democratic) or delegative (free reign) style of leadership’.

Ask participants to reflect on the statement and make a few comments, such as: was it effective? Would a different leadership style have worked better? What were the employees’ experiences? Did they learn from the leadership style? What was it they learned? Which style is easiest to use (and why)? Alternatively, nominate the style which the participant prefers (and why).

To conclude these two activities, come together as a whole group and discuss what was learned about the three styles of leadership.

Leadership building activities – Project management training – ProjectManager

Situational leadership is when a leader is flexible in their approach and uses different leadership strategies depending on the situation (Johnson-Gerard, 2017). The following three games, from Johnson-Gerard (2017) provide an opportunity to explore situational leadership:

1. ‘Jumping Ship’

The aim of this game is for participants to reflect upon different leadership styles and come up with a list of actual workplace scenarios which would need a leader to abandon a natural leadership style for one that is more effective (i.e., to ‘jump ship’).

Each group is given three large pieces of paper. Ask the teams to write one style of leadership on each (i.e., autocratic, delegative, democratic). Then, allow the groups 45 minutes to come up with real work situations for which employing the particular leadership style would be disastrous.

Ask the groups to place the sheets of paper up on the wall, and to discuss the sheets as a team. As a whole group, review the posters.

2. ‘Who Ya Gonna Call’

Each participant begins by writing a one-paragraph description of a work situation that is not going well. Collect these, and at the top of each page, number them in consecutive order. Then, divide the participants into two teams.

Give each team half of the paragraphs. Then, ask the teams to choose the style of leadership that would be the least and the most effective in solving the problem. Have the teams note their answers on a piece of paper, being sure to identify the paragraph number on the top of each page, and their choices.

Then, ask the teams to swap paragraphs and repeat the activity.

When the teams have discussed all the paragraphs, discuss the scenarios and review the choices as a group. Where the team’s choices are different, discuss as a group.

3. ‘Ducks in a Row’

This particular activity enables participants to devise a 3-to-5 step decision-making process they can use when challenging leadership situations occur.

Ask participants to form pairs. Then, ask them to come up with the steps that an effective leader goes through in order to work out how to manage a difficult situation. After about 30 minutes, ask each pair to review the steps they have come up with for the group, and to write them on a large piece of paper.

Ask every pair to review their process, and after all the pairs have done so, have a group discussion that enables a consensus to be reached about the three to five most effective steps to take in a difficult leadership situation.

Edsys (2016) provides eight suggested activities for children to learn leadership skills:

1. ‘Create a New You’

Provide children with materials such as textas, crayons, poster/construction paper, magazines, and scissors. Then, ask them to draw themselves, using things that clearly show that the picture is theirs – such as using cut-outs of their most favorite things to do, foods they like, pets, and whatever else makes them unique.

Once the children have finished their posters, they can show their completed work to the other children – helping kids to improve their confidence to lead.

2. ‘Same or Different’

The children sit in a circle. Ask the first child to point to another child in the circle who is similar to them, either in appearance, hair-style or clothing color. Then, when the child has chosen someone, ask them to note other differences and similarities they have with the child they have chosen.

3. ‘Move the Egg’

Ask children to form groups of four or five. Then, have the children select a leader for their team. Each participant is given a spoon and an egg. The leader has the task of finding an effective way to move the eggs from one point to another. For example, one option may be for children to form a line to pass each egg along.

Another leader may suggest forgetting about the spoons altogether and merely tell their group to make a run for it. The winner of the game is the group that can get their egg safely across the finish in the most creative way.

4. ‘Lead the Blindfolded’

This game requires a large indoor or outdoor area. Divide the children into two groups and give them enough blindfolds for everyone except one member to put on. The teams are placed at opposite sides of the space. The child who is not blindfolded is required to lead their team to the other side of the designated space, using clear commands.

Ensure that each member of the team has an opportunity to lead their team. The winner is the team that sees its members successfully cross the finish line.

5. ‘Charity Support’

Help children support a charity by organizing a fundraiser. Each child can have a different task. For example, one child may select the charity, another may find a suitable space to hold the fundraising activity, and another child can collect donations.

6. ‘Planning Strategies’

Teach children to divide a large task into smaller steps. Set the children a large task, such as holding a class function. Show the children a plan that enables them to achieve the task step by step. This activity can involve a number of children sharing tasks. Suggest to the children how they may be able to improve.

7. ‘Volunteer Roles’

Volunteering plays a role in leadership. Discuss with children how they would like to help someone in need. Older children may be interested in taking a role in an organization in their community. The children should be helped to select a volunteer opportunity that gives them a chance to practice leadership and work with other children.

8. ‘A Quick Quiz’

In this task, ask students to be prepared to evaluate an experience when it is over. Then, after the experience, ask the child questions. For example, inquire “Do you remember the name of the dog we saw?”, “What was it?”, “Did you touch the dog?”, “What is the owner’s name?” and so on.

This is an excellent introduction to leadership for kids in grades 4 – 6 (children aged approximately 9 – 12 years).

The following resources are appropriate for helping teens and youth to develop leadership:

1. “Leaders are, can, and think”

This looks at what a leader is, and what their role can and should be.

2. “Who do you admire and why?”

This worksheet examines leadership role models and the qualities we see in them that we want to develop in ourselves.

3. “4 Ways leaders approach tasks: Leaders Motivation”

This handout focuses on leadership attitude.

4. “Lesson Planet”

Links to 45+ reviewed resources for teen leadership which can be accessed free by registering your details.

5. The Women’s Learning Partnership

This partnership has created a comprehensive manual for promoting leadership for teens aged 13 – 17 years. The manual outlines a number of sessions which guide leadership development activities.

6. “I Care Values Activity”

This is a fun, engaging and introspective activity . It is suitable for students aged 13 and upwards, so it can be used with older students or adults too.

Examples of such activities are:

1. ‘Just Listen’ (Edsys, 2016)

Make an agreement that you and the student(s) will refrain from talking about yourselves for a whole day. Ask them, rather, to listen to others, and if they do talk to another person, it should be about the person whom they are talking to. This game helps children to learn how important it is to focus on other people rather than themselves, which forms the basis of ‘relational leadership’.

2. Silence Classroom Leadership Game (Stapleton, 2018).

To begin the activity, the teacher divides students into two teams, and the teams move to either side of the classroom. The desks may be pushed aside to create more space. The teacher instructs the students to, for example, ‘line up according to the first letter of your surname’ or ‘arrange yourselves into age order by the month your birthday is in’. The students then follow the directions without speaking a word to one another.

Students are permitted to use hand signals, or even write instructions down on paper. The teacher’s instruction to the students is that they are not allowed to talk. The winning team is the one that completes the task successfully.

3. ‘The Cup Game’ (Tony, 2018)

Divide students into pairs and select one student to be the leader. Each team should face each other standing up, with a plastic cup in the middle. The leader calls out simple directions, such as ‘touch your knee’, ‘close one eye’ and so on.

When the leader calls out “cup” the students should try and be the first to grab the cup. The player who successfully grabs the cup should pair up with another player who also got the cup. Those without a cup sit down and watch.

Once the new teams of two have formed, the cup is put in between the players and the game begins again. This process continues until only one person is left standing – and the resulting winner becomes the new leader… and play can begin all over again.

By high school, students are more sophisticated. Here are some interesting activities for high school students to develop leadership.

1. Brainstorming for change (Stapleton, 2018)

The teacher puts students into groups of 4 or 5. The goal is for students to come up with possible solutions to social, political or economic problems. Working together, students brainstorm both small- and large-scale solutions to a given problem topic.

Once the groups have finalized their list of detailed solutions, the teacher facilitates a discussion with the whole class, and together they examine which of the identified solutions could be a viable option and why.

2. Leadership characteristics (Stapleton, 2018)

The teacher puts students into pairs or groups of three. Then, each group member shares a story about someone whom they consider to be an influential leader. After each story has been shared, students discuss the characteristics that they think made the person in the story an effective leader.

Once each student has shared a story, students compile a list of all the characteristics of an influential leader they identified. Post these characteristics on the walls around the classroom.

3. Blindfold leader game (Stapleton, 2018)

The teacher arranges the students into a single line, and comes up with a starting point and finishing point. Then, the teacher places a blindfold on every student except for the student who is at the front of the line.

The teacher tells each student to put their left hand on the left shoulder of the person in front of them. Next, the teacher says “go”. The aim is for the leader (who is not blindfolded) to walk towards the finishing point, providing instructions to students behind, who are blindfolded.

An extra challenging game sees the teacher putting obstacles in the path – the leader must direct followers on how to avoid the obstacles and successfully reach the finish line. When this goal is achieved, a different student takes a turn of being the leader.

4. Buckets and balls (Cohen, 2017)

This game aims to move all the balls from one box to another. The catch is, team members cannot use their hands or arms. In equal-sized teams, players choose one ‘handler’ per team. This is the only person who can touch the balls with their hands.

The handler must remain behind the start line throughout the game. Team members attempt to get balls from their bucket at the finish line, and get them to the team’s handler without the ball touching their hands or arms.

The handler places the balls into the empty bucket at the start line. If a team member touches the ball, they are disqualified and can no longer participate. Give teams a 5-minute time limit. All teams play at the same time, and the team that has the most balls in the handler’s bucket at the end of the game wins.

5. Team jigsaw (Cohen, 2017)

Two teams have to complete a jigsaw puzzle within a 20 – 30-minute time limit. Give each team a box containing a puzzle. At first, A body will assume that their task is to complete the puzzle. As they work on it, however, teams will realize that the puzzle is missing some of its pieces and has some additional pieces that do not fit their puzzle.

Teams then have the task to communicate with one another, and they will eventually realize that they need to work together to complete the puzzle. Teams are only allowed to exchange pieces of the puzzle one at a time.

6. ‘Sneak-a-peak’ (Cohen, 2017)

Divide participants into two teams. Build a structure out of Lego. Make it complicated, but able to be replicated. Ensure that there is sufficient Lego left to build two similar copies of the structure.

Make sure that this structure is kept out of eyesight.

A player from each team is allowed to see the structure for 10 seconds. Then, the players will return to their respective teams and have 25 seconds in which to give his/her team instruction as to how to build the structure. Then, the teams have 1 minute to build the structure.

When that minute is up, another team member takes a look at the structure for 10 seconds and has a further 25 seconds to deliver their instructions to their team.

This process continues until all the team members have had a chance to examine the structure and provide instructions. The team that successfully built the structure is the winner.

• “ The Leadership Training Activity Book ” by Lois. B. Hart and Charlotte S. Waisman (2005) contains 50 handouts for leadership activities that would be suitable for college students. Find it on Amazon .
• This resource provides helpful leadership tip sheets that are suitable for college students. Examples of tip sheets are “ten keys to effective listening” and “basic confrontation guidelines”.
• Another valuable resource that can be used to develop team-building – an aspect of leadership.

A wide range of leadership activities are suitable for adults:

1. The Marshmallow Challenge

In this activity , teams use spaghetti sticks, tape and string to construct the tallest free-standing structure. They are given one marshmallow, which must be placed at the top of the structure. Devised by Tom Wujec.

2. ‘Stand up’ (Landau, 2018)

This game is convenient in that it requires no materials. It involves two people. They sit on the floor, facing one another. They hold hands, and the soles of their feet are placed together. Then, the task is for both people to stand up at the same time. This game builds trust and teamwork, and also develops skills in problem solving and collaboration.

3. Zoom (Stepshift, 2016)

A set of randomly provided sequential pictures are given to the participants. The task requires participants to put the pictures in the correct order to recreate the story, without knowing which pictures the other participants have. This activity can be an effective way to improve communication, patience, and tolerance.

4. ‘You’re a Poet’ (Landau, 2018)

To harness creativity and reflect on leadership concepts, one activity for adults is to write a poem. This activity can be done individually or in small groups. The aim is to consider leadership in creative ways to find new perspectives.

5. ‘Leadership Pizza’ (Cserti, 2018)

This activity can help adults develop leadership. It does so by providing a self-assessment tool. People begin by identifying the skills, attitudes, and attributes that they consider being important for successful leadership. The individual then rates their own development in the defined areas. The framework can also provide a helpful tool in assisting adults in identifying their leadership development goals in a coaching session.

6. Leadership advice from your role model (Cserti, 2018)

Each participant considers a role model who they admire. They then think about a young person they know. If the young person was to ask the role model for leadership advice, what kind of advice would the role model give?

In groups, discuss and share the sort of advice identified and talk about contradicting points and how they can be reconciled. This sharing discussion may be a practical introduction to the idea of situational leadership.

7. ‘Crocodile River’ (Cserti, 2018)

This outdoor activity challenges a group to physically provide support to the group members’ behavior move from one end of a designated space to the other.

Participants are told to pretend that the whole team must cross a wide river which contains dangerous crocodiles. Magic stones (which are represented by wooden planks) provide the only supports to be used to cross the river (which has ‘banks’ that are marked out by two ropes).

These ‘stones’ only float on the water if there is constant body contact. These ‘stones’ (i.e., the wooden planks) are placed next to the ‘river bank’ – there should be one less plank than the total number of participants. As part of the game, if a participant’s hand or foot touches the ‘water’, it will be bitten off (if this happens during the challenge, the participant must hold the hand behind their back).

The facilitator then pretends to be the ‘crocodile’, keeping a close eye on the group as they attempt to cross the river. When one of the stones (the planks) is not in body contact, it is removed. When participants mistakenly touch the ground with their hands or feet, tell them that the limb has therefore been bitten off and the player must continue without using it.

This activity continues until the group succeeds in getting all group members to the other side of the ‘river’. If anyone falls in, the group is deemed to have failed, and they must begin the river crossing attempt again.

1. ‘Feedback: Start, Stop, Continue’ (Cserti, 2018)

Openness creates trust, which then promotes further openness. This activity is designed to be used by a group that has spent sufficient time together in order to have a range of shared experiences they can draw from when they are providing feedback.

Each participant takes a post-it and writes the name of the person who they are addressing on it. Then, they write on the post-it:

“To…. Something I would like you to START doing is…. something I would like you to STOP doing is…. something I would like you to CONTINUE doing is……Signed: ___________”

In groups of around 4 to 6 people, participants complete these sentences on one post-it for the other participants in their group.

If they cannot think of relevant feedback for one of the prompts (i.e., start, stop, continue), they do not need to include it. Once the group has finished writing, they provide the feedback verbally, one at a time, and afterward hand the post-it to the relevant person.

2. Round Tables (Stepshift, 2016)

Four tables are set up with different tasks. Each task has separate steps that participants can be responsible for carrying out. The group select a team member, who is only allowed to communicate and delegate tasks but not take a part in the task. Each table is timed to record how long the task takes to be completed. Round Tables improves leadership and delegation skills.

3. ‘Pass the hoop’ (Landau, 2018)

This game requires participants to stand in a circle and hold hands. One person in the group has a hula hoop around their arm. The game aims to pass the hula hoop the whole way around the circle.

As well as promoting teamwork and problem-solving, this game develops communication skills. Being able to communicate effectively is a crucial skill for any successful leader to have.

4. ‘Improv night’ (Landau, 2018)

One key responsibility of the leader of a team is to encourage team bonding. One way to facilitate bonding is improvisation. ‘Improv’ develops skills in communication – helping teams to listen and pay attention. It also builds self-awareness, self-confidence, and creativity.

Arrange the group into ‘audience’ and ‘performers’. Then, members of the audience take turns in calling out the specified location, profession, and scenario (e.g., coffeehouse, cop, and purchasing a donut). Chosen suggestions are fun and should promote creativity.

5. ‘Shape-Shifting’ (Landau, 2018)

This game requires a rope that is tied at both ends to form a loop. The loop needs to be big enough for all group members to hold onto with both hands as they stand in a circle. The group is instructed to make a chosen shape (e.g., circle, square, triangle). The group attempts to create the shape on the floor.

Progressively, ask the group to make more complex shapes – e.g., a dog, or a tree. To add another layer of difficulty, instruct the team to communicate without talking – i.e., to rely on hand gestures. Afterward, have the group reflect on their experience and discuss the importance of communication.

Leadership is an integral feature of any workplace. Here are some activities to promote leadership in employees:

1. Your favorite manager (Cserti, 2018)

To begin this activity, employees individually take the role of three different people and brainstorm the particular behaviors that each person’s most favorite and least favorite managers demonstrate, from the chosen person’s perspective. After the employees have had the chance to reflect, the participants compare their list of behaviors – in pairs, and then subsequently, in groups.

The teams then prepare a list of ‘dos and don’ts’ for developing better employee perceptions of the leader’s style.

2. Explore your values (Cserti, 2018)

The values of a leader are reflected in their organization. In this activity, each participant writes ten things that they value most in their lives, each one on a post-it. Then, ask the employees to spread the Post-its in a way in which they can see them all clearly. Then, explain to them that they will have 30 seconds to select the three Post-its that are of least importance to them.

It is essential to time strictly, so that the participants rely on their gut feelings.

Repeat the process, this time allowing participants to have 20 seconds to discard two more values. Finally, give the participants a further 20 seconds to throw another two away. Participants should have three Post-its in front of them, showing their top three important values.

Following the activity, have participants reflect individually for about 15 minutes about what was found, and then to discuss reflection questions in pairs or groups of three.

Because this activity is done quickly, participants are encouraged to follow their own intuition – rather than over-thinking and finding what they perceive to be the ‘right’ values.

3. ‘Leadership Coat of Arms’ (Cserti, 2018; Landau, 2018).

Each leader has their own values and the things that they consider valuable and important. These values guide the behavior of the leader and make up a person’s unique leadership philosophy.

This activity sees participants drawing their own ‘leadership coat of arms’ embodying their leadership philosophy.

Individuals have 10 – 15 minutes to draw their coat of arms. They can divide the coat of arms (or ‘crest’) into four sections. To fill each section, consider the categories of leadership skills, values that help influence others, recent achievements/accomplishments and what you like most about your current work.

They should be encouraged not to be overly concerned with how visually appealing their picture is but rather that it expressed what they personally believe to be important aspects of a leader.

Once the drawings are complete, the participants can show their drawings to the others in the group and explain their unique coat of arms. It is also helpful to reflect on the activity – consider which section was easiest to complete and whether your crest reflects your company’s values.

4. Communication: Coach the Builder (Goyette, 2016)

Divide employees into groups of four to seven people. Each group should be given two sets of blocks (such as Lego). Each set should have a minimum of 10 blocks.

Beforehand, you should construct a sample object (e.g., a house) from one of the sets of blocks. In each group, select a leader, a delegator, a builder and a note-taker. The note-taker watches and records the group’s behavior during the task. They take note of what appeared to be done well and how employees could improve.

The leader is given the item that you built – however, they are the only group member to see the object. Set a timer for ten minutes. To begin with, the leader describes to the delegator how the builder should build a replica of the item. However, the delegator does not see the object, and at this stage of the activity, the builder should not hear the instructions.

The delegator can speak with the leader as often as necessary during the 10 minutes. The builder attempts to build the same item that the leader can see. However, they are only relying on the delegator’s instructions. At this stage, the delegator should not see the object that the builder is constructing.

When the time is up, reveal both objects to all participants and see how closely they match. Finally, to wrap up the activity, employees can discuss what was either frustrating or easy about the process and discuss how they may do things differently in order to achieve better results.

5. Accountability (Goyette, 2016)

Begin a meeting by saying to the group – “the seating arrangement is totally wrong for today’s meeting. You have 60 seconds to improve it”. If the employees ask further questions, only repeat the instructions. While some employees may continue asking questions, others may start moving the furniture around straight away. Observe the team and what they do without giving any further information, feedback, or instructions.

After 1 minute, let the employees know to stop. Then, ask them whether the objective was achieved, and how. Discuss with employees how and why a lack of clarity makes it challenging to complete a task.

Then, discuss who asked for clarification and how they felt when the leader refused to give further details. Use this opportunity to highlight to employees how if they fail to ask questions, and when the person in charge of a project doesn’t provide the necessary clarification, the whole team is at risk of making mistakes or even not completing a task.

Finally, ask how the time pressure affected behavior. Discuss how employees may be more likely to respond to pressure, or stress, by taking action without first confirming a plan and the significant problems this approach can lead to.

6. The “what if” game (Deputy, 2018)

Present different hypothetical problematic scenarios to employees. Either individually or by providing a document that requires written answers, present situations such as “you didn’t follow the rules, and subsequently lost an important client. You have lost a lot of money for the company. How do you justify this? What is your solution?”.

The questions only need to be rough, and employees should only receive a short time with which to think of their responses. If there is a particularly challenging question, provide a time limit of five minutes.

7. ‘Silver Lining’ (Cohen, 2017)

Employees form teams of at least two people who have shared a work experience – e.g., working on a project together. One person shares an experience from working together that was negative for them.

Then, the second person reflects on the same experience but instead reflects on the positive aspects of the experience (i.e., the ‘ silver lining ’). Then this same person shares their own negative experience, and this time it is up to the other person to focus on the positive aspects of it.

Often, when people reflect on an experience, they do so with a particular perspective . By looking at the positive aspects of a ‘negative’ experience, this helps individuals shift perspectives. Furthermore, by sharing experiences, employees develop deeper relationships, and team bonding is promoted.

8. My favorite brand (Training Course Material, n.d.).

Ask employees to bring three or four printed logos/brands that they use regularly or admire most. Then, form groups of 3 – 4 people. Teams have a period of ten minutes to share and discuss their chosen logos.

Their task is to agree upon the team’s top 2 logos or brands which is their team’s choice. The team also selects a team spokesperson who will report to the bigger group about why the team chose the specific brands/logos.

Participants are encouraged to share personal experiences or stories that they had with their chosen brand. After the ten minutes elapses, each spokesperson presents the logos that the team began with as well as their two top chosen logos/brands. It is their role to explain to the group why the team voted on their top brand/logo.

1. Manager or leader? (Training Course Material, n.d.)

Small groups of managers work together to create two tables, one titled ‘leader’ and one titled ‘manager’. In each table, the group writes statements describing either management behavior or leadership behavior.

For example, the ‘manager’ table may contain statements such as “schedules work to be done” or “delegates tasks”. On the other hand, statements in the ‘leader’ table could be “motivating staff” and “creating culture”.

The purpose of this activity is to demonstrate to managers the difference between management versus leadership, and show that while ‘every leader can be a manager, not every manager can be a leader’. However, by brainstorming leadership behaviors, managers begin the process of becoming a successful leader.

2. The race of the leaders (Deputy, 2018)

This activity encourages leadership behaviors. To begin with, write a list of leadership qualities – approximately 10 – 20 statements – on a piece of paper. Describe the qualities – e.g., ‘I determine everything that happens to me’, and ‘I will not blame others for my problems’.

Read these statements out loud, and participants take a step forward if they believe a statement describes them. They must be prepared to give reasons as to why they think they possess each quality. Continue reading the statements until there is a definite ‘winner’.

3. The best team member (Training Course Material, n.d.).

Divide the group into teams of about 4 – 5 participants. Give each team a large, blank piece of paper and markers. Each group has the task to come up with as many characteristics of their ‘ideal’ team member as they can. Teams should consider what this ‘best team member ever’ would be like.

After ten minutes, the groups should examine the characteristics that they have written and work out the portion which are ‘technical’ skills and those which are ‘interpersonal’. The aim is to work out whether most of the traits can be classified as technical or interpersonal skills.

Teams usually come to realize that interpersonal skills in employees are especially critical and that these have a tremendous impact on the quality and quantity of workplace performance.

This activity can be adapted according to the setting. For example, if the focus is on leadership development, teams could discuss their ideal leader/supervisor.

4. The importance of feedback (Training Course Material, n.d.).

Divide the group into three teams. Provide each team with poster paper and markers or pens.

Team A is required to consider as many reasons as they can that would make them apprehensive to provide feedback to another person.

Team B is asked to consider what feedback can help them so, i.e., what feedback will help them accomplish.

Team C comes up with as many things as they can that would make a feedback session effective.

Each team has 15 minutes to brainstorm their ideas, then, each team can present their ideas.

Point out to Team A that the hurdles they suggested are self-imposed ideas that will lead to the manager fearing the worst. Instead, managers should be encouraged to share feedback on a more regular basis to gain the necessary experience in having such conversations. Furthermore, by having an awareness of the most effective way to prepare and deliver feedback can help a manager conquer the issues holding them back.

Point out to Team B that providing constructive feedback as needed is imperative for developing a productive work environment. A feedback discussion that is well-planned and thought out delivers an opportunity to share what you have noticed about another person’s job performance and bring about productive change.

Finally, after Team C has shared their ideas, point out that effective feedback is specific, honest, and backed up with evidence. The feedback will help others to come up with goals, make and reinforce positive changes, promote self-confidence and encourage action in the workplace.

Thank all the teams for their participation and input.

5. ‘Shark Tank’ (Deputy, 2018).

This activity is derived from a famous TV show that gives people a chance to show their entrepreneurial skills. Managers may work individually or in groups. The aim of this activity is for employees to come up with a business plan that outlines the steps of how to build a successful company from ‘startup’.

Once the managers have a plan, they can create a ‘pitch’, which should contain the brand’s name, its’ tagline (or slogan), a detailed business plan, a detailed marketing plan, financial predictions (sales, profits and market) and potential problems (competition, lack of resources).

In a role play, appoint a few chosen managers to be the ‘sharks’ (the ones who consider the projects’ merit and offer imaginary ‘investments’). The winning group, or individual, is the one who raised the most money from the ‘shark’.

17 Exercises To Build Positive Leaders

Use these 17 Positive Leadership Exercises [PDF] to help others inspire, motivate, and guide employees in ways that enrich workplace performance and satisfaction. Created by Experts. 100% Science-based.

1. The Human Icebreaker (Stepshift, 2016).

This is a simple activity that can alleviate tension and promote discussion and contribution. Participants devise a list of questions that relate to people generally – for example, “who is left-handed?”. Participants then discover which team members meet the question’s criteria. After 10 minutes, the participant who has the most answers wins. This activity promotes communication and helps team members build inter-personal skills.

2. ‘Office trivia’ (Cohen, 2017)

This quick activity can help as an ice-breaker and provides a flexible option for team building. Create a list of trivia questions that are related to the workplace. For example, “how many people named ‘John’ work in the accounting department?” or, “how many people work in the IT department?”. Read the questions out loud to the whole group. The employee with the most correct answers at the end is the winner.

3. Plane crash (Stepshift, 2016)

The participants imagine that they are on a plane which has crashed on a deserted island. They are allowed to select a specified number of items from around the workplace that would help the group to survive. Each chosen item is ranked in importance. The whole group must agree on their decision. This activity helps with creative problem solving and collaboration.

4. ‘Magazine story’ (Cohen, 2017)

Each team works together to come up with an imaginary cover story of a magazine, about a successful project or business achievement. The team designs the images, headlines, and come up with quotes.

5. The Human Knot (Stepshift, 2016)

Relying on cooperation, this is a good problem-solving and communication activity. Participants stand shoulder to shoulder in a circle. Then, they put their right hand in the hand of a person who stands across from them. They then put their left hand in the hand of another different person (but not someone standing directly next to them).

Participants are required to untangle the human knot without breaking the chain. If the chain is broken, the participants must start over.

6. Make your own movie (Cohen, 2017)

This is a fun activity that is suitable for both indoors and outdoors. Although it requires the necessary equipment (i.e., camera, tripod, and microphone), teams enjoy it. Employees should work in large groups (more than eight people) and divide responsibilities. Teams work together to come up with scripts for a 5 – 7-minute movie.

7. Radio Play (Cohen, 2017)

This activity can provide an alternative to making a movie. Employees work together, spending about one-hour planning and writing a play and taking a further 15 – 20 minutes to ‘perform’ it, keeping in mind that it is designed for radio.

Each participant places their chair, in no particular order, around the room. The room should be cleared of tables and other furniture. Each person should sit on their chair, pointing in a different direction. Then, request one manager to volunteer and come to the front of the room. Their task is to walk slowly back to their empty chair and sit down.

If their chair is occupied, they can move to the next empty chair available and sit on it. However, everyone else has the task of stopping the volunteer from sitting down.

Only one person at a time can stand and move. No one can make two consecutive moves. A person cannot sit on the chair that they have just left. Once the activity begins, the room is required to be silent. No one is allowed to touch the volunteer.

Give the managers 2 minutes to come up with their strategy. After every round, the participants should discuss what happened and select a new volunteer for the next round. The team is given 2 minutes preparation time each round. It is important that the volunteer’s movement is kept at a slow walk.

At the conclusion of the activity, it is beneficial for the team to discuss the activity. They may reflect upon whether they need a leader, what made planning difficult, whether everyone agreed on the plan, and what would make the task easier.

9. Back to back drawing (Cohen, 2017)

Provide vector shapes on separate pieces of paper (they can be shapes of signs, objects or merely abstract shapes). Participants sit in pairs, back-to-back. Employee A is given a sheet of paper and a pen, and employee B is provided with one of the printed shapes.

The aim of the activity is for employee A to draw the shape relying only on verbal instructions from employee B. Person B cannot only tell the other person what the shape is – he/she is only able to provide directions about how to draw it, or to describe its uses. Each team has two 2 minutes to draw the shape.

10. ‘All Aboard’ (Stepshift, 2016).

Teams use various materials, for example, pieces of wood or mats, to build a pretend ‘boat’. All the participants must stand on the ‘boat’ at once. Then, pieces of the ‘boat’ should be removed. The team should still strive to stand in the diminished space on the ‘boat’. All Aboard can promote communication, problem-solving and critical thinking.

11. Body of words (Cohen, 2017)

Participants are divided into teams of between four and eight people, and each team elects one leader. To prepare the activity, record words that have one less letter than the number of people in the team (i.e., if there are five people in the team, a suitable word could be ‘book’ which has four letters). Randomly select a word, and then the teams have the task of making the word using only their bodies.

Each team member moves and bends their body to form a letter. The team leader can direct their team.

What stands out to me from this article is the complexity of leadership. This article demonstrates that even if one is not a ‘natural’ leader, there are plenty of activities that can promote leadership skills. Even children can develop leadership, and what’s more, have fun with activities at the same time.

What do you think espouses leadership? Do you think that there are people who might tend to be leaders more than others? Perhaps you have a story about a leadership activity you have participated in or delivered – I would dearly like to hear about your experiences.

Thank you for reading.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Positive Leadership Exercises for free .

• ‘tony’ (2018). Leadership games and activities for middle school students . Retrieved from https://www.kidsactivties.net/leadership-games-activities-for-middle-school-students/
• Clark, Donald (2015). Leadership Styles Activity . Retrieved from www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/styles.html
• Cohen, Esther (2017). 31 Team building activities your team will actually love . Retrieved from https://www.workamajig.com/blog/team-building-activities
• Cserti, Robert (2018). 12 Effective leadership activities and games . Retrieved from https://www.sessionlab.com/blog/leadership-activities/
• Deputy (2018). 6 Impactful leadership activities to try at work . Retrieved from https://www.deputy.com/blog/6-impactful-leadership-activities-to-try-at-work
• Doyle, A. (2019). Top 10 leadership skills employers look for . Retrieved from https://www.thebalancecareers.com/top-leadership-skills-2063782
• Edsys (2016). 1 0 Activities for teachers to grow leadership skills in children . Retrieved from https://www.edsys.in/10-activities-for-teachers-to-grow-leadership-skills-in-children/
• Flavin, B. (2018). 8 Leadership Experiences You Didn’t Know You Already Have . Retrieved from https://www.rasmussen.edu/student-experience/college-life/leadership-experience-you-didnt-know-you-already-have/
• Goyette, P.(2016). 3 Leadership activities that improve employee performance at all levels . Retrieved from https://www.eaglesflight.com/blog/3-leadership-activities-that-improve-employee-performance-at-all-levels
• Higgins, R. (2018). 5 Fun and Inspirational Leadership Workshop Ideas . Retrieved from https://www.eventbrite.com.au/blog/leadership-workshop-ideas-ds00
• Johnson-Gerard, M. (2017). Situational Leadership Games . Retrieved from https://bizfluent.com/list-6762581-situational-leadership-games.html
• Landau, P. (2018). The 9 best leadership games for skill development . Retrieved from https://www.projectmanager.com/blog/the-9-best-leadership-games
• Stapleton, S. (2018). Leadership activities for High School classrooms . Retrieved from https://classroom.synonym.com/leadership-activities-high-school-classrooms-7855904.html
• Stepshift (2016). Leadership Training Activities . Retrieved from https://www.stepshift.co.nz/blog/developing-team-performance-with-senior-leadership-teams/strategic-planning-with-an-independent-facilitator/leadership-training-activities.html
• The Pennsylvania State University (2012). I can be a leader! Leadership fun for children . Retrieved from https://extension.psu.edu/programs/betterkidcare/knowledge-areas/environment-curriculum/activities/all-activities/i-can-be-a-leader-leadership-fun-for-children
• Training Course Material (n.d.). Leadership and management activities . Retrieved from https://www.trainingcoursematerial.com/free-games-activities/leadership-and-management-activities

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This great. Thank you

Great ideas, thank you!

Thank you so much for providing such a useful list of activities to demonstrate and for such a varied target population. Innovative and attention-seeking exercises yet practical.

Thank you for posting this informative blog. keep sharing.

Too interesting for me to try all.

Great article! Having group activities Melbourne helps the team to enhance working together. I love how it brings people together and motivates employees to learn from each other.

Great activities. Thank you.

This is an excellent article for every manager and leader tn build successful leadership. Thank you.

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Eberly Center

Teaching excellence & educational innovation, what are best practices for designing group projects.

What is true for individual assignments holds true for group assignments: it is important to clearly articulate your objectives, explicitly define the task, clarify your expectations, model high-quality work, and communicate performance criteria.

But group work has complexities above and beyond individual work. To ensure a positive outcome, try some of these effective practices (adapted from Johnson, Johnson & Smith, 1991) or come talk to us at the Eberly Center.

Create interdependence

Devote time specifically to teamwork skills, build in individual accountability.

While some instructors don’t mind if students divvy up tasks and work separately, others expect a higher degree of collaboration. If collaboration is your goal, structure the project so that students are dependent on one another. Here are a few ways to create interdependence:

Don’t assume students already know how to work in groups! While most students have worked on group projects before, they still may not have developed effective teamwork skills. By the same token, the teamwork skills they learned in one context (say on a soccer team or in a theatrical production) may not be directly applicable to another (e.g., a design project involving an external client.)

To work successfully in groups, students need to learn how to work with others to do things they might only know how to do individually, for example to...

• assess the nature and difficulty of a task
• break the task down into steps or stages
• plan a strategy
• manage time

Students also need to know how to handle issues that only arise in groups, for example, to:

• explain their ideas to others
• listen to alternative ideas and perspectives
• reach consensus
• delegate responsibilities
• coordinate efforts
• resolve conflicts
• integrate the contributions of multiple team members

Here are a few things you can do both to help students develop these skills and to see their value in professional life.

It is possible for a student to work hard in a group and yet fail to understand crucial aspects of the project. In order to gauge whether individual students have met your criteria for understanding and mastery, it is important to structure individual accountability into your group work assignments.

In other words, in addition to evaluating the work of the group as a whole, ask individual group members to demonstrate their learning via quizzes, independent write-ups, weekly journal entries, etc. Not only does this help you monitor student learning, it helps to prevent the “free-rider” phenomenon. Students are considerably less likely to leave all the work to more responsible classmates if they know their individual performance will affect their grade.

To create individual accountability, some instructors combine a group project with an individual quiz on relevant material. Others base part of the total project grade on a group product (e.g., report, presentation, design, paper) and part on an individual submission . The individual portion might consist of a summary of the group’s decision-making process, a synthesis of lessons learned, a description of the individual student’s contributions to the group, etc.

One statistics instructor assigns student groups the task of presenting, synthesizing, and evaluating a set of articles on a particular topic. It is important to him that every group member have a firm grasp of the complete set of readings, even if they individually only present one or two. Thus, he builds individual accountability into the project by warning students in advance that he will ask each of them questions about the readings they did not present. This helps to ensure that students read the full set of articles, and not just the readings they present.

Barkley, E.F., Cross, K.P., and Major, C.H. (2005). Collaborative learning techniques: A handbook for college faculty. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Johnson, D.W., Johnson, R., & Smith, K. (1998). Active learning: Cooperation in the college classroom. Edina, MN: Interaction Book Company.

Thompson, L.L. (2004). Making the team: A guide for managers. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education Inc.

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Many students have had little experience working in groups in an academic setting. While there are many excellent books and articles describing group processes, this guide is intended to be short and simply written for students who are working in groups, but who may not be very interested in too much detail. It also provides teachers (and students) with tips on assigning group projects, ways to organize groups, and what to do when the process goes awry.

Some reasons to ask students to work in groups

Asking students to work in small groups allows students to learn interactively. Small groups are good for:

• generating a broad array of possible alternative points of view or solutions to a problem
• giving students a chance to work on a project that is too large or complex for an individual
• allowing students with different backgrounds to bring their special knowledge, experience, or skills to a project, and to explain their orientation to others
• giving students a chance to teach each other
• giving students a structured experience so they can practice skills applicable to professional situations

Some benefits of working in groups (even for short periods of time in class)

• Students who have difficulty talking in class may speak in a small group.
• More students, overall, have a chance to participate in class.
• Talking in groups can help overcome the anonymity and passivity of a large class or a class meeting in a poorly designed room.
• Students who expect to participate actively prepare better for class.

Caveat: If you ask students to work in groups, be clear about your purpose, and communicate it to them. Students who fear that group work is a potential waste of valuable time may benefit from considering the reasons and benefits above.

Large projects over a period of time

Faculty asking students to work in groups over a long period of time can do a few things to make it easy for the students to work:

• The biggest student complaint about group work is that it takes a lot of time and planning. Let students know about the project at the beginning of the term, so they can plan their time.
• At the outset, provide group guidelines and your expectations.
• Monitor the groups periodically to make sure they are functioning effectively.
• If the project is to be completed outside of class, it can be difficult to find common times to meet and to find a room. Some faculty members provide in-class time for groups to meet. Others help students find rooms to meet in.

Forming the group

• Forming the group. Should students form their own groups or should they be assigned? Most people prefer to choose whom they work with. However, many students say they welcome both kinds of group experiences, appreciating the value of hearing the perspective of another discipline, or another background.
• Size. Appropriate group size depends on the nature of the project.  If the group is small and one person drops out, can the remaining people do the work? If the group is large, will more time be spent on organizing themselves and trying to make decisions than on productive work?
• Resources for students. Provide a complete class list, with current email addresses. (Students like having this anyway so they can work together even if group projects are not assigned.)
• Students that don't fit. You might anticipate your response to the one or two exceptions of a person who really has difficulty in the group. After trying various remedies, is there an out—can this person join another group? work on an independent project?

Organizing the work

Unless part of the goal is to give people experience in the process of goal-setting, assigning tasks, and so forth, the group will be able to work more efficiently if they are provided with some of the following:

• Clear goals. Why are they working together? What are they expected to accomplish?
• Ways to break down the task into smaller units
• Ways to allocate responsibility for different aspects of the work
• Ways to allocate organizational responsibility
• A sample time line with suggested check points for stages of work to be completed

Caveat: Setting up effective small group assignments can take a lot of faculty time and organization.

Getting Started

• Groups work best if people know each others' names and a bit of their background and experience, especially those parts that are related to the task at hand. Take time to introduce yourselves.
• Be sure to include everyone when considering ideas about how to proceed as a group. Some may never have participated in a small group in an academic setting. Others may have ideas about what works well. Allow time for people to express their inexperience and hesitations as well as their experience with group projects.
• Most groups select a leader early on, especially if the work is a long-term project. Other options for leadership in long-term projects include taking turns for different works or different phases of the work.
• Everyone needs to discuss and clarify the goals of the group's work. Go around the group and hear everyone's ideas (before discussing them) or encourage divergent thinking by brainstorming. If you miss this step, trouble may develop part way through the project. Even though time is scarce and you may have a big project ahead of you, groups may take some time to settle in to work. If you anticipate this, you may not be too impatient with the time it takes to get started.

Organizing the Work

• Break up big jobs into smaller pieces. Allocate responsibility for different parts of the group project to different individuals or teams. Do not forget to account for assembling pieces into final form.
• Develop a timeline, including who will do what, in what format, by when. Include time at the end for assembling pieces into final form. (This may take longer than you anticipate.) At the end of each meeting, individuals should review what work they expect to complete by the following session.

Understanding and Managing Group Processes

• Groups work best if everyone has a chance to make strong contributions to the discussion at meetings and to the work of the group project.
• At the beginning of each meeting, decide what you expect to have accomplished by the end of the meeting.
• Someone (probably not the leader) should write all ideas, as they are suggested, on the board, a collaborative document, or on large sheets of paper. Designate a recorder of the group's decisions. Allocate responsibility for group process (especially if you do not have a fixed leader) such as a time manager for meetings and someone who periodically says that it is time to see how things are going (see below).
• What leadership structure does the group want? One designated leader? rotating leaders? separately assigned roles?
• Are any more ground rules needed, such as starting meetings on time, kinds of interruptions allowed, and so forth?
• Is everyone contributing to discussions? Can discussions be managed differently so all can participate? Are people listening to each other and allowing for different kinds of contributions?
• Are all members accomplishing the work expected of them? Is there anything group members can do to help those experiencing difficulty?
• Are there disagreements or difficulties within the group that need to be addressed? (Is someone dominating? Is someone left out?)
• Is outside help needed to solve any problems?
• Is everyone enjoying the work?

Including Everyone and Their Ideas

Groups work best if everyone is included and everyone has a chance to contribute ideas. The group's task may seem overwhelming to some people, and they may have no idea how to go about accomplishing it. To others, the direction the project should take may seem obvious. The job of the group is to break down the work into chunks, and to allow everyone to contribute. The direction that seems obvious to some may turn out not to be so obvious after all. In any event, it will surely be improved as a result of some creative modification.

Encouraging Ideas

The goal is to produce as many ideas as possible in a short time without evaluating them. All ideas are carefully listened to but not commented on and are usually written on the board or large sheets of paper so everyone can see them, and so they don't get forgotten or lost. Take turns by going around the group—hear from everyone, one by one.

One specific method is to generate ideas through brainstorming. People mention ideas in any order (without others' commenting, disagreeing or asking too many questions). The advantage of brainstorming is that ideas do not become closely associated with the individuals who suggested them. This process encourages creative thinking, if it is not rushed and if all ideas are written down (and therefore, for the time-being, accepted). A disadvantage: when ideas are suggested quickly, it is more difficult for shy participants or for those who are not speaking their native language. One approach is to begin by brainstorming and then go around the group in a more structured way asking each person to add to the list.

Examples of what to say:

• Why don't we take a minute or two for each of us to present our views?
• Let's get all our ideas out before evaluating them. We'll clarify them before we organize or evaluate them.
• We'll discuss all these ideas after we hear what everyone thinks.
• You don't have to agree with her, but let her finish.
• Let's spend a few more minutes to see if there are any possibilities we haven't thought of, no matter how unlikely they seem.

Group Leadership

• The leader is responsible for seeing that the work is organized so that it will get done. The leader is also responsible for understanding and managing group interactions so that the atmosphere is positive.
• The leader must encourage everyone's contributions with an eye to accomplishing the work. To do this, the leader must observe how the group's process is working. (Is the group moving too quickly, leaving some people behind? Is it time to shift the focus to another aspect of the task?)
• The leader must encourage group interactions and maintain a positive atmosphere. To do this the leader must observe the way people are participating as well as be aware of feelings communicated non-verbally. (Are individuals' contributions listened to and appreciated by others? Are people arguing with other people, rather than disagreeing with their ideas? Are some people withdrawn or annoyed?)
• The leader must anticipate what information, materials or other resources the group needs as it works.
• The leader is responsible for beginning and ending on time. The leader must also organize practical support, such as the room, chalk, markers, food, breaks.

(Note: In addition to all this, the leader must take part in thc discussion and participate otherwise as a group member. At these times, the leader must be careful to step aside from the role of leader and signal participation as an equal, not a dominant voice.)

Concerns of Individuals That May Affect Their Participation

• How do I fit in? Will others listen to me? Am I the only one who doesn't know everyone else? How can I work with people with such different backgrounds and expericnce?
• Who will make the decisions? How much influence can I have?
• What do I have to offer to the group? Does everyone know more than I do? Does anyone know anything, or will I have to do most of the work myself?

Characteristics of a Group that is Performing Effectively

• All members have a chance to express themselves and to influence the group's decisions. All contributions are listened to carefully, and strong points acknowledged. Everyone realizes that the job could not be done without the cooperation and contribution of everyone else.
• Differences are dealt with directly with the person or people involved. The group identifies all disagreements, hears everyone's views and tries to come to an agreement that makes sense to everyone. Even when a group decision is not liked by someone, that person will follow through on it with the group.
• The group encourages everyone to take responsibility, and hard work is recognized. When things are not going well, everyone makes an effort to help each other. There is a shared sense of pride and accomplishment.

Focusing on a Direction

After a large number of ideas have been generated and listed (e.g. on the board), the group can categorize and examine them. Then the group should agree on a process for choosing from among the ideas. Advantages and disadvantages of different plans can be listed and then voted on. Some possibilities can be eliminated through a straw vote (each group member could have 2 or 3 votes). Or all group members could vote for their first, second, and third choices. Alternatively, criteria for a successful plan can be listed, and different alternatives can be voted on based on the criteria, one by one.

Categorizing and evaluating ideas

• We have about 20 ideas here. Can we sort them into a few general categories?
• When we evaluate each others' ideas, can we mention some positive aspects before expressing concerns?
• Could you give us an example of what you mean?
• Who has dealt with this kind of problem before?
• What are the pluses of that approach? The minuses?
• We have two basic choices. Let's brainstorm. First let's look at the advantages of the first choice, then the disadvantages.
• Let's try ranking these ideas in priority order. The group should try to come to an agreement that makes sense to everyone.

Making a decision

After everyone's views are heard and all points of agreement and disagreement are identified, the group should try to arrive at an agreement that makes sense to everyone.

• There seems to be some agreement here. Is there anyone who couldn't live with solution #2?
• Are there any objections to going that way?
• You still seem to have worries about this solution. Is there anything that could be added or taken away to make it more acceptable? We're doing fine. We've agreed on a great deal. Let's stay with this and see if we can work this last issue through.
• It looks as if there are still some major points of disagreement. Can we go back and define what those issues are and work on them rather than forcing a decision now.

How People Function in Groups

If a group is functioning well, work is getting done and constructive group processes are creating a positive atmosphere. In good groups the individuals may contribute differently at different times. They cooperate and human relationships are respected. This may happen automatically or individuals, at different times, can make it their job to maintain the atmospbere and human aspects of the group.

Roles That Contribute to the Work

Initiating —taking the initiative, at any time; for example, convening the group, suggesting procedures, changing direction, providing new energy and ideas. (How about if we.... What would happen if... ?)

Seeking information or opinions —requesting facts, preferences, suggestions and ideas. (Could you say a little more about... Would you say this is a more workable idea than that?)

Giving information or opinions —providing facts, data, information from research or experience. (ln my experience I have seen... May I tell you what I found out about...? )

Questioning —stepping back from what is happening and challenging the group or asking other specific questions about the task. (Are we assuming that... ? Would the consequence of this be... ?)

Clarifying —interpreting ideas or suggestions, clearing up confusions, defining terms or asking others to clarify. This role can relate different contributions from different people, and link up ideas that seem unconnected. (lt seems that you are saying... Doesn't this relate to what [name] was saying earlier?)

Summarizing —putting contributions into a pattern, while adding no new information. This role is important if a group gets stuck. Some groups officially appoint a summarizer for this potentially powerful and influential role. (If we take all these pieces and put them together... Here's what I think we have agreed upon so far... Here are our areas of disagreement...)

Roles That Contribute to the Atmosphere

Supporting —remembering others' remarks, being encouraging and responsive to others. Creating a warm, encouraging atmosphere, and making people feel they belong helps the group handle stresses and strains. People can gesture, smile, and make eye-contact without saying a word. Some silence can be supportive for people who are not native speakers of English by allowing them a chance to get into discussion. (I understand what you are getting at...As [name] was just saying...)

Observing —noticing the dynamics of the group and commenting. Asking if others agree or if they see things differently can be an effective way to identify problems as they arise. (We seem to be stuck... Maybe we are done for now, we are all worn out... As I see it, what happened just a minute ago.. Do you agree?)

Mediating —recognizing disagreements and figuring out what is behind the differences. When people focus on real differences, that may lead to striking a balance or devising ways to accommodate different values, views, and approaches. (I think the two of you are coming at this from completely different points of view... Wait a minute. This is how [name/ sees the problem. Can you see why she may see it differently?)

Reconciling —reconciling disagreements. Emphasizing shared views among members can reduce tension. (The goal of these two strategies is the same, only the means are different… Is there anything that these positions have in common?)

Compromising —yielding a position or modifying opinions. This can help move the group forward. (Everyone else seems to agree on this, so I'll go along with... I think if I give in on this, we could reach a decision.)

Making a personal comment —occasional personal comments, especially as they relate to the work. Statements about one's life are often discouraged in professional settings; this may be a mistake since personal comments can strengthen a group by making people feel human with a lot in common.

Humor —funny remarks or good-natured comments. Humor, if it is genuinely good-natured and not cutting, can be very effective in relieving tension or dealing with participants who dominate or put down others. Humor can be used constructively to make the work more acceptable by providing a welcome break from concentration. It may also bring people closer together, and make the work more fun.

All the positive roles turn the group into an energetic, productive enterprise. People who have not reflected on these roles may misunderstand the motives and actions of people working in a group. If someone other than the leader initiates ideas, some may view it as an attempt to take power from the leader. Asking questions may similarly be seen as defying authority or slowing down the work of the group. Personal anecdotes may be thought of as trivializing the discussion. Leaders who understand the importance of these many roles can allow and encourage them as positive contributions to group dynamics. Roles that contribute to the work give the group a sense of direction and achievement. Roles contributing to the human atmosphere give the group a sense of cooperation and goodwill.

Some Common Problems (and Some Solutions)

Floundering —While people are still figuring out the work and their role in the group, the group may experience false starts and circular discussions, and decisions may be postponed.

• Here's my understanding of what we are trying to accomplish... Do we all agree?
• What would help us move forward: data? resources?
• Let's take a few minutes to hear everyone's suggestions about how this process might work better and what we should do next.

Dominating or reluctant participants —Some people might take more than their share of the discussion by talking too often, asserting superiority, telling lengthy stories, or not letting others finish. Sometimes humor can be used to discourage people from dominating. Others may rarely speak because they have difficulty getting in the conversation. Sometimes looking at people who don't speak can be a non-verbal way to include them. Asking quiet participants for their thoughts outside the group may lead to their participation within the group.

• How would we state the general problem? Could we leave out the details for a moment? Could we structure this part of the discussion by taking turns and hearing what everyone has to say?
• Let's check in with each other about how the process is working: Is everyone contributing to discussions? Can discussions be managed differently so we can all participate? Are we all listening to each other?

Digressions and tangents —Too many interesting side stories can be obstacles to group progress. It may be time to take another look at the agenda and assign time estimates to items. Try to summarize where the discussion was before the digression. Or, consider whether there is something making the topic easy to avoid.

• Can we go back to where we were a few minutes ago and see what we were trying to do ?
• Is there something about the topic itself that makes it difficult to stick to?

Getting Stuck —Too little progress can get a group down. It may be time for a short break or a change in focus. However, occasionally when a group feels that it is not making progress, a solution emerges if people simply stay with the issue.

• What are the things that are helping us solve this problem? What's preventing us from solving this problem?
• I understand that some of you doubt whether anything new will happen if we work on this problem. Are we willing to give it a try for the next fifteen minutes?

Rush to work —Usually one person in the group is less patient and more action-oriented than the others. This person may reach a decision more quickly than the others and then pressure the group to move on before others are ready.

• Are we all ready-to make a decision on this?
• What needs to be done before we can move ahead?
• Let's go around and see where everyone stands on this.

Feuds —Occasionally a conflict (having nothing to do with the subject of the group) carries over into the group and impedes its work. It may be that feuding parties will not be able to focus until the viewpoint of each is heard. Then they must be encouraged to lay the issue aside.

• So, what you are saying is... And what you are saying is... How is that related to the work here?
• If we continue too long on this, we won't be able to get our work done. Can we agree on a time limit and then go on?

For more information...

James Lang, " Why Students Hate Group Projects (and How to Change That) ," The Chronicle of Higher Education (17 June 2022).

Hodges, Linda C. " Contemporary Issues in Group Learning in Undergraduate Science Classrooms: A Perspective from Student Engagement ,"  CBE—Life Sciences Education  17.2 (2018): es3.

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A local coalition forms a task force to address the rising HIV rate among teens in the community.  A group of parents meets to wrestle with their feeling that their school district is shortchanging its students.  A college class in human services approaches the topic of dealing with reluctant participants.  Members of an environmental group attend a workshop on the effects of global warming.  A politician convenes a “town hall meeting” of constituents to brainstorm ideas for the economic development of the region.  A community health educator facilitates a smoking cessation support group.

All of these might be examples of group discussions, although they have different purposes, take place in different locations, and probably run in different ways.  Group discussions are common in a democratic society, and, as a community builder, it’s more than likely that you have been and will continue to be involved in many of them.  You also may be in a position to lead one, and that’s what this section is about.  In this last section of a chapter on group facilitation, we’ll examine what it takes to lead a discussion group well, and how you can go about doing it.

What is an effective group discussion?

The literal definition of a group discussion is obvious: a critical conversation about a particular topic, or perhaps a range of topics, conducted in a group of a size that allows participation by all members.  A group of two or three generally doesn’t need a leader to have a good discussion, but once the number reaches five or six, a leader or facilitator can often be helpful.  When the group numbers eight or more, a leader or facilitator, whether formal or informal, is almost always helpful in ensuring an effective discussion.

A group discussion is a type of meeting, but it differs from the formal meetings in a number of ways: It may not have a specific goal – many group discussions are just that: a group kicking around ideas on a particular topic.  That may lead to a goal ultimately...but it may not. It’s less formal, and may have no time constraints, or structured order, or agenda. Its leadership is usually less directive than that of a meeting. It emphasizes process (the consideration of ideas) over product (specific tasks to be accomplished within the confines of the meeting itself. Leading a discussion group is not the same as running a meeting.  It’s much closer to acting as a facilitator, but not exactly the same as that either.

An effective group discussion generally has a number of elements:

• All members of the group have a chance to speak, expressing their own ideas and feelings freely, and to pursue and finish out their thoughts
• All members of the group can hear others’ ideas and feelings stated openly
• Group members can safely test out ideas that are not yet fully formed
• Group members can receive and respond to respectful but honest and constructive feedback.  Feedback could be positive, negative, or merely clarifying or correcting factual questions or errors, but is in all cases delivered respectfully.
• A variety of points of view are put forward and discussed
• The discussion is not dominated by any one person
• Arguments, while they may be spirited, are based on the content of ideas and opinions, not on personalities
• Even in disagreement, there’s an understanding that the group is working together to resolve a dispute, solve a problem, create a plan, make a decision, find principles all can agree on, or come to a conclusion from which it can move on to further discussion

Many group discussions have no specific purpose except the exchange of ideas and opinions.  Ultimately, an effective group discussion is one in which many different ideas and viewpoints are heard and considered.  This allows the group to accomplish its purpose if it has one, or to establish a basis either for ongoing discussion or for further contact and collaboration among its members.

There are many possible purposes for a group discussion, such as:

• Create a new situation – form a coalition, start an initiative, etc.
• Explore cooperative or collaborative arrangements among groups or organizations
• Discuss and/or analyze an issue, with no specific goal in mind but understanding
• Create a strategic plan – for an initiative, an advocacy campaign, an intervention, etc.
• Discuss policy and policy change
• Air concerns and differences among individuals or groups
• Hold public hearings on proposed laws or regulations, development, etc.
• Decide on an action
• Provide mutual support
• Solve a problem
• Resolve a conflict
• Plan your work or an event

Possible leadership styles of a group discussion also vary.  A group leader or facilitator might be directive or non-directive; that is, she might try to control what goes on to a large extent; or she might assume that the group should be in control, and that her job is to facilitate the process.  In most group discussions, leaders who are relatively non-directive make for a more broad-ranging outlay of ideas, and a more satisfying experience for participants.

Directive leaders can be necessary in some situations. If a goal must be reached in a short time period, a directive leader might help to keep the group focused. If the situation is particularly difficult, a directive leader might be needed to keep control of the discussion and make

Why would you lead a group discussion?

There are two ways to look at this question: “What’s the point of group discussion?” and “Why would you, as opposed to someone else, lead a group discussion?”  Let’s examine both.

What’s the point of group discussion?

As explained in the opening paragraphs of this section, group discussions are common in a democratic society.  There are a number of reasons for this, some practical and some philosophical.

A group discussion:

• G ives everyone involved a voice .  Whether the discussion is meant to form a basis for action, or just to play with ideas, it gives all members of the group a chance to speak their opinions, to agree or disagree with others, and to have their thoughts heard.  In many community-building situations, the members of the group might be chosen specifically because they represent a cross-section of the community, or a diversity of points of view.
• Allows for a variety of ideas to be expressed and discussed .  A group is much more likely to come to a good conclusion if a mix of ideas is on the table, and if all members have the opportunity to think about and respond to them.
• Is generally a democratic, egalitarian process .  It reflects the ideals of most grassroots and community groups, and encourages a diversity of views.
• Leads to group ownership of whatever conclusions, plans, or action the group decides upon .  Because everyone has a chance to contribute to the discussion and to be heard, the final result feels like it was arrived at by and belongs to everyone.
• Encourages those who might normally be reluctant to speak their minds .  Often, quiet people have important things to contribute, but aren’t assertive enough to make themselves heard.  A good group discussion will bring them out and support them.
• Can often open communication channels among people who might not communicate in any other way .  People from very different backgrounds, from opposite ends of the political spectrum, from different cultures, who may, under most circumstances, either never make contact or never trust one another enough to try to communicate, might, in a group discussion, find more common ground than they expected.
• Is sometimes simply the obvious, or even the only, way to proceed.  Several of the examples given at the beginning of the section – the group of parents concerned about their school system, for instance, or the college class – fall into this category, as do public hearings and similar gatherings.

Why would you specifically lead a group discussion?

You might choose to lead a group discussion, or you might find yourself drafted for the task.  Some of the most common reasons that you might be in that situation:

• It’s part of your job .  As a mental health counselor, a youth worker, a coalition coordinator, a teacher, the president of a board of directors, etc. you might be expected to lead group discussions regularly.
• You’ve been asked to .  Because of your reputation for objectivity or integrity, because of your position in the community, or because of your skill at leading group discussions, you might be the obvious choice to lead a particular discussion.
• A discussion is necessary, and you’re the logical choice to lead it .  If you’re the chair of a task force to address substance use in the community, for instance, it’s likely that you’ll be expected to conduct that task force’s meetings, and to lead discussion of the issue.
• It was your idea in the first place .  The group discussion, or its purpose, was your idea, and the organization of the process falls to you.

You might find yourself in one of these situations if you fall into one of the categories of people who are often tapped to lead group discussions.  These categories include (but aren’t limited to):

• Directors of organizations
• Public officials
• Coalition coordinators
• Professionals with group-leading skills – counselors, social workers, therapists, etc.
• Health professionals and health educators
• Respected community members.  These folks may be respected for their leadership – president of the Rotary Club, spokesperson for an environmental movement – for their positions in the community – bank president, clergyman – or simply for their personal qualities – integrity, fairness, ability to communicate with all sectors of the community.
• Community activists.  This category could include anyone from “professional” community organizers to average citizens who care about an issue or have an idea they want to pursue.

When might you lead a group discussion?

The need or desire for a group discussion might of course arise anytime, but there are some times when it’s particularly necessary.

• At the start of something new . Whether you’re designing an intervention, starting an initiative, creating a new program, building a coalition, or embarking on an advocacy or other campaign, inclusive discussion is likely to be crucial in generating the best possible plan, and creating community support for and ownership of it.
• When an issue can no longer be ignored . When youth violence reaches a critical point, when the community’s drinking water is declared unsafe, when the HIV infection rate climbs – these are times when groups need to convene to discuss the issue and develop action plans to swing the pendulum in the other direction.
• When groups need to be brought together . One way to deal with racial or ethnic hostility, for instance, is to convene groups made up of representatives of all the factions involved.  The resulting discussions – and the opportunity for people from different backgrounds to make personal connections with one another – can go far to address everyone’s concerns, and to reduce tensions.
• When an existing group is considering its next step or seeking to address an issue of importance to it . The staff of a community service organization, for instance, may want to plan its work for the next few months, or to work out how to deal with people with particular quirks or problems.

How do you lead a group discussion?

In some cases, the opportunity to lead a group discussion can arise on the spur of the moment; in others, it’s a more formal arrangement, planned and expected.  In the latter case, you may have the chance to choose a space and otherwise structure the situation.  In less formal circumstances, you’ll have to make the best of existing conditions.

We’ll begin by looking at what you might consider if you have time to prepare.  Then we’ll examine what it takes to make an effective discussion leader or facilitator, regardless of external circumstances.

Set the stage

If you have time to prepare beforehand, there are a number of things you may be able to do to make the participants more comfortable, and thus to make discussion easier.

Choose the space

If you have the luxury of choosing your space, you might look for someplace that’s comfortable and informal.  Usually, that means comfortable furniture that can be moved around (so that, for instance, the group can form a circle, allowing everyone to see and hear everyone else easily).  It may also mean a space away from the ordinary.

One organization often held discussions on the terrace of an old mill that had been turned into a bookstore and café.  The sound of water from the mill stream rushing by put everyone at ease, and encouraged creative thought.

Provide food and drink

The ultimate comfort, and one that breaks down barriers among people, is that of eating and drinking.

Bring materials to help the discussion along

Most discussions are aided by the use of newsprint and markers to record ideas, for example.

Become familiar with the purpose and content of the discussion

If you have the opportunity, learn as much as possible about the topic under discussion.  This is not meant to make you the expert, but rather to allow you to ask good questions that will help the group generate ideas.

Make sure everyone gets any necessary information, readings, or other material beforehand

If participants are asked to read something, consider questions, complete a task, or otherwise prepare for the discussion, make sure that the assignment is attended to and used.  Don’t ask people to do something, and then ignore it.

Lead the discussion

Think about leadership style

The first thing you need to think about is leadership style, which we mentioned briefly earlier in the section.  Are you a directive or non-directive leader?  The chances are that, like most of us, you fall somewhere in between the extremes of the leader who sets the agenda and dominates the group completely, and the leader who essentially leads not at all. The point is made that many good group or meeting leaders are, in fact, facilitators, whose main concern is supporting and maintaining the process of the group’s work.  This is particularly true when it comes to group discussion, where the process is, in fact, the purpose of the group’s coming together.

A good facilitator helps the group set rules for itself, makes sure that everyone participates and that no one dominates, encourages the development and expression of all ideas, including “odd” ones, and safeguards an open process, where there are no foregone conclusions and everyone’s ideas are respected.  Facilitators are non-directive, and try to keep themselves out of the discussion, except to ask questions or make statements that advance it.  For most group discussions, the facilitator role is probably a good ideal to strive for.

It’s important to think about what you’re most comfortable with philosophically, and how that fits what you’re comfortable with personally.  If you’re committed to a non-directive style, but you tend to want to control everything in a situation, you may have to learn some new behaviors in order to act on your beliefs.

Put people at ease

Especially if most people in the group don’t know one another, it’s your job as leader to establish a comfortable atmosphere and set the tone for the discussion.

Help the group establish ground rules

The ground rules of a group discussion are the guidelines that help to keep the discussion on track, and prevent it from deteriorating into namecalling or simply argument.  Some you might suggest, if the group has trouble coming up with the first one or two:

• Everyone should treat everyone else with respect : no name-calling, no emotional outbursts, no accusations.
• No arguments directed at people – only at ideas and opinions .  Disagreement should be respectful – no ridicule.
• Don’t interrupt .  Listen to the whole of others’ thoughts – actually listen, rather than just running over your own response in your head.
• Respect the group’s time .  Try to keep your comments reasonably short and to the point, so that others have a chance to respond.
• Consider all comments seriously, and try to evaluate them fairly .  Others’ ideas and comments may change your mind, or vice versa: it’s important to be open to that.
• Don’t be defensive if someone disagrees with you .  Evaluate both positions, and only continue to argue for yours if you continue to believe it’s right.
• Everyone is responsible for following and upholding the ground rules .

Ground rules may also be a place to discuss recording the session.  Who will take notes, record important points, questions for further discussion, areas of agreement or disagreement?  If the recorder is a group member, the group and/or leader should come up with a strategy that allows her to participate fully in the discussion.

Generate an agenda or goals for the session

You might present an agenda for approval, and change it as the group requires, or you and the group can create one together.  There may actually be no need for one, in that the goal may simply be to discuss an issue or idea.  If that’s the case, it should be agreed upon at the outset.

How active you are might depend on your leadership style, but you definitely have some responsibilities here.  They include setting, or helping the group to set the discussion topic; fostering the open process; involving all participants; asking questions or offering ideas to advance the discussion; summarizing or clarifying important points, arguments, and ideas; and wrapping up the session.  Let’s look at these, as well as some do’s and don’t’s for discussion group leaders.

• Setting the topic . If the group is meeting to discuss a specific issue or to plan something, the discussion topic is already set.  If the topic is unclear, then someone needs to help the group define it.  The leader – through asking the right questions, defining the problem, and encouraging ideas from the group – can play that role.
• Fostering the open process . Nurturing the open process means paying attention to the process, content, and interpersonal dynamics of the discussion all at the same time – not a simple matter. As leader, your task is not to tell the group what to do, or to force particular conclusions, but rather to make sure that the group chooses an appropriate topic that meets its needs, that there are no “right” answers to start with (no foregone conclusions), that no one person or small group dominates the discussion, that everyone follows the ground rules, that discussion is civil and organized, and that all ideas are subjected to careful critical analysis.  You might comment on the process of the discussion or on interpersonal issues when it seems helpful (“We all seem to be picking on John here – what’s going on?”), or make reference to the open process itself (“We seem to be assuming that we’re supposed to believe X – is that true?”). Most of your actions as leader should be in the service of modeling or furthering the open process.

Part of your job here is to protect “minority rights,” i.e., unpopular or unusual ideas.  That doesn’t mean you have to agree with them, but that you have to make sure that they can be expressed, and that discussion of them is respectful, even in disagreement. (The exceptions are opinions or ideas that are discriminatory or downright false.)  Odd ideas often turn out to be correct, and shouldn’t be stifled.

• Involving all participants . This is part of fostering the open process, but is important enough to deserve its own mention. To involve those who are less assertive or shy, or who simply can’t speak up quickly enough, you might ask directly for their opinion, encourage them with body language (smile when they say anything, lean and look toward them often), and be aware of when they want to speak and can’t break in.  It’s important both for process and for the exchange of ideas that everyone have plenty of opportunity to communicate their thoughts.
• Asking questions or offering ideas to advance the discussion . The leader should be aware of the progress of the discussion, and should be able to ask questions or provide information or arguments that stimulate thinking or take the discussion to the next step when necessary. If participants are having trouble grappling with the topic, getting sidetracked by trivial issues, or simply running out of steam, it’s the leader’s job to carry the discussion forward.

This is especially true when the group is stuck, either because two opposing ideas or factions are at an impasse, or because no one is able or willing to say anything.  In these circumstances, the leader’s ability to identify points of agreement, or to ask the question that will get discussion moving again is crucial to the group’s effectiveness.

• Summarizing or clarifying important points, arguments, or ideas . This task entails making sure that everyone understands a point that was just made, or the two sides of an argument.  It can include restating a conclusion the group has reached, or clarifying a particular idea or point made by an individual (“What I think I heard you say was…”).  The point is to make sure that everyone understands what the individual or group actually meant.
• Wrapping up the session .  As the session ends, the leader should help the group review the discussion and make plans for next steps (more discussion sessions, action, involving other people or groups, etc.). He should also go over any assignments or tasks that were agreed to, make sure that every member knows what her responsibilities are, and review the deadlines for those responsibilities.  Other wrap-up steps include getting feedback on the session – including suggestions for making it better – pointing out the group’s accomplishments, and thanking it for its work.

Even after you’ve wrapped up the discussion, you’re not necessarily through. If you’ve been the recorder, you might want to put the notes from the session in order, type them up, and send them to participants. The notes might also include a summary of conclusions that were reached, as well as any assignments or follow-up activities that were agreed on.

If the session was one-time, or was the last of a series, your job may now be done. If it was the beginning, however, or part of an ongoing discussion, you may have a lot to do before the next session, including contacting people to make sure they’ve done what they promised, and preparing the newsprint notes to be posted at the next session so everyone can remember the discussion.

Leading an effective group discussion takes preparation (if you have the opportunity for it), an understanding of and commitment to an open process, and a willingness to let go of your ego and biases. If you can do these things, the chances are you can become a discussion leader that can help groups achieve the results they want.

Do’s and don’ts for discussion leaders

• Model the behavior and attitudes you want group members to employ . That includes respecting all group members equally; advancing the open process; demonstrating what it means to be a learner (admitting when you’re wrong, or don’t know a fact or an answer, and suggesting ways to find out); asking questions based on others’ statements; focusing on positions rather than on the speaker; listening carefully; restating others’ points; supporting your arguments with fact or logic; acceding when someone else has a good point; accepting criticism; thinking critically; giving up the floor when appropriate; being inclusive and culturally sensitive, etc.
• Use encouraging body language and tone of voice, as well as words .  Lean forward when people are talking, for example, keep your body position open and approachable, smile when appropriate, and attend carefully to everyone, not just to those who are most articulate.
• Give positive feedback for joining the discussion .  Smile, repeat group members’ points, and otherwise show that you value participation.
• Be aware of people’s reactions and feelings, and try to respond appropriately . If a group member is hurt by others’ comments, seems puzzled or confused, is becoming angry or defensive, it’s up to you as discussion leader to use the ground rules or your own sensitivity to deal with the situation. If someone’s hurt, for instance, it may be important to point that out and discuss how to make arguments without getting personal.  If group members are confused, revisiting the comments or points that caused the confusion, or restating them more clearly, may be helpful.  Being aware of the reactions of individuals and of the group as a whole can make it possible to expose and use conflict, or to head off unnecessary emotional situations and misunderstandings.
• Ask open-ended questions .  In advancing the discussion, use questions that can’t be answered with a simple yes or no.  Instead, questions should require some thought from group members, and should ask for answers that include reasons or analysis.  The difference between “Do you think the President’s decision was right?” and “Why do you think the President’s decision was or wasn’t right?” is huge.  Where the first question can be answered with a yes or no, the second requires an analysis supporting the speaker’s opinion, as well as discussion of the context and reasons for the decision.
• Control your own biases .  While you should point out factual errors or ideas that are inaccurate and disrespectful of others, an open process demands that you not impose your views on the group, and that you keep others from doing the same.  Group members should be asked to make rational decisions about the positions or views they want to agree with, and ultimately the ideas that the group agrees on should be those that make the most sense to them – whether they coincide with yours or not.  Pointing out bias – including your own – and discussing it helps both you and group members try to be objective.

A constant question that leaders – and members – of any group have is what to do about racist, sexist, or homophobic remarks, especially in a homogeneous group where most or all of the members except the leader may agree with them.  There is no clear-cut answer, although if they pass unchallenged, it may appear you condone the attitude expressed. How you challenge prejudice is the real question.  The ideal here is that other members of the group do the challenging, and it may be worth waiting long enough before you jump in to see if that’s going to happen.  If it doesn’t, you can essentially say, “That’s wrong, and I won’t allow that kind of talk here,” which may well put an end to the remarks, but isn’t likely to change anyone’s mind.  You can express your strong disagreement or discomfort with such remarks and leave it at that, or follow up with “Let’s talk about it after the group,” which could generate some real discussion about prejudice and stereotypes, and actually change some thinking over time. Your ground rules – the issue of respecting everyone – should address this issue, and it probably won’t come up…but there are no guarantees.  It won’t hurt to think beforehand about how you want to handle it.

• Encourage disagreement, and help the group use it creatively .  Disagreement is not to be smoothed over, but rather to be analyzed and used.  When there are conflicting opinions – especially when both can be backed up by reasonable arguments – the real discussion starts.  If everyone agrees on every point, there’s really no discussion at all.  Disagreement makes people think.  It may not be resolved in one session, or at all, but it’s the key to discussion that means something.

All too often, conflict – whether conflicting opinions, conflicting world views, or conflicting personalities – is so frightening to people that they do their best to ignore it or gloss it over.  That reaction not only leaves the conflict unresolved – and therefore growing, so that it will be much stronger when it surfaces later– but fails to examine the issues that it raises.  If those are brought out in the open and discussed reasonably, the two sides often find that they have as much agreement as disagreement, and can resolve their differences by putting their ideas together.  Even where that’s not the case, facing the conflict reasonably, and looking at the roots of the ideas on each side, can help to focus on the issue at hand and provide solutions far better than if one side or the other simply operated alone.

• Keep your mouth shut as much as possible .  By and large, discussion groups are for the group members.  You may be a member of the group and have been asked by the others to act as leader, in which case you certainly have a right to be part of the discussion (although not to dominate).  If you’re an outside facilitator, or leader by position, it’s best to confine your contributions to observations on process, statements of fact, questions to help propel the discussion, and clarification and summarization.  The simple fact that you’re identified as leader or facilitator gives your comments more force than those of other group members.  If you’re in a position of authority or seen as an expert, that force becomes even greater.  The more active you are in the discussion, the more the group will take your positions and ideas as “right,” and the less it will come to its own conclusions.
• Don’t let one or a small group of individuals dominate the discussion .  People who are particularly articulate or assertive, who have strong feelings that they urgently want to express, or who simply feel the need – and have the ability – to dominate can take up far more than their fair share of a discussion.  This often means that quieter people have little or no chance to speak, and that those who disagree with the dominant individual(s) are shouted down and cease trying to make points.  It’s up to the leader to cut off individuals who take far more than their share of time, or who try to limit discussion.  This can be done in a relatively non-threatening way (“This is an interesting point, and it’s certainly worth the time we’ve spent on it, but there are other points of view that need to be heard as well.  I think Alice has been waiting to speak…”), but it’s crucial to the open process and to the comfort and effectiveness of the group.
• Don’t let one point of view override others , unless it’s based on facts and logic, and is actually convincing group members to change their minds.  If a point of view dominates because of its merits, its appeal to participants’ intellectual and ethical sensibilities, that’s fine.  It’s in fact what you hope will happen in a good group discussion.  If a point of view dominates because of the aggressiveness of its supporters, or because it’s presented as something it’s wrong to oppose (“People who disagree with the President are unpatriotic and hate their country”), that’s intellectual bullying or blackmail, and is the opposite of an open discussion.  As leader, you should point it out when that’s happening, and make sure other points of view are aired and examined.

Sometimes individuals or factions that are trying to dominate can disrupt the process of the group. Both Sections 1 and 2 of this chapter contain some guidelines for dealing with this type of situation.

• Don’t assume that anyone holds particular opinions or positions because of his culture, background, race, personal style, etc .  People are individuals, and can’t be judged by their exteriors.  You can find out what someone thinks by asking, or by listening when he speaks.
• Don’t assume that someone from a particular culture, race, or background speaks for everyone else from that situation .  She may or may not represent the general opinion of people from situations similar to hers…or there may not be a general opinion among them.  In a group discussion, no one should be asked or assumed to represent anything more than herself.

The exception here is when someone has been chosen by her community or group to represent its point of view in a multi-sector discussion.  Even in that situation, the individual may find herself swayed by others’ arguments, or may have ideas of her own.  She may have agreed to sponsor particular ideas that are important to her group, but she may still have her own opinions as well, especially in other areas.

• Don’t be the font of all wisdom .  Even if you know more about the discussion topic than most others in the group (if you’re the teacher of a class, for instance), presenting yourself as the intellectual authority denies group members the chance to discuss the topic freely and without pressure.  Furthermore, some of them may have ideas you haven’t considered, or experiences that give them insights into the topic that you’re never likely to have.  Model learning behavior, not teaching behavior.

If you’re asked your opinion directly, you should answer honestly.  You have some choices about how you do that, however.  One is to state your opinion, but make very clear that it’s an opinion, not a fact, and that other people believe differently.  Another is to ask to hold your opinion until the end of the discussion, so as not to influence anyone’s thinking while it’s going on.  Yet another is to give your opinion after all other members of the group have stated theirs, and then discuss the similarities and differences among all the opinions and people’s reasons for holding them. If you’re asked a direct question, you might want to answer it if it’s a question of fact and you know the answer, and if it’s relevant to the discussion.  If the question is less clear-cut, you might want to throw it back to the group, and use it as a spur to discussion.

Group discussions are common in our society, and have a variety of purposes, from planning an intervention or initiative to mutual support to problem-solving to addressing an issue of local concern.  An effective discussion group depends on a leader or facilitator who can guide it through an open process – the group chooses what it’s discussing, if not already determined, discusses it with no expectation of particular conclusions, encourages civil disagreement and argument, and makes sure that every member is included and no one dominates.  It helps greatly if the leader comes to the task with a democratic or, especially, a collaborative style, and with an understanding of how a group functions.

A good group discussion leader has to pay attention to the process and content of the discussion as well as to the people who make up the group.  She has to prepare the space and the setting to the extent possible; help the group establish ground rules that will keep it moving civilly and comfortably; provide whatever materials are necessary; familiarize herself with the topic; and make sure that any pre-discussion readings or assignments get to participants in plenty of time.  Then she has to guide the discussion, being careful to promote an open process; involve everyone and let no one dominate; attend to the personal issues and needs of individual group members when they affect the group; summarize or clarify when appropriate; ask questions to keep the discussion moving, and put aside her own agenda, ego, and biases.

It’s not an easy task, but it can be extremely rewarding.  An effective group discussion can lay the groundwork for action and real community change.

Online resources

Everyday-Democracy . Study Circles Resource Center. Information and publications related to study circles, participatory discussion groups meant to address community issues.

Facilitating Political Discussions from the Institute for Democracy and Higher Education at Tufts University is designed to assist experienced facilitators in training others to facilitate politically charged conversations. The materials are broken down into "modules" and facilitation trainers can use some or all of them to suit their needs.

Project on Civic Reflection provides information about leading study circles on civic reflection.

“ Suggestions for Leading Small-Group Discussions ,” prepared by Lee Haugen, Center for Teaching Excellence, Iowa State University, 1998. Tips on university teaching, but much of the information is useful in other circumstances as well.

“ Tips for Leading Discussions ,” by Felisa Tibbits, Human Rights Education Associates.

Print resources

Forsyth, D . Group Dynamics . (2006). (4th edition).  Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth. 

Johnson, D., & Frank P. (2002). Joining Together: Group theory and group skills . (8th edition).  Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

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CSUN Teaching Strategies

Before you assign another group project . . . . six keys to creating effective group assignments and team projects (2011).

Wendy Yost, Lecturer Department of Recreation & Tourism Management California State University, Northridge [email protected]

Note: documents on this page can be viewed online using free software: Adobe Acrobat Reader (for .pdf files) and Microsoft Word Viewer (for .doc files).

When I first started teaching Recreation & Tourism Management 302 - Dynamics of Leadership in Recreation & Human Services, I knew that in order to meet the Learning Outcomes for the course it would be important to include a group project among the class assignments.

Yet I also knew, that as a student, I hated group projects. I typically did more than my share of the work to achieve a desirable grade, it was difficult to find time outside of class to meet with my classmates and professors weren't always clear about their expectations for group assignments.

It turns out, two decades later, these concerns persist as a recent study conducted on campus confirmed.

Recently 136 students at California State University, Northridge completed a survey having to do with Navigating Conflict in Student Teams. The students identified five contributing factors to experiencing conflict in student teams: Schedule/Distance differences, Quality/Personal Standards differences, Style/Personality differences, Group Size/Roles and Accountability. More specifically, of the students who responded indicated the following:

• 14% of students felt group work was negative because of: Communication Problems
• 39% of students felt group work was negative because of: Timing, Scheduling Issues
• 47% of students felt group work was negative because of: Personality Clash, Conflicting Ideas, Disagreements
• 73% of students felt group work was negative because of: Lack of Participation, Slackers, Flakes, Unequal Work

[Scott, W., Taylor, A., Lemus, D., and Oh, J. (2008, April). Navigating Conflict in Student Teams . Symposium conducted at Faculty Development Series, California State University Northridge, California.]

So as I thought through how to build a more effective, engaging and enjoyable group project, I realized I needed to approach the assignment differently than I had seen it approached in the past.

Below you will find detailed information about a group project that I have administered for the last six semesters along with the various tools that I designed to support the students with the assignment.

To provide further context, I use this assignment in a 300 level required student leadership course that typically includes 35 - 40 (but has included as many as 50) students, all pursuing their degrees in Recreation & Tourism Management.

Each semester, this assignment has been well received by students as a critical learning experience as well as an unexpectedly fun opportunity to get to know themselves and their classmates as leaders.

I routinely receive feedback from students about this group project being the first group project that they ever enjoyed participating in. I don't think their feedback has much to do with the assignment itself, but rather the context created for the assignment and the tools and support offered throughout it.

There are six keys that come to mind when I think of this assignment and what has contributes to its success:

Create a Conducive Environment that Encourages Positive Participation

Group projects always make me nervous. My social skills are not all there, I guess. Although, since starting this semester, getting into groups and participating in activities has been fun and great for networking. I don’t feel as uncomfortable as I have felt in the past with previous classes. –Thomas

This starts with the very first day of class when I review a section in the course syllabus entitled: Appropriate Classroom Etiquette . In it I explain...

Every person in the class deserves your respect. We are all here to learn. Including me. As we move through the semester, you may not always agree with what is being shared. In such cases, please make a point of disagreeing with what is being said without attacking the person who said it. Learning how to give and receive constructive feedback is a cornerstone of leadership. It is also a skill that takes practice. So as necessary, I will ask you to rephrase your opinion or observation in a more constructive way.

There are also several things that I have been told by students that I do that help them want to participate in class: I learn each student's name by the third week of class (including in the class of 50*), I welcome and encourage differing points of view as long as they are communicated respectfully, and I encourage students to share things about themselves with the class in low risk ways. For example, when I am returning papers, I ask that the students to share their favorite ice cream flavor, favorite movie, favorite place to eat and so on. I ask the class to pay attention to what is being shared as they might find someone in class that they have a lot in common with.

*A small side bar on learning names quickly: I tell the students that it is important that they be known by me and known by each other in this class. I ask about correct pronunciation of any names I have difficulty with again and again. I have the students state their name before talking for the first few weeks. I take notes on my role sheet to help remember key traits. I allow myself to make a lot of mistakes the first few weeks, and restate my commitment to learning their names. The students seem to cut me some slack when I mess up given they see that I am trying. I often use appropriate humor to smooth over my mistakes, especially when they occur half way through the semester.

There are several systems for remembering names that you can find online. If this is something you would like to work on, I recommend conducting a brief online search and then selecting a process that will work best for you.

A playful facet of creating a conducive environment emerged organically one semester and has stuck ever since. It is my invoking my Best Audience Ever clause. I explain to the students that they are all going to be speaking in front of the class over the course of the semester and therefore they will want to provide a comfortable atmosphere for public speaking.

I then write on the board that a positive atmosphere includes students who are Attentive, Supportive and Smiling. I write the words on the board in such a way that the first letter stands out and then suggest that doing anything other than being Attentive, Supportive and Smiling would leave them being what the initials spell out. It usually gets a laugh and they usually get the point.

Acknowledge the Realities of Our Students

We know that most of the students in our classes work part time, full time or more not to mention other responsibilities they have on their plates. If you have any doubts about this, ask the students in your class. I was surprised to learn how many students were juggling multiple jobs in addition to school to be able to help their family with expenses. I also found that many students have significant responsibilities when it comes to helping to raise younger brothers or sisters or helping with aging parents or grandparents. All of which take time and energy.

By building in class time for the groups to meet, it reduces one of the biggest concerns students have about group assignments and it allows you to observe the groups in action to assess what additional support and/or direction might be needed.

There are a couple of things I would like to point out about the Sample Group Project Worksheet. I wait until after the last day to add/drop to assign groups. I found that this minimizes frustration of groups gaining or loosing members. Students can still add/drop after this date, but more signatures are required to do so and it is therefore less common. If a group looses a student after they have started their planning process, I meet with them to discuss how to best adjust their project plan. I also adjust my expectations for how long their presentation needs to be and consider the impact of having lost a member mid-project when calculating their grades.

On the days that they gather in their work groups, I take role and then ask them to get into their groups. I bring various resources that can assist them in the their planning process and I serve as a willing resource until the last group leaves the room. Students are able to use this time to work in our classroom, go to the library, go to a computer lab or go elsewhere on campus that might support their planning process.

Sample Group Project Worksheet (DOC, 35 KB) / Sample Group Project Worksheet (PDF, 18 KB)

Clearly Communicate Expectations

At the start of the semester, I let the students know that there will be a group project, and that I am committed to having it be unlike any group project they have experienced before. We talk about what they dislike about group projects and then I provide information about how this group project will be different and ask that they please set aside past experiences and be open to a more positive experience this semester.

More specifically, the students know upon reading the syllabus for class at the start of the semester that I am committed to their experience working on a group project being a positive one, that they will have time in class to meet, that they will have access to me if any questions or concerns arise during their planning process, and that they will have a supportive audience when they do their group presentations.

Group Project Assignment Excerpts from Course Syllabus (DOC, 45 KB) / Group Project Assignment Excerpts from Course Syllabus (PDF, 17 KB)

Consider Grading Individually for Group Projects

I reserve the right to grade individually. This lessens some of the concerns students have about mismatched standards of quality or having to do more than their fair share of the work. It does mean that mechanisms need to be created to assess individual grades (i.e. Peer Reviews, Journal Entries, or the like). Yet it provides freedom in being able to assign grades that are appropriate for the level of work contributed. This method also allows students to gain important skills related to giving and receiving feedback.

A few words on the samples provided in this section. Each student in class completes a Peer Review Form. I draw names for which students will conduct the peer reviews for which groups the day of each presentation. This process keeps the students engaged in the classes being taught by their peers.

If a student feels that there were group members who did not effectively contribute to the planning or execution of their group's project, then they are encouraged to speak up about it in their Student Report (a journal entry) and to submit a Collaborative Learning Form.

If I elect to provide different grades for members of a group, that decision is based on corroborating data from the following: Students expressing concern to me, what multiple group members communicated in their Student Reports, any Collaborative Learning Forms received and what was readily apparent to me and to the peer reviewers while watching the group's presentation.

In some cases, I think the sheer possibility of individual grades has encouraged students who might otherwise slack off, to instead step up, knowing that they will not be carried by their group mates.

Sample Peer Review Form (PDF, 19 KB)

Sample Student Report (PDF, 61 KB)

Sample Collaborative Learning Form (PDF, 17 KB)

Provide Appropriate Tools, Resources, and Support

The ice-breaker was a great way to get acquainted and find out how to best interact with group members – while having fun! –Katie

I found it critically important to hold lectures and discussions on typical issues related to group dynamics before putting students into groups. And provide avenues for the students to express concerns with how their group's progress is unfolding.

The activity that launches the group project is a simple one, and yet it is an activity that come the end of the semester, many students still reference. It is based on Bruce Tuckman's Forming – Storming – Norming – Performing model of group development.

After conducting a lottery to put students into groups, I have them do a small ice breaker (favorite movie or the like) as they add their names, phone numbers and email addresses to the Group Project Worksheets.

I then have them refer to the Tuckman's Forming Storming Norming Performing Overview in their class reader and assign each group one of the stages of group development: Forming, Storming, Norming or Performing. As a group they get to choose how to best teach their assigned stage of development to the class via three of the following possible methods: Singing a Song, Reenacting a TV Scene, Reenacting a Movie Scene, Reenacting a Historical Reference or via an Interpretive Dance. I remind them of the Best Audience Ever Clause: Attentive, Smiling and Supportive and I give them 15 minutes to prepare.

When it is time to perform, I have each group come to the front of the room one at a time, stand in front of their peers, take a breath and look to their peer audience. I have the group members announce which chapter they will be teaching the class for their group project, and have each group member share their name. I have the class clap for them before they actually present their way of teaching Forming, Storming, Norming or Performing.

After each group has presented their material, we discuss both the group development model and what the experience was like for them. I drive home that all groups storm and that it is a natural part of a group's development and therefore to acknowledge it when it happens. I also share that they have now all been in front of the class, spoke in front of their peers (some even sang or danced!) and they lived through it. So by the end of the semester, their group project should be a piece of cake!

The Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing activity was a blast! It brought our group closer together and allowed us to work together and amalgamate our ideas. Our topic was Performing. We took too much time discussing our ideas so when our time was up we didn’t have much of a plan. I do believe that given the time we have to work on the group project we will work together really well. –Emily

Above is just one example with one ice-breaker, lists of ice-breakers can be easily located via a simple online search. You can also visit the Dick Scott Memorial Leadership Library located in the Matador Involvement Center on campus (1st Floor, University Student Union Sol Center) where you can check out books that list thousands of ice-breakers and team builders and how to facilitate them. Some favorites from the Leadership Library include:

• Bianchi, S., Butler, J., Richey, D., (1990). Warm-ups for Meeting Leaders . San Diego: University Associates/Pfeiffer & Company. (BINDER)
• Bendaly, L., (1996). Games Teams Play: Dynamic Activities for Tapping Work Team Potential . Whitby: McGraw-Hill Ryerson limited. (BINDER)
• Forbess-Greene, S., (1983). The encyclopedia of icebreakers: structured activities that warm-up, motivate, challenge, acquaint and energize . San Francisco: Pfeiffer & Company An imprint of Jossey-Bass, Inc., Publishers.
• Newstrom, J.W., Scannel, E., The Complete Games Trainers Play . Volume I (BINDER)
• Newstrom, J.W., Scannel, E., The Complete Games Trainers Play . Volume II (BINDER)
• Pfeiffer, J.W. (1989). The encyclopedia of group activities: 150 practical designs for successful facilitating . San Francisco: Pfeiffer & Company: an imprint of Jossey-Bass, Inc., Publishers.
• Ukens, L.L. (1997). Getting together: icebreakers and group energizers . San Francisco: Pfeiffer, an imprint of Jossey-Bass Inc., Publishers.

Sample Group Project Worksheet (PDF, 18 KB)

Tuckman's Forming Storming Norming Performing Overview (PDF, 45 KB)

Include Opportunities for Reflection Throughout the Experience

I have found that it is important to provide multiple avenues for students to share their experience functioning as part of a group. Some ideas:

• Routinely ask how things are going with their groups
• If the course includes a journaling experience, have the students submit a journal entry on how progress with their group is unfolding halfway through the planning process
• Remind students of your office hours and encourage them to talk with you if they or their group is struggling
• Have students write a reflective paper after they completed the assignment

If a student or students come to me before or after class or during office hours with concerns about their group, I take time during the next class session to ask how all of the groups are doing, what has been working and what has presented different challenges. Students can learn from other groups as to how to function more effectively and if most of the groups are struggling you might find aspects of the assignment that you might consider re-tooling in the future.

Create an evaluation or simply have a discussion that allows students to provide you with feedback on what they learned from the assignment, what could have made the assignment more relevant/applicable and what additional support from the professor might have be helpful.

In closing, at the end of each semester, we spend an entire class revisiting what we learned during our past 15 weeks together. Time and again students reference the group project. They speak to what they learned as a presenter, as a group member, as a peer reviewer and as a learner receiving chapter content from their peers. While there are a lot of steps involved in the process outlined, they have shown to make a positive difference in how students experience group projects. I think one particularly shy student summed it up well...

I just want to thank you for giving me and my classmates the opportunity and the encouragement to know one another so when that time comes to speak in front of the class, I will feel comfortable and ready to demonstrate leadership. –Deon

Related Recommended Readings (PDF, 36 KB)

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What Are Leadership Skills, and Why Are They Important?

Learn what leadership skills are with examples, why they are important, who needs them, and how you can further develop these essential skills.

Leadership skills are the qualities individuals in influential roles possess to direct and complete tasks, support initiatives, create a sense of unity within a team, and empower others. Learn about these key leadership skills and how you can benefit from developing them.

What is meant by leadership skills?

Leadership skills include the abilities or strengths shown by people in management roles that aid in guiding and encouraging a group of people and their team toward achieving a common goal or set of goals. These skill sets include communication, negotiation, conflict resolution, decision-making, and more.

Examples of leadership skills

Take a detailed look at some popular leadership qualities companies may value and look for in a candidate.

Communication

When you work in a leadership position, you must be able to clearly explain everything from expectations to goals and tasks. It is also important to establish open communication between yourself and your team members. Not only does creating an environment of open communication promote cohesiveness as a team, but it often encourages an atmosphere of transparency. Excellent communication considers not only what is being communicated, but how it is being communicated.

As an effective communicator, you do more than just clearly verbalize expectations. You also incorporate active listening, nonverbal communication, presentation skills, and engaging public speaking.

Negotiation

Negotiation involves two or more parties engaging in a conversation to find a solution that is acceptable to all parties. As a result, you and the person you are negotiating with may reach a formal agreement, such as a contract or a less formal verbal agreement. When used as a leadership skill, negotiation can foster a sense of fairness and equality, allowing all parties to be heard. Employees and coworkers may be more likely to feel understood when conflicts are handled with negotiation.

Effective negotiation involves understanding the interests of all involved parties and working to reach a solution that satisfies each one.

Conflict resolution

Compelling leaders understand how to avoid disputes and have the ability to resolve them quickly. Ideally, as a good leader, you should be able to maintain your composure and make thoughtful decisions when handling disagreements. A great example of conflict resolution is a human resources (HR) representative actively listening while working to help a manager and their subordinate settle conflict.

Adaptability

As an adaptable leader, you adjust your behavior in response to situational changes. You are resilient when things don't go as expected and recover quickly from setbacks by viewing them as an opportunity to grow. Showing adaptability in leadership involves being flexible and adjusting to changing conditions and environments.

Critical thinking

Analyzing information to fully comprehend an issue or topic is the act of critical thinking. The steps of the critical thinking process often entail gathering facts and data, posing deliberate queries, and examining potential answers. For instance, if you work in HR and must settle a dispute between two coworkers, using critical thinking skills can be helpful in determining the nature of the conflict and the appropriate course of action. Critical thinking is an important component of decision-making.

Decision-making

Effective leaders make decisions that benefit themselves, their team members, clients, stakeholders, and organizations. Using critical thinking skills in decision-making allows you as a leader to identify problems and develop solutions advantageous to your business and your employees. Decision-making by leaders must always be fair and objective and involve the use of appropriate language when communicating.

Problem-solving

Effective problem solvers in leadership have the ability to foresee issues in the workplace, define the problem, identify their causes, develop a plan to remedy the problem, and learn from the problem to avoid future issues. Problem-solving requires strong communication skills and respect for all parties involved. Viewing and presenting issues as opportunities can benefit leaders and staff alike. An example of this would be a decline in social media engagement viewed as an opportunity to increase social media presence rather than a problem.

Relationship building

The general nature of leadership roles revolves around people. Without understanding the people they are guiding, leaders cannot effectively lead. The ability to forge bonds and establish communities is necessary for an effective leader. A study conducted on relationships in the workplace by Olivet University shows that employees tend to be happier in their workplace when they have a degree of nonwork relationship with their superiors [ 1 ].

Time management

Time management involves planning and regulating how much time to devote to different tasks. Leaders who manage time effectively may accomplish more in less time, feel less stressed, and succeed in their careers [ 2 ]. Proper time management by leadership members affords leaders more time to invest in their team.

Reliability and trust

Trust is the cornerstone of a successful organization. Trust, or belief in another person's skills, integrity, and character, is frequently thought of as something built upon in personal relationships.

Leadership develops best through reliability. Leaders must ensure their words and deeds are consistent if they want to be trusted. If those you lead cannot trust you to keep your word, they will lose faith in you rapidly.

A creative mindset is open, not closed or rigid, and produces ideas and solutions that are both significant and effective. By encouraging a team of people to solve problems creatively, leaders provide the opportunity to develop goods and services that set the team apart from rivals, creating a competitive advantage. Creative leaders also foster an innovative culture by encouraging teams to showcase ingenuity as a unit.

Strategic approach

Leaders must think strategically and critically when making difficult decisions. Effective leadership involves making well-considered and critically-analyzed decisions to lead teams to success. Leaders who are successful will think before they act, or in other words, have a strategic plan before taking action. The time it takes to devise a strategy depends on the problem or decision. A good leader devotes the necessary time to strategy development.

Self-awareness

Self-awareness in leadership involves understanding your own personality, behaviors, and motivations and then considering how these traits and qualities influence your leadership skills. Self-reflection can be a powerful tool all on its own. Self-awareness and reflection can help you realize what you offer to your job as a leader and where you need improvement. Self-awareness entails identifying where you excel and where you should grow—and when your leadership excels, your company's productivity tends to follow.

Who needs leadership skills?

Whether a student, teacher, project manager, or CEO, anyone in a role that involves influence over others and decision-making can benefit from strong leadership skills. These skills can be especially helpful for early-career professionals, newly promoted leaders, and start-up leaders. Leadership skills are essential in roles that don’t even involve leading others as well. These are skills that also help you to exude confidence and may be beneficial in progressing your career into leadership positions.

What makes an effective leader?

While possessing leadership skills can make a leader effective, certain workplace skills or qualities also lend to effectiveness. Effective leaders are respectful, empathetic, patient, motivational, and willing to be held accountable.

When you make your team feel respected, cared for, and motivated, you are more likely to be successful in leading your team.

How to develop leadership skills

To succeed as a leader, it’s essential to commit to continued learning and plan personal growth and development. Becoming an effective leader involves gaining leadership skills and fine-tuning key workplace skills. You can accomplish these goals by receiving coaching or mentoring, gaining experience, taking courses, and enrolling in leadership certificate programs.

Coaching and mentoring

Leadership coaches work with leaders to help optimize their abilities and effectively manage a team. Leadership coaches and mentors act as supportive advisors who help those being coached better their workplace relationships and performance on the job.

Mentorship is more of a collaborative relationship between a successful leader and a leader in training. Mentor/mentee relationships are often more personal and can offer accountability and help the mentee make beneficial connections, whereby the mentor acts as an advisor.

Leadership experience can come in many forms. From playing on sports teams to participating in social groups and volunteering, you can gain experience in leadership in almost any aspect of life. While these experiences may not directly relate to your career, the skills gained from them can last a lifetime.

Courses and training 

For a more formal method of gaining leadership skills, enroll in training courses. This is a highly effective way to develop new abilities, enhance existing ones, and establish the foundation for a successful career in leadership.

Certification

In addition to courses and training, it is also an option to pursue leadership certifications. Through these programs, you can learn valuable leadership skills and earn a credential for your resume ato increase job prospects in your field.

Looking to gain or improve your current set of leadership skills? Consider taking online courses on Coursera from world-class organizations and educators that can help you enhance your career. Take the first step and enroll in one of these programs today:

Leading People and Teams Specialization : Gain important leadership skills, learn how to motivate and inspire others, influence without using a position of authority, and manage teams of people.

Strategic Leadership and Management Specialization : Learn the strategic, organizational, and human relations foundations for sustainable, impactful leadership.

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Article sources

Olivet Nazarene University. “ Study Explores Manager and Employee Relationships , https://online.olivet.edu/news/study-explores-manager-and-employee-relationships.” Accessed March 1, 2023.

Taylor & Francis Online. “ Stress prevention through a time management training intervention: an experimental study , https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01443410.2013.785065.” Accessed March 1, 2023.

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How to Be a Project Leader for a Group Project

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Have you been tapped to lead a group project? You can use some of the same methods that professionals use in the business world. This "critical path analysis" system provides a system for clearly defining a role for each team member and placing time limits for each task. It's a good way to ensure your project is structured and under control.

First: Identify Tasks and Tools

As soon as you sign up to lead a group project , you'll need to establish your leadership role and define your goal.

• Tools for initial meeting: Paper & pen for recorder, large display board or chalkboard for the leader.
• Call a meeting to hold a group brainstorming session where the group will identify the goal or the desired outcome. This will ensure that every member understands the assignment. Ask group members to name every task and tool needed.
• Assign a recorder to take notes.
• Don't try to be too structured during this brainstorming session to give every member an equal voice. Be open to the possibility that one or two people may have several good suggestions, while others may not have any.
• As the team brainstorms, write the ideas on the display board for all to see.

Sample Assignment, Tools and Tasks

An example of an assignment: The teacher has divided her civics class into two groups and asked each group to come up with a political cartoon. Students will choose a political issue, explain the issue, and come up with a cartoon to demonstrate a view on the issue.

Sample Tasks

• Choose person to draw
• Buy tools for cartoon
• Come up with positions on specified issues
• Research individual issues
• Research role and history of political cartoons
• Present possible cartoon topics
• Vote on best topic
• Write a paper describing chosen topic and view
• Write a paper giving overview of political cartoons
• Design possible cartoons
• Vote on cartoon
• Write analysis of cartoon

Sample Tools

• Colored markers/paints
• Paint brushes
• Paper for presentations
• Samples of political cartoons in history
• Slide projector

AssignTime Limits and Begin a Diagram

Assess time needed for every task.

Some tasks will take a few minutes, while others will take several days. For example, choosing a person to draw the cartoon will take a few minutes, while buying the tools will take a few hours. Some tasks, like the process of researching the history of political cartoons, will take several days. Label each task with its projected time allowance.

On the display board, draw the first stage of a diagram for the project path to demonstrate this first meeting. Use circles to indicate starting and finishing points.

The first stage is the brainstorming meeting, where you are creating a needs analysis.

Establish Order of Tasks

Assess nature and order for tasks to be completed and assign a number for each task.

Some of the tasks will be sequential and some will be simultaneous. For example, the positions should be well-researched before the group can meet to vote on a position. Along the same lines, someone will have to shop for supplies before the artist can draw. These are sequential tasks.

Examples of simultaneous tasks include research tasks. One task member can research the history of cartoons while other task members research specific issues.

As you define tasks, expand your diagram showing the "path" of the project.

Note that some tasks should be placed on parallel lines, to show that they can be done simultaneously.

The path above is an example of the project plan in progress.

Once a good project path is established and diagrammed, make a smaller reproduction on paper and provide a copy for each team member.

Assign Tasks and Follow Up

Assign students to carry out specific assignments.

• Divide the work according to students' strengths . For instance, students with strong writing skills may be teamed up with students who research well. Those students can focus on one issue together.
• Meet with each task group as the task is completed.
• As the team leader, you will need to follow up with each team/member to make sure the tasks are completed on time.

This path analysis system provides a system for clearly defining a role for each team member and placing time limits for each task.

Dress Rehearsal Meeting

Schedule a group meeting for a dress rehearsal.

Once all tasks are completed, have the group meet for a dress rehearsal of the class presentation.

• Make sure your presenters are comfortable with speaking in front of a class .
• Test any technology that will be used, such as slide projectors.
• Remind everyone of the importance of arriving early.
• If possible, leave presentation materials in the classroom. Don't take the risk of a team member leaving something at home.
• Finally, thank the team for their hard work!
• Create a Site Map Before You Build Your Site
• Tips for Working on Group Projects
• PMP Practice Questions
• 10 Fun Team-Building Activities for Middle School
• Benefits of Participating in High School Debate
• How To Work on a College Group Project
• How to Turn a Worksheet into an Engaging Activity
• Benefits of Cooperative Learning
• The Whys and How-tos for Group Writing in All Content Areas
• Group Writing Project Using Google Docs
• Teaching Strategies to Keep Struggling Students Working
• Free Inference Worksheets and Exercises
• Understanding Path Analysis
• IEP - Writing an IEP
• 4 Fast Debate Formats for the Secondary Classroom
• Fun Field Day Activities for Elementary Students

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Peer-reviewed

Research Article

Should you become a leader in online collaborative learning? Impact of assigned leadership on learning behaviors, outcomes, and perceptions

Roles Conceptualization, Methodology, Supervision, Writing – original draft

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliation Faculty of Artificial Intelligence in Education, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China

Roles Formal analysis, Visualization, Writing – original draft

Roles Formal analysis

Roles Formal analysis, Investigation

Affiliation Affiliated Elementary School of Hubei University, Wuhan, China

• Heng Luo, 
• Xu Han, 
• Ying Chen, 
• Yanjiao Nie

• Published: April 7, 2022
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0266653
• Peer Review
• Reader Comments

The growing prevalence of collaborative learning spaces in higher education highlights the importance of student leadership for group learning. Thus, leadership assignment as a common practice in online collaborative learning merits special attention. To investigate the impact of assigned leadership and its key characteristics in promoting team learning in the online context, a semester-long quasi-experiment was conducted with 94 students in a graduate-level blended course. The results revealed significant differences between assigned leaders and group members in certain participating behaviors. However, the impact of assigned leadership on learning outcomes and perceptions was insubstantial. Additionally, student leaders’ academic achievement was found to have little impact on group members’ learning behaviors and learning outcomes, and mixed results were reported regarding the influence of leader behaviors on group performance. The research findings can inform the crucial decision of leader selection and extend our understanding of leadership in online collaborative learning.

Citation: Luo H, Han X, Chen Y, Nie Y (2022) Should you become a leader in online collaborative learning? Impact of assigned leadership on learning behaviors, outcomes, and perceptions. PLoS ONE 17(4): e0266653. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0266653

Editor: Rong Zhu, Flinders University, AUSTRALIA

Received: November 10, 2021; Accepted: March 25, 2022; Published: April 7, 2022

Copyright: © 2022 Luo et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: The research data are available from the Mendeley Data database, and can be accessed openly at https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/797wsfgppy/1 .

Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

Research on leadership is prevalent in the domains of organization and management science, where chief executive officers (CEOs) and managers are commonly investigated leadership roles [ 1 – 3 ]. More recently, researchers have shifted their attention to the context of computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL), where students are divided into groups for collaborative knowledge construction and problem solving [ 4 , 5 ]. In particular, the importance of leadership has been emphasized in the context of online collaborative learning, due to its great demand on learner autonomy and social interactions [ 5 – 7 ].

The literature has investigated student leadership in online collaborative learning from various perspectives, including effective leadership behaviors [ 8 , 9 ], distinctive leadership styles [ 10 ], moderation effect of learning task [ 11 , 12 ], leadership emergence and distribution [ 7 , 13 , 14 ], and effectiveness of peer-led group learning [ 15 , 16 ].

While prior findings have deepened our understanding of online leadership, most studies examined its impact from a holistic perspective, focusing on group-level performance and experience rather than individual differences between leaders and members within groups. Consequently, an ethical question remains unanswered: Does the leadership role bring unique benefits to student leaders and make them advantageous over group members in online collaborative learning? Additionally, since high-achieving students are more likely to assume leadership roles in collaborative learning [ 17 ], this question of equity becomes more relevant, prompting us to investigate the impact of leadership assignment on online learning behaviours, outcomes, and perceptions in the present study.

Review of relevant literature

Definition and classification of leadership.

Despite being important for collaborative knowledge building and problem solving [ 18 , 19 ], leadership lacks a universally accepted definition in literature. There are three main perspectives on the nature of leadership: a social status within a group with featured responsibilities [ 20 ], a combination of capabilities to satisfy a group’s needs and achieve shared goals [ 10 ], and a dynamic social process to solve problems through social interaction and resources management [ 21 ]. In this study, we refer to leadership as a social status, but critically examine the emergence and impact of such a social status from the perspectives of capabilities and social processes.

Based on how leadership status is obtained or emerged in the process of collaboration, we classified leadership into three types. The first type is assigned leadership. As its name suggests, leader status is granted from top to bottom. In general, it is believed that official appointments can motivate leaders to perform their leading duties (e.g., facilitate collaboration) more actively, resulting in better team performance [ 16 , 22 ]. Yet, Bacon et al. [ 23 ] cautioned that random assignment of leadership is highly subjective to chance, and thus, the effects of assigned leadership cannot be guaranteed. Due to its operational convenience, assigned leadership is most commonly practiced in the management process [ 24 , 25 ], and is more frequently investigated in the literature [ 10 , 11 ].

The second type is emerged leadership. Unlike assigned leadership, this type is formulated in a bottom-up fashion and emerges spontaneously without official assignment. There are two preconditions for its occurrence: 1) the absence of an assigned leader or the negligence of the assigned leader, and 2) the presence of group members with strong working and organizational capabilities [ 13 , 26 ]. It is found that members with high intelligence, active participation, and positive self-views are more likely to emerge as leaders [ 7 , 13 , 27 ].

The third type of leadership is distributed leadership, in which the duties of the leader are shared among several members within the group [ 28 – 30 ]. In this scenario, several members volunteer to undertake partial duties based on their specific skill sets [ 27 , 28 ]. Consequently, the boundary of distributed leadership is vaguer and more inclusive, allowing the benefits of leadership status to be shared among more people [ 31 , 32 ].

Leadership in online collaborative learning

Most research studies on leadership in online collaborative learning focus on how leadership promotes group performance. Koeslag-Kreunen et al. [ 11 ] conducted a meta-analysis with 43 empirical studies and concluded that leadership is an essential factor to facilitate team learning in terms of engagement and performance, regardless of the leadership source and style. Exemplary performance and positive comments from leaders have been found to promote group morale and confidence [ 33 ], supporting the close association between collective self-efficacy and effective modelling [ 34 ]. Additionally, competent leaders can promote peer interaction and a harmonious learning atmosphere, two essential conditions for group cohesion, which in turn leads to improved academic performance and learning satisfaction [ 6 , 35 ].

Compared to group learning performance, leadership studies on individual performance within groups are limited. A few researchers investigated the influence of leadership status on student leaders themselves, particularly their learning performance in terms of behavioral, cognitive, and emotional engagement. Research findings show that leader role was associated with enhanced behavioral engagement, indicated by more frequent login and posting behaviors [ 22 ]. Moreover, student leaders were found to be more cognitively active than other members in online discussions [ 16 ]. Lastly, student leaders also demonstrated higher emotional engagement featured by a sense of ownership, enhanced motivation, and greater self-efficacy [ 17 , 22 , 36 ].

Compared to student leaders, few studies focus exclusively on the individual performance of group members. Since group performance is usually leader-driven [ 10 , 11 ], problematic member performance often gets hidden under the strong leader performance. Scanty evidence was reported on member reaction to leadership in online collaborative learning, including collective development of higher-order thinking [ 37 – 39 ] and reduced sense of insecurity [ 40 ]. According to Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) theory, relationship between the leaders and members is mutual, and member traits such as extraversion and agreeableness are important predictors of leadership effectiveness and LMX quality [ 41 , 42 ].

Research gaps and research questions

While there has been a growing body of research on student leadership in online collaborative learning, several gaps exist in the literature that undermine the credibility and interpretability of the research findings. First, the complexity of leadership construct has not been properly addressed. Various theoretical classifications of leadership exist because of the distinction in its conceptual nature, acquisition mechanism, and object of influence. However, such distinction has been inadequately analyzed in empirical studies, resulting in oversimplified research findings that lack theoretical sophistication.

Second, the influences of leadership on leaders and members in online collaborative learning have often been investigated separately, without correlational analysis of their interplay. For example, Burke et al. [ 10 ] limited their investigation of essential behaviors and learning outcomes to student leaders only, while Rourke and Anderson [ 39 ] explored the collective benefits of leadership (e.g., group cohesion and engagement) without role-specific comparative analysis.

Lastly, in assessing the treatment effects of leadership in online collaborative learning, many studies lacked a sufficient duration of investigation. For example, Choi et al. [ 33 ] admitted that the findings based on 5-day temporary training groups were not persuasive enough. Yilmaz et al. [ 43 ] further argued that poor group cohesion caused by insufficient study duration can coexist with leadership effects. Furthermore, time constraints also limit the number and complexity of online learning tasks, leading to reduced generalizability of research findings [ 12 , 44 ].

To address the above limitations, this study investigated the impact of assigned leadership on the learning performance and experience between assigned leaders and group members during a 12-week blended course. The primary purpose of the present study is to uncover the unique learning benefits associated with the assigned leadership role and explore how those benefits change over time and with varying learning tasks. Additionally, this study seeks to identify the key characteristics of assigned leadership to promote group performance. More specifically, the following questions guided our research inquiry:

• What is the impact of assigned leadership on student performance in online collaborative learning in terms of behaviors, outcomes, and perceptions? What are the influencing factors?
• What are the key characteristics of assigned leadership that can effectively promote group learning performance in online collaborative learning?

Ethics statement

The research study was conducted in accordance with the ethical standards of the Helsinki Declaration. The research procedures and instruments were reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board of Central China Normal University (CCNU-IRB-201909021, approved on 2019/09/16). Written informed consent forms were obtained from all participants before the study. All participants were made aware that their participation in the study was voluntary, and their personal identifiable information would be kept anonymous at all publications and presentations. Participants can withdraw from the research study anytime, without penalty.

Participants and research context

A total of 94 graduate students from a research university in central China participated in this quasi-experimental study during the 2019 fall semester. The participant group comprised 86 women and 8 men. They were all first-year students admitted to a graduate program of educational technology, with an average age of 23.6 (ranging from 21 to 25). The study was implemented in a blended course called instructional design and case analysis, which lasted for 12 academic weeks. Students were required to apply teaching and learning theories to solve authentic instructional problems through group activities such as case analysis, online discussion, and collective reflection. This course was selected for investigating the research topic due to its complexity and ill-structured nature, which are known to promote collaborative learning and group interaction [ 4 , 14 ]. All participants took the blended course for the first time, with no prior blended or online learning experiences.

In the first class, the participants were randomly assigned into 24 groups (22 groups of four and 2 groups of three). In each group, a group leader role was randomly assigned to one student using Excel’s RAND function. Consequently, there were a total of 24 assigned group leaders (1 man and 23 women) and 70 group members. After random assignment, student leaders were made aware of their three main leadership responsibilities: (1) informing and reminding group members of the learning tasks, (2) encouraging group members to participate in online discussion, and (3) coordinating group assignment completion. The leadership responsibilities were recommended but not mandatory, and would not affect student leaders’ final course grade.

The blended course comprised 12 face-to-face lecture sessions and weekly online discussions. The lecture sessions were organized to cover key topics of instructional design (ID) in the following sequence: front-end analysis (3 weeks), design and development (3 weeks), implementation and evaluation (3 weeks), course review (2 weeks), and final exam (1 week). After each lecture session, students participated in three types of CSCL activities in a Moodle-based discussion forum ( https://www.wolearn.org/ ). These included (1) reading discussions, where students shared their notes and thoughts from assigned reading materials (e.g., textbook chapter, journal articles), (2) case analysis, in which students worked in groups to analyze and solve a given ID case problem, and (3) group reflection, where students jointly reflected on their learning experience in the current instructional unit. A sub-forum was created for each weekly activity, but students could continue to post in the sub-forum when the activity was past due. In addition to group discussion forums, we also included a whole-class forum to allow both within-group and between-group discussions.

The overall research procedure is illustrated in Fig 1 . The online collaborative activities occurred primarily in the first 9 weeks of the course and were grouped into three instructional units based on the topic. Each unit consisted of three types of weekly tasks: reading discussion, case analysis, and group reflection. At the end of each instructional unit, each student group was required to submit a case analysis report indicating the key issues of and the best solution to the given case problem. Each student was also required to submit a learning experience questionnaire (LEQ) to rate their perceived online learning experience during the instructional unit. Additionally, students’ learning behaviors in the discussion forum were dynamically captured in the forum logfiles and databases. In the last week, students individually participated in a 90-minute paper-based closed exam and submitted the final group assignment as assessments of individual learning and group learning outcomes. The LEQ was administered for the fourth time in Week 12 to collect students’ overall perception of online collaborative learning during the course.

• PPT PowerPoint slide
• PNG larger image
• TIFF original image

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0266653.g001

Data collection methods

Three types of quantitative data were collected in this study to measure students’ learning behaviors, learning outcomes, and learning perception. The variables and their operations, data sources, and collecting instruments are listed in Table 1 .

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0266653.t001

Learning behaviors were measured by the number of course login, forum views, posts created, posts replied, and total words of all posted content, which were key indicators of behavioral engagement. The behavioral data were captured automatically by the course platform in its logfiles and database forms.

Learning outcomes were measured by the grading scores of the final exam and final group assignment. Both instruments were developed by course instructors with their validity verified through three cycles of course iterations (2016–2017). The final exam comprised two parts: 15 objective test items accounting for 40 points and two subjective items (i.e., analysis and application), accounting for 60 points. The final group assignment required students to identify an instructional problem and provide an ID report as a group with a detailed analysis and solution proposal. The grading of the subjective test items and ID report was based on four assessment criteria suggested by Reigeluth and Frick [ 45 ]: relevance, comprehensiveness, depth, and theoretical underpinning. To ensure the accuracy of the grading results, two researchers rated the subjective test items and the ID report independently after reaching a good inter-rater reliability (Spearman’s Rho > 0.9) through training. The mean scores of the two raters were used as the final grading scores. It is important to note that the test scores measure individual learning outcomes, while the report rating, based on the group assignment, measures the group learning performance.

Learning perception was measured by the mean score of LEQ, which comprised nine five-point Likert scale items regarding students’ collaborative learning experience (see S1 Appendix ) and was administered four times during the research process. The Cronbach’s α values computed from the four LEQ datasets were 0.839, 0.881, 0.864, and 0.936, respectively, indicating good internal reliability.

Data analysis methods

One-way ANOVA was used to analyze the grading scores and behavioral data as they fit the assumptions of normality and homogeneity of variance. A non-parametric test (Mann-Whitney U) was conducted with the LEQ ratings, which are ordinal data in nature. Furthermore, a correlation analysis was employed to explore the relationships between leadership characteristics and group performance in online collaborative learning. Because the normality assumption was satisfied for most behavior and outcome variables, we selected Pearson’s r as the correlational coefficient.

Additionally, social network analysis was conducted to examine the patterns of social interaction, as it is considered “an appropriate method for revealing relational structures that arise from CSCL interactions.” [ 46 ]. We are particularly interested in network density as a global measure to describe group cohesion during online collaborative learning. A denser network indicates a higher level of group participation and collaboration [ 22 ].

We also performed a qualitative analysis of selected student leaders and members to enable triangulation and meaningful interpretation of the statistical results. Six student groups were purposefully selected as cases of interest due to their typicality or idiosyncrasy of group dynamics and performance. They were subjected to further qualitative analysis using the coding methods described by Saldaña [ 47 ] (e.g., process coding, emotion coding, and taxonomic coding). In particular, the sequential interactions within the discussion groups were visually demonstrated, and the text contents of all posts were thematically analyzed and classified. The qualitative results provide justification and elucidation of the quantitative findings and reveal hidden trends and patterns regarding various types of leadership in CSCL.

Overall social learning pattern

The variation in network density revealed several interesting findings regarding the overall social learning patterns in the blended course. As shown in Fig 2 , the density of class interaction in the discussion forum fluctuated drastically throughout the course, with three peaks emerging in Weeks 3, 5, and 8. Unlike Unit 1, which reported the highest density during the weekly activity of group reflection, the other two instructional units both witnessed a surge of density during the weekly activity of case analysis. Moreover, there appears to be a reverse U-shaped relationship between density and time. The overall density of class interaction during the middle phase of the semester was higher than that in the early and later phases. It should also be noted that the overall density remained at a low level (ρ < 0.01) despite changes over time, indicating relatively poor group cohesion and online collaboration.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0266653.g002

Difference in learning behavior

We compared five types of learning behaviors between assigned leaders and group members during nine weeks of online learning and plotted the means in Fig 3 . In general, student leaders surpassed group members in the behaviors of course login, forum viewing, and posting. This suggests the effectiveness of assigned leadership in promoting certain learning behaviors. Moreover, the type of learning tasks seems to influence the variance in learning behaviors, as significant behavioral differences were only identified in Weeks 2, 5, and 8, where students engaged in the weekly activity of case analysis. Interestingly, no major differences were found in the behaviors of replying and total words, as assigned leaders and group members demonstrated similar behavioral patterns throughout the course.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0266653.g003

Difference in learning outcome

Fig 4 displays three types of mean scores, obtained by assigned leaders and group members in the final exam, as their learning outcomes: objective test scores, subjective test scores, and total test scores. In general, the difference in learning outcome seemed to be insubstantial. Despite the 2.13 margin, one-way ANOVA results revealed no significant difference in students’ total test scores and group members even obtained slightly higher scores in the subjective test. The only statistically significant mean difference (MD) was identified with the objective test scores (MD = 2.28, F = 4.035, p = 0.048 < 0.05), suggesting that the assigned student leaders may have a slight advantage over group members in online learning outcomes.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0266653.g004

Difference in learning perception

The mean LEQ ratings throughout the semester for assigned leaders and group members are shown in Fig 5 . All ratings ranged between 4 and 4.5, on a five-point Likert scale and demonstrated a gentle ascending pattern. This suggests a positive and consistently improving learning perception of online collaborative learning for all students. Furthermore, the Mann-Whitney U test revealed no significant difference in the mean LEQ ratings between leaders and members in the four surveys, indicating that assigned leadership does not necessarily lead to enhanced learning perception. Despite the overall similitude of learning perception, further analysis has identified only one item that received significantly higher ratings from student leaders: No . 4 : I have promoted collaboration within the group . This item measures students’ sense of ownership in the online collaborative learning.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0266653.g005

Leader characteristics and group performance

To identify the essential leader characteristics that effectively predict member performance in online collaborative learning, we calculated the Pearson’s r coefficients between assigned leaders and group members in terms of learning behaviors (i.e., login, forum view, post, reply, total words) and learning outcomes (i.e., test score and report rating). The results are presented in Table 2 . In general, leaders’ behavioral engagement had little impact on members’ learning behaviors, with the action of replying being the only exception. Leaders’ replying behavior was found to strongly correlate with that of the members (r = 0.6), and moderately affected the members’ forum viewing and posting behaviors (r = 0.49 and 0.47). Interestingly, the leader behaviors of login and forum viewing even adversely affected member performance in the final exam (r = −0.56 and −0.58). Moreover, the academic achievement of assigned leaders appeared to be an irrelevant predictor of member performance in CSCL, as the final test scores of the student leaders were found to be unrelated to the learning behaviors and test scores of the group members. Nonetheless, the influence of student leaders on collaborative performance should not be ignored, as their learning behaviors and learning outcomes effectively predict the quality ratings of the group assignment (for all paired variables, r > 0.5).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0266653.t002

Emerged and distributed leadership

In this study, the leader status was randomly assigned regardless of students’ academic achievement, self-efficacy, and willingness to lead. A closer look at the social interactions within each group revealed two additional types of leadership: emerged leadership and distributed leadership. In these two types of leadership, the functional identity of a group leader was not appointed, but rather acquired through commanding presence and contributing behaviors over time.

Fig 6 illustrates two examples of emerged leadership identified in Group N (five threads) and Group K (one thread). In Fig 6 , the posts created by the instructor and the students are represented in oval and rectangular shapes, and the linking arrows show the number and sources of the replies received. The dates of posting and coded instructional functions are assigned to each post to indicate the sequence and nature of peer interactions.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0266653.g006

As shown in Fig 6 , student N10 is considered an emerged leader who demonstrated leading behaviors more frequently than the assigned leader (N21) during the weekly discussion. In addition to answering the required questions posted by the instructor, N10 took initiative to post additional questions for discussion and encouraged other students to participate in humorous and supporting comments. For example, when no one responded to a question posted by herself, N10 jokingly remarked, “I guess I will just have to answer my own question then.” When someone answered the question, N10 promptly offered her gratitude and compliments. In contrast, the assigned leader, N21, participated passively with only three replies. Further, we noticed that high-achieving students were more likely to acquire leader status during online collaboration through substantial cognitive contribution. A typical example is student K40, who contributed enormously to a thread of discussion by providing reflective questions, quality insights, critical evaluation, and supplementary resources.

The two examples shown in Fig 6 were rare cases in online collaborative learning where assigned leaders failed to fulfil their responsibilities. More commonly, we noticed the phenomenon of distributed leadership featured by the concurrent presence of both assigned and emerged leaders in one group. Assigned leaders demonstrated more coordinating behaviors such as posting questions, sending out reminders, and synthesizing viewpoints, while emerged leaders engaged with more socio-cognitive activities such as replying, sharing, emotional recognition, and evaluation. Additionally, we noticed that distributed leadership tended to occur in groups with multiple high-achieving students.

Discussion and perspectives

In contrast to earlier findings regarding the various advantages associated with leadership status [ 16 , 22 , 36 ], this study indicates only conditional benefits of assigned leadership in increasing participating behaviors such as login, viewing, and posting during the weekly task of case analysis. The fact that the reading and reflection tasks witnessed no significant behavioral increase among assigned leaders suggests the moderation effect of learning tasks on leadership impact, with performance-oriented and open-ended tasks associated with increased leader engagement. This finding supports Mercier et al. [ 12 ]’s argument that “if students were engaging in a task that was less collaborative or less cognitively demanding, there may have been less need for the amount of leadership…”.

Contrary to the common belief that leadership positively influences academic performance [ 5 , 17 ], our study revealed no role-based differences in students’ online learning outcomes as measured by the final test scores. Further analysis indicated that assigned leaders slightly outperformed group members in the objective test, which was designed to assess students’ knowledge, recall, and comprehension. This finding corroborates Zha and Ottendorfer [ 16 ]’s discovery of student leaders’ better achievement in lower-order rather than higher-order thinking. According to Zha and Ottendorfer [ 16 ], topic familiarity and time restraint might hinder student leaders from initiating and engaging in online discussion at a higher-order cognitive level.

The random assignment of the leadership role in this study might explain the lack of difference in online learning perception between leaders and members. The literature indicates a reinforcing cycle between leader attributes and leader role. Students with desirable personal traits such as social self-efficacy, intelligence, conscientiousness, and extraversion are more likely to emerge or become nominated as group leaders [ 8 , 17 , 27 ]. The same traits are also known to enhance learning perception and satisfaction [ 48 , 49 ]. Through randomized appointment, we severed the association between leader role and leader attributes in this study, and the results indicate that leader role does not guarantee improved learning perception, as the added responsibility might negatively affect student leaders’ learning experiences with extra workload, increased anxiety, and social conflicts.

Regarding the essential leader characteristics, we found the strong influence of leader behaviors and academic achievement on group assignment quality particularly worrisome. The excessive reliance on leaders’ effort and contribution in group works implies the prevalence of “free-riders” or “bystanders” in online collaboration [ 50 , 51 ]. The fact that leaders’ participating behaviors (login and forum view especially) negatively correlate with members’ learning performance confirms our speculation that a dedicated leader might be perceived, by others, as a “babysitter.” Thus, the likelihood of free-riding and over-dependence increases, leading to poor individual learning outcomes for group members during online learning. Lastly, replying behavior proved to be the only leader behavior that predicted member participation. According to Kim et al. [ 7 ], replying with individualized messages is considered a person-focused leadership behavior, which induces positive emotions among group members, and more frequent member presence and engagement in online collaboration as a result.

Consistent with the existing literature [ 10 , 27 , 52 ], instances of emerged and distributed leadership were also reported in this study, and two types of relationship between assigned and non-assigned leadership roles were identified. The first type is substitution, where an assigned leader failed to fulfill leading responsibilities and was replaced by an emerged leader during the collaborative learning process. The phenomenon of substitution is expectable with random assignment of leader role, where unwilling or incapable students have equal chance to get elected as group leaders. The second type is distribution, where the emergence of on-assigned leadership was more contingent with the attributes of a particular group member (e.g., academic achievement, personality, etc.) rather than the involvement of the assigned leader. Consequently, distributed leadership should not be viewed as a social status, but rather a preferred relationship between assigned and emerged leadership.

We believe that the existence of non-assigned leadership is confounded by the impact of assigned leadership in this study, as the benefits of leadership were transferred to the emergent leaders or distributed within the groups. Similarly, the insubstantial influence of assigned leaders on group learning performance should not be interpreted as the insignificance of the leader role in online collaborative learning. Rather, the variance in assigned leaders’ behavioral engagement and academic achievement might be offset by the representation of emergent leadership. After all, it is the individual presence and behaviors, rather than the assigned status, that matters the most in team effectiveness and productivity [ 10 ].

Implications

Our research findings have several implications. For students, it is generally beneficial to become a group leader in CSCL, as it brings increased behavioral engagement and slightly better lower-order learning outcomes. For teachers, when selecting student leaders, social responsibility matters more than academic achievement in promoting group engagement. Thus, low-achieving students deserve equal opportunities to lead in CSCL. For student leaders, the preferrable leadership style should be person-focused and facilitative; too much direct involvement and personal contribution might adversely affect individual member learning. For group members, one’s presence and behaviors in CSCL should not be bounded by the assigned leader identity since emerged and distributed leadership often brings additional benefits such as enhanced social interaction and cognitive contribution.

Limitations and future research

Three limitations should be noted when interpreting research findings. First, despite our best efforts, extraneous factors that threatened internal validity were unable to be eliminated. For instance, students’ engagement and group cohesion in CSCL were inevitably affected by the events and progress of the academic semester. Additionally, the awareness of leader identity is likely to cause demoralization or compensatory rivalry among group members, obscuring the causal effect of leadership. Second, the participants were predominantly women from a single course, which undermines the generalizability of the study results to other CSCL contexts as the results might be gender-biased and driven by course-specific knowledge. Lastly, the empirical data collected in this study lacked diversity for more accurate measurements and meaningful interpretations. For example, CSCL engagement was measured using only five learning behaviors, and interview data with student leaders and group members were non-existent. Consequently, we recommend future research to investigate the impact of assigned leadership in varied CSCL contexts (e.g., co-ed groups from various disciplinary domains) with more rigorous design and diversified empirical data.

Supporting information

S1 appendix. learning experience questionnaire items..

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0266653.s001

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the invaluable contributions of Liyuan Wei, Min Zhu, Peiyu Wang, Jiaxin Yang, and Siyi Jiang from Central China Normal University for their assistance in data collection and analysis. The authors also want to thank the participated students for their support in this study.

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How to become the (reluctant) leader your group assignment needs

Group assignments suck, especially when there is no sense of direction or communication amongst team members. Sometimes, all it takes is for one person to rise to the occasion; one person to answer the call and become the team leader that group needs.

And if that team leader has to be you, then don’t worry — we feel your pain. So to all the students who’ve reluctantly had to become the leader and carry their group to a passing grade, we’ve compiled a list of tips so that any student can become a good team leader.

The six ‘ E’s

This concept is borrowed from leadership coach Brendon Burchard who recommends that all team leaders need to possess and execute the six ‘E’s to ensure a project is going according to plan. While his recommendations are more for organisations and businesses, the six ‘E’s can be applicable to group assignments too.

Envision: Be sure of what your goal is and never lose sight of it. You and your group need to be absolutely sure that you all understand the requirements of your group assignment and need to all work towards it.

Enlist: While you may not need to enlist additional help outside of your group, part of enlisting also means considering the ideas of others and using all skills and expertise your team has to meet your vision/group assignment goal.

Embody: Group assignments work only if everyone believes in what it is that they’re doing and is on the same level. A lack of trust or belief in what they’re doing and stand for will lead to dissension. So if no one else really cares about the assignment, make sure you get them to care by showing enthusiasm for the project yourself.

Empower: Give each person responsibilities that can make a difference. Give everyone a chance to voice their opinion and input on the assignment. By giving someone purpose and a role, they’ll start to come around and give it their all.

Evaluate: All good leaders need to communicate with their team. While you perhaps might not be in a position to critique or give feedback, what you can do is debrief with everyone and catch up with the team on a regular or semi-regular basis to see how things are going. Online group chats can break down so make sure to meet in person as much as possible – perhaps before or after class.

Encourage: No motivation means no assignment, or at least a lack of care and consideration towards the objectives of your assignment. So encourage others and motivate them to do what they can.

Effective project management

Once you’ve got a solid grip of the six ‘E’s, you’ll need to learn what it takes to manage and delegate tasks for your team successfully. After all, the ultimate goal for your group is to complete the assignment together perfectly.

The following are some practical methods that you can apply the next time you need to assign work to your team members:

Don’t rush! Work together as much as you can:  There is nothing worse than leaving things to the last minute, especially in a group assignment. By meeting regularly, working together and allowing time to make mistakes and stumble, you will ultimately be able to build a better assignment or presentation as a group. As a leader, you’ll need to create a project schedule that people can keep to. Anticipate when people will be unavailable and make days that you have to meet more enjoyable.

Prioritise  tasks: If you want to complete your project with efficiently, you need to decide which parts of your group assignment are the most important and which are not. One way you can do this is by prioritising the tasks based on Eisenhower’s Urgent/Important Principle.

• Tasks that absolutely need to be done right away and are integral to your assignment are categorised as Urgent and Important .
• Tasks that definitely need to be done right now but can be considered secondary are considered Urgent but Not Important .
• Tasks that you need to remember to do but that are perhaps not necessary to do right now are classified as Not Urgent but Important .
• Meanwhile, anything arbitrary that doesn’t need to be addressed is Not Urgent and Not Important.

Make the most of technology

While group chats can end in disaster, that doesn’t mean you should abandon technology altogether. While we do recommend you make as many face-to-face meetings as possible with your team, sometimes it’s just not possible and you’ll have to either meet online or keep track of your group’s progress by other means. Below are a list of apps and online services that help you create and manage a better working environment for your entire team.

Use Asana to create checklists and subtasks that can be useful in your project management, goal-setting, brainstorming and meeting agendas. With Asana, you can also create customisable views and organise tasks based on the due dates. Furthermore, each task can have its own conversation, further enabling you to keep track of your team’s progress.

Sometimes all you need is one app to house all your project needs in. As its name implies, Basecamp serves as the central location for all your work. Features include discussion boards, files attachments, the creation of multiple to-do lists, notes and events. So rather than move around chasing people on Whatsapp or Facebook, make things simpler and live on Basecamp.

Like the above apps, Trello helps to organise your tasks and projects by giving users the chance to create project boards containing lists of cards. Each list can be different and inside each list, you can have cards that contain attachments, conversations, checklists and labels. Each card can also have one or more members attached to it, giving them ownership and responsibility to complete the task(s) outline in said card.

Google Docs

Google Docs is ubiquitously used in today’s world and while it does offer a suite of tools and apps for students to use, one of the best things about Google Docs that students ought to make more use of is its ability to be edited at the same time. If you’re in  lecture that’s important to the outcome of your group assignment, have everyone in your group log in to the same doc and make notes on the same doc. Perhaps have two people take notes and another person edit those notes so that they’re as legible and clear as possible. Gone are the days of sharing notes after class!

This story was produced by Media and Communication students at Trinity College Foundation Studies as part of Meld’s community newsroom collaboration. Education institutions, student clubs/societies and community groups interested in being involved can get in touch with us via [email protected].

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What Is Group Leadership? The Effects, Outcomes & Importance

The best method for giving the team the direction and attention it needs to move forward favorably is through group leadership.

The leadership style will facilitate and guide the group members’ work. With this training, the team members will learn how to collaborate and operate autonomously.

The scenario’s group leader should be able to deal with each group member individually. Through effective communication skills, he should be able to interact directly with the team members.

Along with the other characteristics required for a credible group connection and activity, the group leader should also have active listening skills.

Table of Contents

What Is Group Leadership?

The technique and mechanism of group leaders are to get individuals to work together on a positive project.

Not every member of the ensemble possesses the same level of talent. The team’s leader will direct the players to the degree and in the manner necessary for optimal coordination . Different methods of group leadership exist. Variable settings employ a range of styles. One method of group leadership is autocratic. It is a tactic that utilizes the primary way when deciding on procedures and regulations.

Here, you have the corporate leadership style, and the executives and managers who make up the core group are in charge. These are the individuals that are held accountable for the choices they make inside the group.

Here, the group’s leader can make decisions on his or her own and command the followers to do the same.

Even so, the team captain can consult with the others and make wise choices.

What Are The Benefits Of Group Leadership?

With a common objective, group leadership becomes tremendously successful. The leader will choose the right players to get the squad moving and working.

The delegation must be done well by the leader. He must excite the group by discussing their shared objective. The team members will be more interested as a result, and they will act more appropriately.

The idea of group leadership is crucial. Making the team members feel important and accountable is the leader’s responsibility.

Each team member can contribute, which will make the situation manageable. If things are going well, it is crucial that everyone on the team feels appreciated.

Building the Momentum

There are hopes and opportunities for the group to become an organization once the group leader becomes effective.

The group leader knows how to divide the task among the group members. The leader can increase the group’s momentum, and a more significant and useful result may result.

The members of a project are given various roles. A positive outcome can be produced overall by doing the same personally.

Within the collective, individual contributions are significant. Under careful leadership techniques, things are made to progress in the appropriate direction.

Effectiveness of Group leadership

Leadership in a group is very successful. The goal of the slogan is to foster a stronger belief in the company’s goods and services. The team’s leader rewards the team members who are performing well.

This type of recognition encourages more motivated behavior in the recipient. The team’s leader will constructively inspire the other team members.

The group’s leader will speak and act in a way that encourages members to be enthusiastic about their work. People will behave with more zeal and ardor because of this place’s sincerity.

Resolving Issues within the Team

The team members will have somebody they can talk to and bounce ideas off of when it comes to group leadership.

Similarly, team members can express their worries to the leader if they are struggling for any reason. The members will feel liberated and be able to let go of their workplace tensions, thanks to this.

There would be less commotion and dissipation once the issues were discussed among the crew. There will be less turmoil within the professional group as the members will come to know one another well.

The group’s facilitator will consider the group members’ viewpoints. The group’s leader can recognize skills. They are fully aware of who to give the assignment to for the best long-term outcome.

He can complete the miss matching and contribute to the job’s successful completion. To achieve the greatest degree of success in their work, the appropriate leader should assemble the ideal team.

Direction Given by the Leader

The team leader should be able to provide the perfect assignment to the perfect candidate while leaving room for development. The organization can be strengthened through group leadership in such a way that things appear to be profitable in the future.

The leader should distribute the task in a way that makes each member happy in their position. When the group members are content with the work they have been given, they will carry it out to the best of their abilities.

The team’s leaders should also have a clear vision. There are no separate pieces or portions to manage, which will keep the team operating.

In terms of elevating the organization to new heights, the concept of group leadership is extremely effective and transformative.

This is how the business can soar to new heights and experience success and accomplishments.

Traits And Characteristics Of Group Leadership

The idea of group leadership is crucial. It works both ways, and the effectiveness depends on the leader’s execution of the plan and the group’s acceptance of his leadership style.

Here are a few of the top qualities for group leaders to take into account.

List Of Traits And Characteristics Of Group Leadership

• Acknowledging the efforts
• Listen carefully
• Leadership communication
• Accepting failure
• Contributing to team
• Be empathic
• Showing integrity
• Setting example

Acknowledging the Efforts

In group leadership, it’s crucial to recognize and value the team members’ work. The team members will feel content and joyful after you recognize their contributions and offer encouraging criticism.

When performing the task, their confidence will return. The group member will know he is on the right track once the leader provides input. The team member’s work will be valued and acknowledged appropriately.

The leader should acknowledge the team’s accomplishments; a simple “well done” can work wonders.

Listening Carefully

The group’s leader must listen actively. You should get the team’s input if you are working on a crucial project.

The boss ought to pay attention to what they have to say. This may present opportunities for workplace enhancement.

The group leader should listen with spontaneity and good humor. He must consider the concepts and suggestions put forth by the team members.

Direct eye contact and the use of visual cues are essential for the leader to give the team member the impression that he is listening to the intended purpose.

Leadership Communication

The group leader must be able to communicate clearly. For a better result at the workplace, he must be able to work well with the team members.

His ability to speak briefly and effectively will open up opportunities for others to respond in kind. The team members will be able to react favorably once the communication is clear.

By seeking feedback and posing thought-provoking questions, effective communication aids in advancing novel concepts. The likelihood of miscommunication and improper engagement is lowest when the communication is loud and clear.

The most effective leaders will only share information with their team members to boost their confidence. They can effectively interact with one another to inspire and energize the workers.

The commitment of the Group Leader

The group’s dedication needs to be demonstrated by the leader. This will support the development of team spirit. This is something that can make a difference and provide a mediocre team the chance to attain its full potential.

The team members’ trust can be quickly earned by the leader if he or she is devoted. The team’s morale can be kept strong with the correct leadership commitment.

Accepting the Failures

As the group’s leader, you should be able to accept failure. There may be times in both life and the workplace when things do not go according to plan.

This does not imply that you will cease collaborating with the team and cause things to halt. The leader must be able to take lessons from the mistake and carry them out correctly moving forward.

The leader can improvise on things shortly after he can accept the setback. The subordinates will also learn something from this.

They will see how the leader handles setbacks, forges ahead in the face of obstacles, and achieves success shortly.

Contributing to the Team

The team leader’s ability to decide the team’s destiny is crucial. He will help the team members plan their professional trajectories and must develop a plan for career growth. For the type of direct reports, a competent leader will assist in developing leadership options and opportunities.

In addition to spending time with the team, leaders must meet the members’ expectations. The possibilities that the leader creates ought to be straightforward and interesting. It could be a particular team meeting or team-building activity.

This can aid in fostering the team members’ essential confidence so they can arrange new endeavors with the boss.

Necessary to be Empathetic

The team’s leader must be completely empathetic to effectively lead the group. The leader will be able to see things from the perspective of the team members or employees once they have developed empathy.

The leader should be able to see beyond the immediate situation to encourage and support with successful tactics. At all stages of their employment, employees will benefit from this.

The idea of compassionate leadership is now essential in the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. Based on empathy, the managers and workers in the scenario can cooperate successfully.

This kind of sympathetic and understanding leadership will contribute to the establishment of a psychologically secure working environment. The group can now debate issues without hassles.

Leader Showing Integrity

The group leader must be able to act in a morally upright manner. He ought to uphold principles that will direct his actions, choices, and interactions with other group members.

The leader must regard decent, unquestionable, and solid things and have a clear certainty about both right and wrong.

The group’s leader needs to have a solid sense of moral integrity. Promises made by leaders should be kept, and they should communicate with followers openly and honestly.

Objective Group Leadership

The group’s leaders should be impartial coordinators with a grasp of numerous grounds for contention and discussions.

The leaders support other ideas as well as goal-oriented solutions. Additionally, impartial leaders have access to outside perspectives. This is something that will support the team’s overall goal.

The team members can discern whether their leaders are fair and just. The rest of the elements and leadership choices will undoubtedly be taken into account.

Setting an Example for Others

The team’s leader should be able to serve as an example for the other team members. He needs to be able to establish his dependability and get the respect of the other team members.

The leader should be able to lead by example and show others how to behave positively. If you have high expectations for the team, you should have a high-standard personality that can facilitate resolution.

The leader, in particular, needs to have consistency between their words and deeds. The team members will feel more trusted as a result, and they will be more willing to imitate the group leader’s behavior.

Qualities of a Competent Group Leader

There are tons of effective group leaders around the globe. They are renowned for their ability to reason critically. The ability to manage others is a skill that leaders have honed.

With their ability to calculate and their comprehensive understanding of the world, leaders may influence people to think favorably. Here is a list of characteristics that a leader in a team or organization should possess.

Thinking beyond himself

A good leader never forces his will on others. He will enable the group to work toward both individual and group objectives.

The leader uses the three conceivable imposition, assignment, and direction tools. The true trait of a leader is their pride in helping others.

Effective leaders are capable of starting team-building exercises and other activities. The group’s leaders need to understand how to encourage and reward team members.

Integrity and Honesty of the Leader

A good leader should be honest and have integrity. These are essential qualities of a successful leader that can help him advance.

Most of the time, the team’s accomplishments are fully attributed to the leaders. They accept compliments and show little concern for the accomplishments of their subordinates.

A good leader should never be in this situation. He must ensure that his teammates receive recognition because doing so would motivate the performers.

The leader should be the one to delegate tasks and express gratitude to the group as a whole because he or she has final authority.

Remaining Accountable for Mistakes

Any mistakes made by the group remain the responsibility of a capable and responsible leader. He will supervise and inform others of the problem if something goes wrong. A trustworthy leader won’t force you to share the disgrace.

A good team leader will help the team members see their errors and quickly fix them. The team’s reputation will improve as a result, and everything will appear successful and perfect.

Having Self-Awareness

A good leader should believe in him. The person needs to trust his instincts and make decisions.

He must think of his responsibilities and make things promising for the rest of the team members. The leader has the emotional intelligence that will help the leaders have improved management skills.

The group leader needs to have a level of self-confidence. It is a personality trait that is important for any group leader to put up with.

How Can Group Leadership Help In The Development Of A Company?

The organization’s natural growth process would be affected if there were a lack of leadership approaches.

The assistance of the leader is crucial to eliminating irritation and uncertainty within the organization.

Any commercial situation can be supported by strong, stable leadership. Here are the specifics on how leadership can support business growth and development.

Influencing the Employees

Leadership within the group has a positive impact on the organization’s workforce. Employees will be inspired to share the same values by the leader’s excellent attitude and work ethic. The manager’s strictness can teach the staff, which will improve their performance and quality of work.

Some leaders take advantage of the remuneration structure. This aids in encouraging the accomplishment of strategic goals, which will lead to the alignment of the objectives of the corporation and the individual.

Fulfilling the Necessities

An effective leader should provide for the needs of the team members. The leader monitors the group’s needs. He acts and gets by in the same way.

The group’s leader fosters an environment where the members can grow and learn from one another.

The group’s leaders should be knowledgeable about how to conduct internal investigations. A successful quest will teach the person how to meet the wants of the employees in the long run for the benefit of the business.

Resolving the Issues

The disagreements and problems that arise at work are unavoidable. There will be divergent views and choices, and the leader must exert much effort to maintain order.

There is a danger of turmoil and confusion when the entire group congregates in one location.

The group leader will be aware of the situation and take the matter seriously if it has the potential to affect the organization’s overall productivity.

Boosting Employee Morale

A capable group leader should be able to motivate and inspire the team members. By praising and rewarding the employees’ contributions, the leader will aim to boost morale.

The leader can grasp complex issues and take the proper action to create the correct happy workforce.

The business can set up programs and activities for leadership development , which will support the company’s overarching mission.

This will have an impact on the goals and values of the organization and improve conditions at work.

Good Leadership and Decision Making

Making wiser decisions will be aided by effective leadership . The managers need to take any necessary training.

And doing so will enable them to make wiser judgments that will benefit the business and the employees’ productive work. Good leaders can strike a balance between the three practical parts of life and the emotional parts.

An effective leader possesses typical emotional intelligence. This will enable the leaders to make quick decisions even in urgent circumstances.

Even under duress, they are better able to think and make decisions. Because of this, they take on a leadership role and can now make crucial strategic choices that will benefit the business.

Group leadership is a structural and strategic phenomenon that can improve the organization’s development. Group leaders guide the team in a way that benefits the company’s overall well-being. The team’s leaders engage and share ideas with the other team members in order to produce

Something both positive and beneficial. The leaders’ activities will strengthen the team and make things possible externally in the workplace and inside the group. The leaders are pivotal characters in uplifting the face of the company.

More To Explore:

• What Is Transformational Leadership: Unleashing The Power Of Influence
• What Is Traditional Leadership? Characteristics, Examples
• Emergent Leadership: Definition, Theories & Characteristics
• Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) Theory: Key to Effective Leadership
• 10 Common Leadership And Management Mistakes + How To Avoid?

“Vision, strategy, and inspiration – these three words describe me the best. I am the founder of “TheLeaderboy” dedicated to leadership and personal development. As a self-taught practitioner, I have been studying the principles of effective leadership for the past decade and my passion lies in sharing my insights with others. My mission is to empower individuals to become better leader

Module 10: Leadership

Assignment: evaluating leadership, preparation.

In your readings on Leadership, you learned the difference between management and leadership, as well as traits, styles, and situations of leaders and leadership. Many modern-day leaders were profiled in the text, including:

• Warren Buffett
• Martin Winterkorn
• Carrie Toldstedt
• Ginni Rometty
• Mark Zuckerberg

In this assignment, you will research and write about a modern leader of your choice. You may not select one of the leaders listed above .  The following steps will help you prepare for your written assignment:

• Thoroughly read the Leadership module.
• Carefully consider the traits, styles, and differing situations for leadership in today’s organizations.
• Select a leader to profile in your written report. You may select one you admire, or a “good example of a bad example.”  There are numerous websites naming leaders to get you started.  A quick search on “famous contemporary leaders” revealed millions of possible lists, OR you may select a leader in your personal or professional life: your boss, a coach, a team leader, etc.
• Research your chosen leader, identifying evidence of his/her traits, styles, and leadership situations. Relate your findings to the module concepts. For example, how did your chosen leader demonstrate the trait of “desire to lead”?  Prepare examples.
• First, introduce your leader, and state why you selected him/her. Was their leadership effective or not effective?
• Next, expand upon the traits and style of your leader, including at least three properly referenced and defined terms from the module reading. For example, if you select Drive, describe what the term means in the context of leadership and how your leader demonstrates it.
• Next, describe the leadership situation your chosen leader was in, using one of the Situational Leadership Models from the module reading. For example, if your leader was charged with a group of new or low-competence employees, did they use the Selling style prescribed by Ken Blanchard?
• Finally, conclude with a short description of your personal leadership style and how effective it has been for you to date.

Your written assignment will be graded using the  Written Assignment Rubric . Please review and keep it in mind as you prepare your assignment. Each component is weighted as follows:

10% Organization and Format

Adequate: Writing is coherent and logically organized, using a format suitable for the material presented. Transitions used between ideas and paragraphs create coherence. Overall unity of ideas is supported by the format and organization of the material presented.

40% Content

Adequate: All required questions are addressed with thoughtful consideration reflecting both proper use of content terminology and additional original thought. Some additional concepts are presented from properly cited sources, or originated by the author following logic and reasoning they’ve clearly presented throughout the writing.

40% Development – Critical Thinking

Adequate: Content indicates original thinking, cohesive conclusions, and developed ideas with sufficient and firm evidence. Ideas presented are not merely the opinion of the writer, and clearly address all of the questions or requirements asked with evidence presented to support conclusions drawn.

10% Grammar, Mechanics, Style

Adequate: Writing is free of spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors, allowing the reader to follow ideas clearly. There are no sentence fragments and run-ons. The style of writing, tone, and use of rhetorical devices is presented in a cohesive style that enhances the content of the message.

• Assignment: Evaluating Leadership . Authored by : Betty Fitte and Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution

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39 best leadership activities and games

Good leaders can make or break a team. While more and more people are being asked to step into leadership roles, the path to becoming a good leader is long and not always straightforward . This is where leadership activities come in.

Leadership activities are a great way of developing the skills and competencies needed to be an effective leader . It's not easy to learn these skills, especially when so many leaders don't receive effective training or support. In this article, we'll explore the leadership activities you should master in order to lead a high-performing team and become a better leader!

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• Inspiring team members
• Setting values for their team
• Improving team spirit and cohesion
• Being responsible for their team’s communication and wellbeing
• Developing leadership skills in other team members

There are a number of tools to help you with leadership development. Coaching, peer support circles, and leadership development workshops can all help one to become a better leader.

Leadership activities such as those featured here are also effective at introducing leadership concepts and learning how to solve common leadership challenges . You might run these leadership training activities during a workshop, add them to an ongoing learning program or simply introduce them to managers as needed.

In this guide, we’ve grouped leadership activities by these core competencies, so you can choose the right activity to help yourself or others develop their leadership skills. Let’s dive in!

What are leadership activities?

Leadership activities are exercises designed to help develop leadership skills and enable leaders to be more effective in their roles. They can include activities that help train new leaders and improve core leadership skills like problem-solving, active listening, or effective group management.

You’ll also find that the best leadership development activities give leaders tools and techniques they can use on the job. It’s one thing to know that leaders need to be good listeners, but quite another to be given a framework and toolkit that means you are a great listener who always helps their team feel heard and understood.

The exercises below are not only great to use when training leaders, but they are practical techniques leaders can use with every team member immediately, whatever their leadership style.

What are leadership activities used for?

While managers might approach tasks differently based on their leadership style, there are skills and competencies that all leaders should learn in order to best service their team. Learning how to be a good leader can be difficult, so using exercises and activities to improve leadership skills in a safe, experiential environment can help leaders be more effective in their role.

If you’re running a leadership development program, you might use these activities during the training program. For example, after conducting a self-assessment and deciding how they want to develop as a leader, participants might work on improving their leadership skills with these activities.

Whether you’re running such a program and developing managers internally with workshops or simply want to brush up on your own leadership skills, these exercises are a great place to begin.

A bespoke leadership development workshop (like the one featured in this leadership template! ) is also a natural place to include these activities.

In SessionLab, it’s quick and easy to design a leadership workshop fit for your needs. Start by dragging and dropping blocks to design your outline. Add minute-perfect timing and instructions to each activity to refine your agenda.

When you’re ready to share with collaborators or participants, export your workshop agenda in PDF, Word, Powerpoint or invite them directly to the session.

Leadership training activities for building a positive work climate

Leaders are role models to their colleagues and organization. Their leadership styles, principles, and values determine the culture that drives their organization’s behavior.

That is why a competitive, paranoid leader can easily create an organization where team members are similarly competitive and less open to collaboration. While a leader who is open and inclusive will create a climate of openness and inclusiveness. How they behave, and what they consider the norm, also affects which kinds of behaviors are enforced and celebrated and which behaviors are punished.

The following leadership activities can help you in recognising important leadership behaviors that result in a productive workplace. They can also be used by leaders to set the stage for team bonding and a great workplace environment with their team. A must for all leaders!

Leadership Envelopes

Leadership games like this help groups translate abstract leadership principles into practical on-the-job behaviors. Participants work in groups to come up with real-life applications of different leadership principles.

The groups conduct multiple rounds of discussion to build upon each others’ ideas, and in the end, evaluate the best ideas to identify the most useful behaviors. This is also a great activity to run with all your team members. Seeing how they consider and respond to different leadership styles can help you focus on the right approach as a leader!

Leadership Envelopes   #leadership   #issue analysis   #thiagi   Leadership exercise in groups, working with practical leadership principles. This activity helps groups to translate abstract leadership principles into practical on-the-job behaviours. Participants work in groups to come up with real-life application of leadership principles. The groups take multiple rounds to build upon the ideas of each other, and in the end, evaluate the best ideas to identify the most useful behaviours.

Your Favourite Manager

In this activity, participants take on three different employee personas and list the behaviors of a positive leader or manager and a negative one from the perspectives of those employees. After some individual reflection, participants compare their lists, first in pairs and then in groups. Finally, they collect the ultimate do’s and don’ts for managers and leaders.

Any activity that encourages deep reflection on your own leadership style and those of your role models is a wonderful way to grow. I’ve been especially inspired by how some of my old bosses approach problem solving while I was a team member working beneath them.

My Favourite Manager   #management   #leadership   #thiagi   #teamwork   #remote-friendly   Participants work individually, assuming the roles of three different people and brainstorming their perceptions of three most favourite managers and three least favourite managers. Later, they work with a partner (and still later, in teams) to prepare a list of dos and don’t-s for improving employees’ perception of a manager’s style.

Leadership Pizza

This leadership development activity offers a self-assessment framework for people to first identify the skills, attributes and attitudes they find important for effective leadership, and then assess their own development in these areas. This framework is also a great tool to set individual leadership development goals in a coaching process.

We love activities that allow team members to reflect on different leadership styles and assess their own skills and preferences. The visual format makes it easy to share and reflect on leadership styles later too!

Leadership Pizza   #leadership   #team   #remote-friendly   This leadership development activity offers a self-assessment framework for people to first identify what skills, attributes and attitudes they find important for effective leadership, and then assess their own development and initiate goal setting.

Playing with Status

The best leadership training activities often allow managers to work on their leadership skills while also providing an opportunity to reflect on their leadership style and how it might affect other employees.

Playing with Status is a role playing game where pairs enact a job interview or coaching session and enact different versions of the conversation based on whether each person has high or low status. By experiencing the effect of status on the relationship, would-be leaders can consider how they interact with other members of their team and create a more positive workplace culture.

Playing with Status   #teambuilding   #communication   #team   #thiagi   Participants are given a short script of 8-10 lines of neutral dialogue. The scene may depict a job interview (see the sample below) or a coaching session. Pairs take turns enacting the scene, playing with the status relationships through non-verbal behaviours.

Heard Seen Respected

Standing in the shoes of others, practicing empathy and ensuring that everyone on a team is able to be heard is a necessity for great leaders and your team in general. In this activity, participants shift between telling stories where they were not heard, seen or respected and then being listeners who do not pass judgment. 

Remember that leadership training should often start with the fundamentals of respect and empathy. If you can’t respect and empathize with your team members, how can you expect them to do the same for you? Keeping things simple with an activity like Heard Seen Respected can be an especially effective option whether you’re working online or offline. 

Heard, Seen, Respected (HSR)   #issue analysis   #empathy   #communication   #liberating structures   #remote-friendly   You can foster the empathetic capacity of participants to “walk in the shoes” of others. Many situations do not have immediate answers or clear resolutions. Recognizing these situations and responding with empathy can improve the “cultural climate” and build trust among group members. HSR helps individuals learn to respond in ways that do not overpromise or overcontrol. It helps members of a group notice unwanted patterns and work together on shifting to more productive interactions. Participants experience the practice of more compassion and the benefits it engenders.

Team building leadership activities

Every leader has an integral role in the formation of the teams they work with. Whether you are consciously working on it or not, your attitude and actions as a leader will significantly influence team cohesion, communication and the team spirit of the people you work with.

This comes through in small everyday actions, the way you share responsibilities, the way you empower colleagues, and the way you foster a cooperative work environment as opposed to a competitive one.

Sometimes, it can also be effective to run team building activities with your company that are expressly focused on helping teams come together and bond. Try using the following leadership team building activities with new teams, or groups that need to spend a little time getting to know each other better.

Marshmallow challenge

The Marshmallow Challenge is a team-building activity in which teams compete to build the tallest free-standing structure out of spaghetti sticks, tape, string, and the marshmallow that needs to be on the top. This leadership activity emphasizes group communication, leadership dynamics, collaboration, and innovation and problem-solving.

It’s a wonderful game that allows participants’s natural leadership qualities to shine through, and it helps teams have a lot of fun too!

Marshmallow challenge with debriefing   #teamwork   #team   #leadership   #collaboration   In eighteen minutes, teams must build the tallest free-standing structure out of 20 sticks of spaghetti, one yard of tape, one yard of string, and one marshmallow. The marshmallow needs to be on top. The Marshmallow Challenge was developed by Tom Wujec, who has done the activity with hundreds of groups around the world. Visit the Marshmallow Challenge website for more information. This version has an extra debriefing question added with sample questions focusing on roles within the team.

Blind Square Rope Game

This activity is a tried and tested game that asks teams to communicate well and solve a problem as a team. Not only is this a fun team building activity, but it’s a great way for potential leaders to step up and help their team win! Start by tying a length of rope into a circle and then instruct participants they will have 20 minutes to turn it into a square, with fifteen minutes to plan their actions and five minutes to implement. Here’s the catch – no one may touch the rope until you begin, and every team member is blindfolded during implementation. This is an effective leadership game that is great with both small groups and larger teams separated into breakouts.

Blind Square – Rope game   #teamwork   #communication   #teambuilding   #team   #energiser   #thiagi   #outdoor   This is an activity that I use in almost every teambuilding session I run–because it delivers results every time. I can take no credit for its invention since it has existed from long before my time, in various forms and with a variety of names (such as Blind Polygon). The activity can be frontloaded to focus on particular issues by changing a few parameters or altering the instructions.

Tower of Power

All leaders need to work closely with other members of their organization in order to succeed. This leadership game encourages groups to work together in order to build a tower with specific (and sometimes tricky!) rules before than reflecting on what worked, what didn’t and what they would do next time.

It’s a wonderful activity for leadership training, as it provides an experiential way to explore leadership concepts, all wrapped in a fun game!

Tower of Power   #team   #teamwork   #communication   #leadership   #teambuilding   #skills   This teamwork activity requires participants to work closely together to build a tower from a set of building blocks.  The players need to coordinate their actions in order to be able to move the wooden blocks with the crane they have, and this can only be solved by precise planning, good communication and well-organised teamwork. You may use this exercise to emphasise the following themes and outcomes: In Leadership training : identifying interdependencies in systems, leadership communication, dealing with risk, giving feedback In Team building : communicating effectively, cooperating, being an active listener, maintaining the balance, working with values In Project management : simulating strategic planning, working under time pressure In Communication training : meta communication, facilitating, dealing with different perspectives

When teams work together well, something magic happens. But what elements constitute a high performing team? As a leader, how can you help ensure those conditions are met? In this leadership game, participants must work together to get every team member across an obstacle while blindfolded.

It’s a simple concept that creates a perfect space for exploring how teams operate and the role leaders have within them. Bring plenty of fun obstacles (squeaky toys are best) and encourage groups to think strategically for best results!

Minefield   #teampedia   #teamwork   #action   #team   #icebreaker   A fun activity that helps participants working together as a team while teaching the importance of communication, strategy and trust.

Crocodile River

The Crocodile River is a team-building activity in which group members need to support each other in a task to move from one end of a space to another. It requires working together creatively and strategically in order to solve a practical, physical problem. It tends to emphasize group communication, cooperation, leadership and membership, patience and problem-solving.

Crocodile River   #hyperisland   #team   #outdoor   A team-building activity in which a group is challenged to physically support one another in an endeavour to move from one end of a space to another. It requires working together creatively and strategically in order to solve a practical, physical problem. It tends to emphasize group communication, cooperation, leadership and membership, patience and problem-solving.

This is a simple game to help team members learn how to work together (better). It can also focus on the group’s understanding of communication, leadership, problem-solving, trust or persistence. Participants stand in a circle, close their eyes and put their hands into the circle to find two other hands to hold. Then they open their eyes and the group has to try to get back into a circle without letting go, though they can change their grip, of course.

Human Knot   A physical-participation disentanglement puzzle that helps a group learn how to work together (self-organize) and can be used to illustrate the difference between self-organization and command-control management or simply as a get-to-know-you icebreaker. Standing in a circle, group members reach across to connect hands with different people. The group then tries to unravel the “human knot” by unthreading their bodies without letting go of each other people’s hands. As a management-awareness game to illustrate required change in behavior and leadership on a management level (e.g., illustrate the change from ‘task-oriented’ management towards ‘goal/value-oriented’ management).

Who are you? The pirate ship exercise

Every member of a group occupies a different position in the team. An effective team leader is one who considers their role and is aware of where employees also stand.

This leadership training activity is an effective method of getting a group to consider their roles with the metaphor of a pirate ship. Start by sharing the image and invite each person to consider which person on the deck they most identify with. Is it the captain, or perhaps is it the person repairing damage to the hull? What follows is an effective conversation on roles within a team.

Who are you? The pirate ship exercise (dinámica del barco pirata)   #team alignment   #team   #remote-friendly   #teamwork   #warm up   #icebreaker   This an easy but powerful exercise to open a meeting or session and get participants to reflect on their attitudes or feelings about a topic, in the organization, team, or in the project.

Collaborative leadership activities

Whether you’re leading a small group or working across a massive organization, part of your role of a leader is to help their team work together more effectively. Removing obstacles to effective collaboration and creating frameworks for better teamwork is something you’ll be doing as a leader.

Use the activities below to develop the skills necessary to facilitate better collaboration and working habits between team members.

Circles of Influence

Effective teamwork is often about identifying where each member of a team can have the most impact and use their skills best. Leaders often need to find ways to identify where to direct their team and consider how different skills and working styles fit together to make a cohesive team. This activity makes it easy to facilitate this process and encourage employees to reflect and be proactive too!

We love that this leadership exercise encourages every team member to take responsibility and action. When looking for leadership qualities in a group and considering who you might want to develop into a future leader, this is also a great place to start!

Circles of Influence   #hyperisland   #team   #team effectiveness   A workshop to review team priorities and made choices about what to focus on individually and collectively. The workshop challenges members to reflect on where they can have the most impact and influence. Use this workshop to refine priorities and empower ownership among team members.

Team of Two

Whether you’re leading a team of just a few people or hundreds, the reality is that many of your discussions and interactions with the people you will lead will be interpersonal and one-on-one in nature. Developing the skillset you need to solve issues in your team when they arise and finding ways to ensure these conversations are productive is one of the most important things you can do as a leader.

Use Team of Two whether working online or as part of an in-person session to help your working pairs and interpersonal relationships go from strength to strength. By articulating needs and consequences clearly, this leadership exercise helps people communicate efficiently and see the results they need – a must for anyone in a leadership role! 

Team of Two   #communication   #active listening   #issue analysis   #conflict resolution   #issue resolution   #remote-friendly   #team   Much of the business of an organisation takes place between pairs of people. These interactions can be positive and developing or frustrating and destructive. You can improve them using simple methods, providing people are willing to listen to each other. “Team of two” will work between secretaries and managers, managers and directors, consultants and clients or engineers working on a job together. It will even work between life partners.

What I Need From You

One of the most important leadership skills to cultivate is clarity: being clear in what you expect and need from others in your organisation or group is an integral component of high-functioning teams. With What I Need From You, each team member involved in the exchange is given the chance to articulate their core needs to others and respond in a structured way.

This kind of clear, direct action is great at unblocking conversational roadblocks in both large and small groups, and is something all leaders should have in their toolkit.

What I Need From You (WINFY)   #issue analysis   #liberating structures   #team   #communication   #remote-friendly   People working in different functions and disciplines can quickly improve how they ask each other for what they need to be successful. You can mend misunderstandings or dissolve prejudices developed over time by demystifying what group members need in order to achieve common goals. Since participants articulate core needs to others and each person involved in the exchange is given the chance to respond, you boost clarity, integrity, and transparency while promoting cohesion and coordination across silos: you can put Humpty Dumpty back together again!

Generative Relationships STAR

The relationships between the members of a team can make or break the work you do together. In this leadership training activity, leaders learn how to help a group understand their current working patterns and identify possible changes.

Each participant will individually rate the current performance of the group on the 4 points of the STAR compass tool included. Next, small groups will discuss their choices and find points of alignment and disagreement. Finally, the whole team will discuss the first steps they can take to improve relationships and performance for the group.

Generative Relationships STAR   #team   #liberating structures   #teamwork   You can help a group of people understand how they work together and identify changes that they can make to improve group performance. All members of the group diagnose current relationship patterns and decide how to follow up with action steps together, without intermediaries. The STAR compass tool helps group members understand what makes their relationships more or less generative. The compass used in the initial diagnosis can also be used later to evaluate progress in developing relationships that are more generative.

Team Canvas

When it comes to enabling true collaboration throughout your organization, it pays to involve your team members in helping shape the way you want to work together. Different leadership styles may call for a different approach to this process, but it’s always helpful to see a complete example of how you might define your team culture and working processes.

In this workshop template, you can see a complete agenda for a team canvas workshop. This will take a team through a process of co-creating and defining everything from your goals, values, assets, and rules. Effective leadership often means tapping into group intelligence and enabling your team to take shared ownership of their success. Team Canvas great way of achieving this!

Team Canvas Session   #team alignment   #teamwork   #conflict resolution   #feedback   #teambuilding   #team   #issue resolution   #remote-friendly   The Team Canvas is Business Model Canvas for teamwork. It is an effective technique to facilitate getting teams aligned about their goals, values and purposes, and help team members find their role on the team.

Inspirational leadership activities

Great leaders inspire others. However, there are many different reasons why someone will find a leader inspirational. Developing the skills to inspire team members and lead with this energy is important, whatever your leadership style.

In order to grasp what facilitates inspiring leadership, try the following exercises. You’ll be surprised at how thinking more deeply about your own role models or what your values can help you in all of your leadership interactions!

Leadership Advice from your Role Model

Everyone is asked to think of a role model they look up to and ask themselves: If a young person would ask these role models for leadership advice and what kind of advice that would be.

Facilitate a group conversation where these pieces of advice are shared and contradicting points are discussed and reconciled. Given diverse enough responses, this structured sharing activity might be a good introduction to the concept of situational leadership.

Leadership Advice from Your Role Model   #skills   #leadership   #thiagi   #role playing   This structured sharing activity provides a faster, cheaper, and better alternative to buying and reading a lot of books: You tap into the wisdom of the group—and of their role models.

Living Core Values

The core values of your organization are a great place to look when you want to inspire your team members. Leaders should be involved in defining and exemplifying their core values and also helping create space for the team to share how they’re living those values. The result is an inspiring leadership exercise that allows a leader to help the group celebrate their wins and also suggest places for improvement.

Start by choosing one of your core values and asking activity participants to share a story of how they have been practicing this core value. After sharing, ask the team to reflect on what inspired them from the story. As with any leadership development game, be the first one to share a story to help guide the discussion. Running this exercise will not only help inspire a team to greater heights but also surface any areas that need improvement – it’s a great method to have in your leadership toolbox!

Living Core Values   #culture   #values   #core values,   #connection   #inspiration   #virtual_friendly   #team   #team alignment   #energizer   #remote-friendly   For use with a team, organization or any peer group forum. Can be done in person or virtual This is designed to create a conversation that brings Core Values alive. This is great for a team that knows what values they stand for. Through this exercise they will celebrate their values in action and therefore be energized to magnify them further. It will also help bring along anyone that is new so they can understand that the group really walks the talk

Throughout human history, stories have been a consistent source of inspiration. Whatever your leadership style, finding time to share more about your own story and create space for others to share theirs can be massively useful as a leader.

In Campfire, start by creating a selection of 10-20 sticky notes relating to a concept you wish to explore with the group. Put these on the wall and then invite your group to review them and consider stories they might tell related to one of those words. Start the storytelling session yourself and think about how you might inspire and elicit further stories from the rest of the team before passing the torch to the next person around the campfire!

This is a great activity to run during leadership training or when team building. Creating safe spaces for people to share their experiences is a leadership skill you absolutely want to cultivate and practice!

Campfire   #gamestorming   #team   #remote-friendly   #storytelling   Campfire leverages our natural storytelling tendencies by giving players a format and a space in which to share work stories—of trial and error, failure and success, competition, diplomacy, and teamwork. Campfire is useful not only because it acts as an informal training game, but also because it reveals commonalities in employee perception and experience.

Letter from the Future

Leaders are often called upon to inspire their team members about the future of their product or organization. Employees who are excited about where you’re going are more likely to work together well and be energized to see results. This activity is useful for helping inspire a team, or even just to inspire yourself as a leader and get your vision for the future down on paper!

Begin by asking your team to speculate on what the world will look like in five years. Next, ask them to write a letter from the future detailing what the group has accomplished in that time and how they overcame any challenges.

Share the results to inspire the group for what you might accomplish and also start creating plans for how you’ll create your desired future. You might even find that running this activity solo is effective when thinking about how you want to develop as a team leader!

Letter from the Future   #strategy   #vision   #thiagi   #team   #teamwork   Teams that fail to develop a shared vision of what they are all about and what they need to do suffer later on when team members start implementing the common mandate based on individual assumptions. To help teams get started on the right foot, here is a process for creating a shared vision.

Leadership activities for personal development

A good leader is one who helps uplift and upskill the members of their team. These leadership activities are designed to help you encourage participants to be more autonomous, take initiative and work on their personal development.

If you’re new to a leadership role or trying on various leadership styles, these can also be great activities to practice on the road to leading a team. Growth and development is a vital aspect of employee happiness and fulfilment – be sure to bring ideas for enabling others to your leadership role.

Roles in a meeting

Learning by doing is an important aspect of effective leadership. Sometimes, you have to try something new and approach the task with an open mind while working to the best of your ability. This simple method is a great way of encouraging participants to take an important role during a meeting and also take part in developing and refining those roles.

If you’re running a leadership development program and want to start upskilling participants, this is a great way of delegating some simple leadership roles. Plus, it helps encourage the group to contribute and engage with how a successful meeting is put together too!

Roles in a meeting   #meeting facilitation   #remote-friendly   #hybrid-friendly   #skills   Organize the day’s meeting by co-creating and assigning roles among participants.

Alignment & Autonomy

One of the most impactful things a leader can do is get out of a team’s way and allow them to perform more autonomously. Doing so effectively means people can take ownership of their work, be more invested, and develop their skills too. But how can you do this without creating chaos or misalignment?

In this activity, you first help every team member align on your goals and then reflect on where they can take more ownership and be more autonomous in their work while still contributing to the goals of the team. Not only is this a great way to help your team develop, but it also takes work off your plate as a leader and can enable you to get out of the trenches if necessary.

Alignment & Autonomy   #team   #team alignment   #team effectiveness   #hyperisland   A workshop to support teams to reflect on and ultimately increase their alignment with purpose/goals and team member autonomy. Inspired by Peter Smith’s model of personal responsibility. Use this workshop to strengthen a culture of personal responsibility and build your team’s ability to adapt quickly and navigate change.

15% Solutions

One of the biggest barriers to personal development is being overwhelmed by what you need to do to achieve your goals. As a leader, you can help your team by enabling them to take the small, important actions that are within their control.

Start by asking participants to reflect on where they have the discretion and freedom to act and how they might make a small step towards a goal without needing outside help. By flipping the conversation to what 15% of a solution looks like, rather than 100%, employees can begin to make changes without fear of being overwhelmed.

15% Solutions   #action   #liberating structures   #remote-friendly   You can reveal the actions, however small, that everyone can do immediately. At a minimum, these will create momentum, and that may make a BIG difference.  15% Solutions show that there is no reason to wait around, feel powerless, or fearful. They help people pick it up a level. They get individuals and the group to focus on what is within their discretion instead of what they cannot change.  With a very simple question, you can flip the conversation to what can be done and find solutions to big problems that are often distributed widely in places not known in advance. Shifting a few grains of sand may trigger a landslide and change the whole landscape.

The GROW Coaching Model

The best leaders are often great coaches, helping individual team members achieve their potential and grow. This tried and test method is a wonderful way to help activate the development of everyone from a new start to an established leader.

Begin by teaching your mentee or group the GROW acronym (Goal, Reality, Obstacles/Options, and Will.) and guide them through a process of defining each section and collectively agreeing on how you’ll make progress. This is an effective leadership activity that is great for leadership training and is equally useful when it comes to help any team member grow.

The GROW Coaching Model   #hyperisland   #coaching   #growth   #goal setting   The GROW Model is a coaching framework used in conversations, meetings, and everyday leadership to unlock potential and possibilities. It’s a simple & effective framework for structuring your coaching & mentoring sessions and great coaching conversations. Easy to use for both face-to-face and online meetings. GROW is an acronym that stands for Goal, Reality, Obstacles/Options, and Will.

Decision-making leadership activities

An important aspect of leadership development is learning how to make informed and intelligent decisions while also ensuring you listen to your team. A leader who bulldozes their team into a decision without first listening to their expertise is not going to make their team feel valued.

The outcomes of uninformed decisions are often poor or frustrating for those involved too. While leaders are justifiably responsible for making final decisions, it’s integral to find methods to do so in a well-reasoned way.

These leadership activities are useful when it comes to making good decisions while involving your team members in the process and developing a leadership style that creates space for others.

When solving problems as a team, it’s common to have various options for moving forward. As a leader, it often falls to you to make the decision for which solution or direction to pursue. But how can you do that while also creating space for the opinions of your team to be heard?

Dotmocracy is a tried and tested facilitation method for making informed decisions with the help of your team. After presenting the available options, give everyone on your team a number of dots to indicate which option they prefer. You’ll want to adjust the number of votes based on the number of options there are to choose from. A good rule of thumb is to have fewer dots than there are options, giving just a few for every team member.

Leaders want to be on hand to break any ties and to facilitate discussion around what is chosen, but when it comes to making decisions with your team, this method is hard to beat.

Dotmocracy   #action   #decision making   #group prioritization   #hyperisland   #remote-friendly   Dotmocracy is a simple method for group prioritization or decision-making. It is not an activity on its own, but a method to use in processes where prioritization or decision-making is the aim. The method supports a group to quickly see which options are most popular or relevant. The options or ideas are written on post-its and stuck up on a wall for the whole group to see. Each person votes for the options they think are the strongest, and that information is used to inform a decision.

Impact and Effort Matrix

The hallmark of a good decision making process is transparency. Leaders should know why a decision is made and should be able to clearly explain their thinking to team members. As such, the best decision making activities make the process open and easy to understand.

Start this activity by creating a 2×2 matrix and then place possible options on the matrix based on the expected impact and effort it would take to achieve them. This makes it easy to prioritize and compare possible decisions while also including team members in the process.

An inclusive leadership style means bringing your own knowledge to the table while also listening to the opinions of the team. When running this activity, be sure to combine these aspects to ensure items are placed in the appropriate place on the matrix.

Impact and Effort Matrix   #gamestorming   #decision making   #action   #remote-friendly   In this decision-making exercise, possible actions are mapped based on two factors: effort required to implement and potential impact. Categorizing ideas along these lines is a useful technique in decision making, as it obliges contributors to balance and evaluate suggested actions before committing to them.

Level of influence

Making the right decision is often a process of weighing up various factors and prioritizing accordingly. While there are many methods for doing this, being an effective leader often means making this as simple as possible.

We love this decision making activity because it asks the group (and its leader!) some simple questions to narrow down possible options and makes it easy to prioritize too. Start by asking the level of influence a team has to make possible actions happen and ranking them accordingly.

Next, choose those items that you have the most influence on and then prioritize the ones you really want to happen. This simple, two-step process is a great activity for leadership development as it is something any leader can use with ease!

Level of Influence   #prioritization   #implementation   #decision making   #planning   #online facilitation   This is a simple method to prioritize actions as part of an action planning workshop, after a list of actions has been generated.

Fishbone Analysis

Making good decisions requires a complete knowledge of the problem at hand. For leaders who may no longer be on the frontlines of their department, it’s important to surface insights from their team and understand the root cause of any problem before making a decision.

In this leadership activity, start by choosing a problem area and adding it to the head of the fish. Next, brainstorm ideas that might cause the problem and add these as categories to the skeleton. Brainstorm on each of these categories and ask why is this happening in order to dive deeper and fully understand the issue at hand before making an informed decision as a group.

Fishbone Analysis   #problem solving   ##root cause analysis   #decision making   #online facilitation   A process to help identify and understand the origins of problems, issues or observations.

Leadership exercises for setting team values

Usually, the values of a leader are mirrored in the organization. If shortcuts are common practice for the leader, then she will see shortcuts made by her team members all across their projects. But if learning and self-improvement are important to the leader, then this will be a good foundation for these values in the whole organization, too.

To be more aware of your own values as a leader and then bring these ideas to your team, try these leadership exercises!

Explore Your Values

Explore your Values is a group exercise for thinking on what your own and your team’s most important values are. It’s done in an intuitive and rapid way to encourage participants to follow their intuitions rather than over-thinking and finding the “correct” values.

It’s a good leadership game to use to initiate reflection and dialogue around personal values and consider how various leadership styles might chime with some values more than others.

Explore your Values   #hyperisland   #skills   #values   #remote-friendly   Your Values is an exercise for participants to explore what their most important values are. It’s done in an intuitive and rapid way to encourage participants to follow their intuitive feeling rather than over-thinking and finding the “correct” values. It is a good exercise to use to initiate reflection and dialogue around personal values.

Your Leadership Coat of Arms

In this leadership development activity, participants are asked to draw their own coat of arms symbolising the most important elements of their leadership philosophy. The coat of arms drawings are then debriefed and discussed together with the group.

This activity works well with equally well with leadership and team members. Creating a visual representation of what you stand for in the form of a coat of arms can help create a memorable asset you can refer to and rally behind in the future.

Your Leadership Coat of Arms   #leadership   #leadership development   #skills   #remote-friendly   #values   In this leadership development activity, participants are asked to draw their own coat of arms symbolising the most important elements of their leadership philosophy. The coat of arms drawings are then debriefed and discussed together with the group. After the exercise you may prepare a coat of arms gallery, exhibiting the leadership approach and philosophy of group members

Team Purpose & Culture

Ensuring all group participants are aligned when it comes to purpose and cultural values is one of the jobs of a leader. Teams and organizations that have a shared and cohesive vision are often happier and more productive and by helping a group arrive at these conclusions, a good leader can help empower everyone to succeed. Even with multi-discipline teams and organizations with different leadership styles, this method is an effective way of getting everyone on the same page. This is a framework you’ll likely use again and again with different teams throughout your career.

Team Purpose & Culture   #team   #hyperisland   #culture   #remote-friendly   This is an essential process designed to help teams define their purpose (why they exist) and their culture (how they work together to achieve that purpose). Defining these two things will help any team to be more focused and aligned. With support of tangible examples from other companies, the team members work as individuals and a group to codify the way they work together. The goal is a visual manifestation of both the purpose and culture that can be put up in the team’s work space.

Leadership communication activities

Leaders are usually viewed as the parents of the organization. It is expected from them that they take care of their people and make sure that proper norms and rules are followed. One of the key areas where a leader has a large influence is the style and amount of communication between people.

Active Listening and giving effective feedback are critical skills to have as a leader but are also crucial for your team members. In fact, the issue that leaders rank as one of the biggest barriers to successful leadership is avoiding tough conversations, including giving honest, constructive feedback .

Develop good communication practices with the following leadership games and activities.

Active Listening

This activity supports participants in reflecting on a question and generating their own solutions using simple principles of active listening and peer coaching. It’s an excellent introduction to active listening but can also be used with groups that are already familiar with this activity. Participants work in groups of three and take turns being “the subject” who will explore a question, “the listener” who is supposed to be totally focused on the subject, and “the observer” who will watch the dynamic between the other two.

Active Listening   #hyperisland   #skills   #active listening   #remote-friendly   This activity supports participants to reflect on a question and generate their own solutions using simple principles of active listening and peer coaching. It’s an excellent introduction to active listening but can also be used with groups that are already familiar with it. Participants work in groups of three and take turns being: “the subject”, the listener, and the observer.

Trust battery

Every time you work together with someone, your trust battery – the trust you have towards a certain person, or the ‘emotional credit’ that person has in your eyes – either charges or depletes based on things like whether you deliver on what you promise and the social interaction you exhibit. A low trust battery is the core of many personal issues at the workplace.

This self-assessment activity allows you and your team members to reflect on the ‘trust battery’ they individually have towards each person on the team and encourages focus on actions that can charge the depleted trust batteries.  It also works great when promoting virtual leadership and working with online teams!

Trust Battery   #leadership   #teamwork   #team   #remote-friendly   This self-assessment activity allows you and your team members to reflect on the ‘trust battery’ they individually have towards each person on the team, and encourages focus on actions that can charge the depleted trust batteries.

Feedback: Start, Stop, Continue

Regular and constructive feedback is one of the most important ingredients for effective teams. Openness creates trust, and trust creates more openness. This is an activity for teams that have worked together for some time and are familiar with giving and receiving feedback. The objective of Start, Stop, Continue is to examine aspects of a situation or develop next steps by polling people on what to start, what to stop and what to continue doing.

For those in charge of online leadership, it’s vital to find ways of having difficult conversations in constructive ways virtually – try this method when working to resolve issues with your distributed team!

Feedback: Start, Stop, Continue   #hyperisland   #skills   #feedback   #remote-friendly   Regular, effective feedback is one of the most important ingredients in building constructive relationships and thriving teams. Openness creates trust and trust creates more openness. Feedback exercises aim to support groups to build trust and openness and for individuals to gain self-awareness and insight. Feedback exercises should always be conducted with thoughtfulness and high awareness of group dynamics. This is an exercise for groups or teams that have worked together for some time and are familiar with giving and receiving feedback. It uses the words “stop”, “start” and “continue” to guide the feedback messages.

Reflection: Team

All leaders know the value of structured and considered reflection. Teams that take the time to reflect and improve are those that can grow and by creating an environment of reflection, team leaders and managers can help their group move forward together. This method is effective for both offline and virtual leadership development. It helps a group progress from individual reflection through to full group discussion in a way that encourages constructive thought and minimizes potential frustration or antagonistic conversation. 

Reflection: Team   #hyperisland   #team   #remote-friendly   The purpose of reflecting as a team is for members to express thoughts, feelings and opinions about a shared experience, to build openness and trust in the team, and to draw out key learnings and insights to take forward into subsequent experiences. Team members generally sit in a circle, reflecting first as individuals, sharing those reflections with the group, then discussing the insights and potential actions to take out of the session. Use this session one or more times throughout a project or program.

Leadership conflict resolution activities

One of the most important leadership skills you’ll want to develop is the ability to mediate and resolve team conflicts. Even the most connected and effective teams can run into conflict and it will fall to managers and team leaders to help get things back on track.

Even for established leaders, navigating conflict can be difficult! These leadership development activities are designed to help groups manage and resolve conflicts more effectively.

Giving leaders a framework they can trust and use with their team right away is always a good use of time, and we’d recommend teaching these methods to all new leaders!

What, So What, Now What?

It’s easy to get lost in the woods when it comes to managing conflict. Helping a group see what happened objectively and without judgment is an important leadership skill, and this framework helps make this process easy.

Start by working with the group to collect facts about what happened before moving towards making sense of them. Once everywhere has been heard and given space to process these facts, you can then move towards suggesting practical actions. By following this kind of framework, you can manage a conflict in a pragmatic way that also ensures everyone in a group can contribute.

W³ – What, So What, Now What?   #issue analysis   #innovation   #liberating structures   You can help groups reflect on a shared experience in a way that builds understanding and spurs coordinated action while avoiding unproductive conflict. It is possible for every voice to be heard while simultaneously sifting for insights and shaping new direction. Progressing in stages makes this practical—from collecting facts about What Happened to making sense of these facts with So What and finally to what actions logically follow with Now What . The shared progression eliminates most of the misunderstandings that otherwise fuel disagreements about what to do. Voila!

Conflict Responses

All of us can be guilty of handling conflicts in a less than ideal manner. Part of developing as a leader is identifying when something didn’t go well before finding ways to do things better next time.

In this leadership activity, ask the group to provide examples of previous conflicts and then reflect on how they handled them. Next, ask everyone to reflect on how they might change their behavior for a better outcome in the future. As a leader, use this opportunity to lead the way and be honest and vulnerable. It’s your role to provide a model for interaction and its always worthwhile to see how you can do better as a people manager dealing with conflict too!

Conflict Responses   #hyperisland   #team   #issue resolution   A workshop for a team to reflect on past conflicts, and use them to generate guidelines for effective conflict handling. The workshop uses the Thomas-Killman model of conflict responses to frame a reflective discussion. Use it to open up a discussion around conflict with a team.

Bright Blurry Blind

Finding opportunities to reframe conflict as an opportunity to solve problems and create clarity is a very useful leadership quality. Often, conflict is a signifier of a deeper problem and so finding ways to surface and work on these issues as a team is a great way to move forward and bring a group together too.

In this leadership activity, start by asking the group to reflect on the central metaphor of bright to blind issues or topics, based on whether the problem is out in the open or unknown. Next, invite small groups to ideate on what issues facing the team are bright, blurry, or blind and then discuss them as a group. By working together to illuminate what is blurry or blind, you can create a one-team mentality and start resolving problems that can lead to conflict too.

Bright Blurry Blind   #communication   #collaboration   #problem identification   #issue analysis   This is an exercise for creating a sense of community, support intra and inter departmental communication and breakdown of “Silos” within organizations. It allows participants to openly speak about current issues within the team and organization.

The Art of Effective Feedback Workshop

All leaders will need to give effective feedback in order to help their team develop and do great work. The best leaders also solicit feedback from their direct reports and use this is an opportunity to grow. But how can you teach these feedback skills and help leaders develop this important skill?

Check out our Effective Feedback Workshop template for a complete agenda you can use to develop this leadership skill. You’ll find a ready-to-go workshop with a guide and PowerPoint presentation you can use to help anyone in a leadership role give and receive better feedback.

Workshop design made easy

Designing and running effective workshops and meetings is an important leadership skill; whether it’s staying organized and on time during your daily stand-ups or planning more involved sessions.

With SessionLab, it’s easy to create engaging workshops that create impact while engaging every member of your team. Drag, drop and reorder blocks  to build your agenda. When you make changes or update your agenda, your session  timing   adjusts automatically , saving you time on manual adjustments.

Collaborating with stakeholders or clients? Share your agenda with a single click and collaborate in real-time. No more sending documents back and forth over email.

Explore  how you and your team might use SessionLab  to design more effective sessions or  watch this five minute video  to see the planner in action!

Now over to you…

I hope you have found some useful tips for leadership development workshops above. Now we’d love to hear from you!

What are your favorite leadership workshop ideas and training exercises for leadership development? Did you incorporate any of them into your facilitation practice?

Have you tried any of the activities above? Let us know about your experiences in the comments.

23 Comments

Thank you for sharing such great activity ideas. It is greatly appreciated and a perfect example of how the internet can and does serve the greater good!

Thank you, Jeanne! Great to see that you have found some useful ideas here!

Thank you this is very helpful in building new activities and revitalising teaching.

You’re welcome, Christine! Great to see that you’ve found the post helpful!

Thank you for the magnanimity of sharing these activities. We will choose and run and I am sure they will be very effective.

You are welcome, Roofi – enjoy using these activities at your sessions!

Thank you for sharing such great activity ideas. I will use in my leadership training programme

You are welcome man, happy to see that you’ve found some useful inspiration in this post!

Awesome resources for leadership coaching. Thank you so much! Cheers Marion (From Australia)

You’re welcome, Marion! I’m happy to hear you’ve found interesting the techniques above :-)

Thank you so much . I am really having a hard time thinking about what activities to include for my leadership training talk . This is of great help .

That’s nice to hear – I hope your training talk with go great! :-)

These exercises sound great. Does anyone have any feedback as to how these exercises have worked with their teams? Thanks!

Thank you for the question, Jennifer. We’ve used some of these activities at our own team meetings at SessionLab, and I’ve used other ones earlier on at different training workshops. Which one would you be interested to hear more about?

Thank you for these activities, I have used some of them already in my classes when teaching about leadership and leadership styles. Köszönöm!

That’s great to hear, you’re welcome, Réka! If you have any suggestion on how to tweak or run better these activities, we’d love to hear your thoughts :-)

Thank you for these activities. I was struggling to find activities to work on with groups as small as 1-5, but this should work well.

You’re welcome, Albert – Indeed, most of these activities do work well in small groups as well. Wishing best with your next sessions!

wow! this great! very helpful for trainers like me…. thanks you for sharing …

You’re welcome, I’m happy you’ve found these activities useful!

Hi I am trying to find an online simulation for a course I am designing for a college in Ontario, Canada. I am hoping to find something like your Leadership Envelope but in a virtual format or game. The ’rounds’ aspect is particularly interesting as I would like the students to work with one team over 14 weeks and then submit assigned work based on their experiences related to the course concepts.

Please let me know if you provide something like this or can help in any way.

Hey Rick! Thanks for your comment :)

Leadership Envelope is a great method! Sadly, there’s nothing quite like it in our remote-friendly section of the library currently, though there are a heap of virtual team building activities that could be adapted to go for multiple rounds.

We did have some thoughts on how you might perform the Leadership Envelope in a remote format, which I hope will help!

– Use breakout groups in Zoom for each group. – Have each team pass their virtual “envelope” with responses to the facilitator, either over Slack, PM or email – The facilitator then “passes” the leadership principle to the next team, though keeps the responses back – Play continues, with the facilitator collecting the responses under each leadership principle for later distribution – we’d recommend setting these up in an online whiteboard such as Mural or a Google Doc so teams can review them during the evaluation round – In the evaluation round, share the online whiteboard/Google Doc with the teams – they can then score them in the shared online space and present back to the group from there :) – For the final round, everyone returns to a single Zoom session, each team reclaims their cards (or the facilitator can distribute them back) and then you can debrief :)

Hope that helps, Rick! Using a shared online space such as Mural is also a great shout for an ongoing course, as you can collect and display artifacts generated by the teams throughout :)

Let us know how you get on!

Thank you for having the time and effort on sharing this amazing blog with us! I’ll probably read more of your articles.

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Going from a mere idea to a workshop that delivers results for your clients can feel like a daunting task. In this piece, we will shine a light on all the work behind the scenes and help you learn how to plan a workshop from start to finish. On a good day, facilitation can feel like effortless magic, but that is mostly the result of backstage work, foresight, and a lot of careful planning. Read on to learn a step-by-step approach to breaking the process of planning a workshop into small, manageable chunks.  The flow starts with the first meeting with a client to define the purposes of a workshop.…

How does learning work? A clever 9-year-old once told me: “I know I am learning something new when I am surprised.” The science of adult learning tells us that, in order to learn new skills (which, unsurprisingly, is harder for adults to do than kids) grown-ups need to first get into a specific headspace.  In a business, this approach is often employed in a training session where employees learn new skills or work on professional development. But how do you ensure your training is effective? In this guide, we'll explore how to create an effective training session plan and run engaging training sessions. As team leader, project manager, or consultant,…

Effective online tools are a necessity for smooth and engaging virtual workshops and meetings. But how do you choose the right ones? Do you sometimes feel that the good old pen and paper or MS Office toolkit and email leaves you struggling to stay on top of managing and delivering your workshop? Fortunately, there are plenty of online tools to make your life easier when you need to facilitate a meeting and lead workshops. In this post, we’ll share our favorite online tools you can use to make your job as a facilitator easier. In fact, there are plenty of free online workshop tools and meeting facilitation software you can…

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PSYCH 485 blog

Team Leadership in a Peer Group Project

April 7, 2024 by mzg5691 Leave a Comment

I have to say when I think of team leadership, I immediately recall experiencing this a few semesters ago. It was one of many Psychology classes I had taken and in this one class, we had a peer group assignment writing an essay paper together. We were only 4 members in the group but the energy to meet the same goal was there. The goal was writing this 10-page paper together and this paper would receive one grade for all, typical in these types of group assignments.

As soon as we were assigned to a group, my group consisted of 5 people including myself. The first to reach out the me was a student we’ll call Gina, and she sent these friendly, open messages to all of us in the group inviting us to join a group chat she had set up through a student chatting app. She explained why she set this up stating it was easier and quicker for us to communicate throughout the course of this assignment. We were all World Campus students, different schedules, different time zones, different lives and she said we could all keep in contact with work together.

As each of us logged in, reintroduced ourselves, we got to work through the chat right away. Gina was kind, friendly, empathetic, and positive to everyone. She had also made each of us feel our participation mattered. From deciding on what our project was supposed to be about, to who was going to write what part, Gina wanted to hear from everyone, and everyone else wanted too also. We brainstormed and tackled the harder questions, and we all gave each other feedback on our writings. Northouse (2021, pg.462) writes that there are three key factors in the effectiveness of virtual teams. First, the use of technology, second, managing distance, and third, team structure. I believe our group hit all three factors, with Gina initiating communication with technology that helped us manage our distance from each other and we were all engaged in our structure as a group.

Gina never made us feel like she was our leader. She just brought us together and made clear we were all equals in the common goal: the grade from this assignment. Although she clearly displayed leadership ability, not once did she ever make us feel that way or insinuate, she was leader. It was a positive experience I had with group projects I hope to have again.

(Northouse, 2021-02-02)

Northouse, P. G.  (2021-02-02). Leadership: Theory and Practice,  9th Edition. [[VitalSource Bookshelf version]].  Retrieved from bned://9781071834473

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6 Common Leadership Styles — and How to Decide Which to Use When

• Rebecca Knight

Being a great leader means recognizing that different circumstances call for different approaches.

Research suggests that the most effective leaders adapt their style to different circumstances — be it a change in setting, a shift in organizational dynamics, or a turn in the business cycle. But what if you feel like you’re not equipped to take on a new and different leadership style — let alone more than one? In this article, the author outlines the six leadership styles Daniel Goleman first introduced in his 2000 HBR article, “Leadership That Gets Results,” and explains when to use each one. The good news is that personality is not destiny. Even if you’re naturally introverted or you tend to be driven by data and analysis rather than emotion, you can still learn how to adapt different leadership styles to organize, motivate, and direct your team.

Much has been written about common leadership styles and how to identify the right style for you, whether it’s transactional or transformational, bureaucratic or laissez-faire. But according to Daniel Goleman, a psychologist best known for his work on emotional intelligence, “Being a great leader means recognizing that different circumstances may call for different approaches.”

• RK Rebecca Knight is a journalist who writes about all things related to the changing nature of careers and the workplace. Her essays and reported stories have been featured in The Boston Globe, Business Insider, The New York Times, BBC, and The Christian Science Monitor. She was shortlisted as a Reuters Institute Fellow at Oxford University in 2023. Earlier in her career, she spent a decade as an editor and reporter at the Financial Times in New York, London, and Boston.

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Substance Abuse Treatment: Group Therapy [Internet]. Rockville (MD): Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (US); 2005. (Treatment Improvement Protocol (TIP) Series, No. 41.)

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6 Group Leadership, Concepts, and Techniques

In This Chapter….

This chapter describes desirable leader traits and behaviors, along with the concepts and techniques vital to process groups—though many of the ideas can apply in other types of groups. Most of the ideas seem perfectly logical, too, once they are brought to mind.

For instance, consistency in manner and procedure helps to provide a safe and stable environment for the newly recovering person with a substance use disorder. When the upheaval in the lives of people recovering from addictions is considered, it becomes clear how important it is to keep as many factors as possible both constant and predictable.

The pages that follow discuss issues such as

How to convert conflict and resistance into positive energy that powers the group

How to deal with disruptive group members, such as clients who talk incessantly or bolt from a session

How to cool down runaway affect or turn a crisis into an opportunity

People who abuse substances are a broad and diverse population, one that spans all ages and ethnic groups and encompasses people with a wide variety of co-occurring conditions and personal histories. In working with people who have substance use disorders, an effective leader uses the same skills, qualities, styles, and approaches needed in any kind of therapeutic group. The adjustments needed to treat substance abuse are simply that—adjustments within the bounds of good practice. The particular personal and cultural characteristics of the clients in group also will influence the therapist's tailoring of therapeutic strategies to fit the particular needs of the group.

• The Group Leader

Personal Qualities

Although the attributes of an effective interpersonal process group leader treating substance abuse are not strikingly different from traits needed to work successfully with other client populations, some of the variations in approach make a big difference. Clients, for example, will respond to a warm, empathic, and life-affirming manner. Flores (1997) states that “many therapists do not fully appreciate the impact of their personalities or values on addicts or alcoholics who are struggling to identify some viable alternative lifestyle that will allow them to fill up the emptiness or deadness within them” (p. 456). For this reason, it is important for group leaders to communicate and share the joy of being alive. This life-affirming attitude carries the unspoken message that a full and vibrant life is possible without alcohol or drugs.

In addition, because many clients with substance abuse histories have grown up in homes that provided little protection, safety, and support, the leader should be responsive and affirming, rather than distant or judgmental. The leader should recognize that group members have a high level of vulnerability and are in need of support, particularly in the early stage of treatment. A discussion of other essential characteristics for a group leader follows. Above all, it is important for the leader of any group to understand that he or she is responsible for making a series of choices as the group progresses. The leader chooses how much leadership to exercise, how to structure the group, when to intervene, how to effect a successful intervention, how to manage the group's collective anxiety, and the means of resolving numerous other issues. It is essential for any group leader to be aware of the choices made and to remember that all choices concerning the group's structure and her leadership will have consequences ( Pollack and Slan 1995 ).

Excellent listening skills are the keystone of any effective therapy.

An environment with small, infrequent changes is helpful to clients living in the emotionally turbulent world of recovery. Group facilitators can emphasize the reality of constancy and security through a variety of specific behaviors. For example, group leaders always should sit in the same place in the group. Leaders also need to respond consistently to particular behaviors. They should maintain clear and consistent boundaries, such as specific start and end times, standards for comportment, and ground rules for speaking. Even dress matters. The setting and type of group will help determine appropriate dress, but whatever the group leader chooses to wear, some predictability is desirable throughout the group experience. The group leader should not come dressed in a suit and tie one day and in blue jeans the next.

Active listening

Excellent listening skills are the keystone of any effective therapy. Therapeutic interventions require the clinician to perceive and to understand both verbal and nonverbal cues to meaning and metaphorical levels of meaning. In addition, leaders need to pay attention to the context from which meanings come. Does it pertain to the here-and-now of what is occurring in the group or the then-and-there history of the specific client?

Firm identity

A firm sense of their own identities, together with clear reflection on experiences in group, enables leaders to understand and manage their own emotional lives. For example, therapists who are aware of their own capacities and tendencies can recognize their own defenses as they come into play in the group. They might need to ask questions such as: “Am I cutting off discussions that could lead to verbal expression of anger because I am uncomfortable with anger? Have I blamed clients for the group's failure to make progress?”

Group work can be extremely intense emotionally. Leaders who are not in control of their own emotional reactions can do significant harm—particularly if they are unable to admit a mistake and apologize for it. The leader also should monitor the process and avoid being seduced by content issues that arouse anger and could result in a loss of the required professional stance or distance. A group leader also should be emotionally healthy and keenly aware of personal emotional problems, lest they become confused with the urgent issues faced by the group as a whole. The leader should be aware of the boundary between personal and group issues ( Pollack and Slan 1995 ).

Effective group leaders operate between the certain and the uncertain. In that zone, they cannot rely on formulas or supply easy answers to clients' complex problems. Instead, leaders have to model the consistency that comes from self-knowledge and clarity of intent, while remaining attentive to each client's experience and the unpredictable unfolding of each session's work. This secure grounding enables the leader to model stability for the group.

Spontaneity

Good leaders are creative and flexible. For instance, they know when and how to admit a mistake, instead of trying to preserve an image of perfection. When a leader admits error appropriately, group members learn that no one has to be perfect, that they—and others—can make and admit mistakes, yet retain positive relationships with others.

Largely due to the nature of the material group members are sharing in process groups, it is all but inevitable that ethical issues will arise. Leaders should be familiar with their institution's policies and with pertinent laws and regulations. Leaders also need to be anchored by clear internalized standards of conduct and able to maintain the ethical parameters of their profession.

Good leaders are creative and flexible.

Group leaders should be able to trust others. Without this capacity, it is difficult to accomplish a key aim of the group: restoration of group members' faith and trust in themselves and their fellow human beings ( Flores 1997 ).

The therapist needs to be able to use humor appropriately, which means that it is used only in support of therapeutic goals and never is used to disguise hostility or wound anyone.

Empathy, one of the cornerstones of successful group treatment for substance abuse, is the ability to identify someone else's feelings while remaining aware that the feelings of others are distinct from one's own. Through these “transient identifications” we make with others, we feel less alone. “Identification is the antidote to loneliness, to the feeling of estrangement that seems inherent in the human condition” ( Ormont 1992 , p. 147).

For the counselor, the ability to project empathy is an essential skill. Without it, little can be accomplished. Empathic listening requires close attention to everything a client says and the formation of hypotheses about the underlying meaning of statements ( Miller and Rollnick 1991 ). An empathic substance abuse counselor

Communicates respect for and acceptance of clients and their feelings

Encourages a nonjudgmental, collaborative relationship

Is supportive and knowledgeable

Sincerely compliments rather than denigrates or diminishes another person

Tells less and listens more

Gently persuades, while understanding that the decision to change is the client's

Provides support throughout the recovery process ( Center for Substance Abuse Treatment [CSAT] 1999 b , p. 41)

One of the great benefits of group therapy is that as clients interact, they learn from one another. For interpersonal interaction to be beneficial, it should be guided, for the most part, by empathy. The group leader should be able to model empathic interaction for group members, especially since people with substance use disorders often cannot identify and communicate their feelings, let alone appreciate the emotive world of others. The group leader teaches group members to understand one another's subjective world, enabling clients to develop empathy for each other ( Shapiro 1991 ). The therapist promotes growth in this area simply by asking group members to say what they think someone else is feeling and by pointing out cues that indicate what another person may be feeling.

One of the feelings that the group leader needs to be able to empathize with is shame, which is common among people with substance abuse histories. Shame is so powerful that it should be addressed whenever it becomes an issue. When shame is felt, the group leader should look for it and recognize it ( Gans and Weber 2000 ). The leader also should be able to empathize with it, avoid arousing more shame, and help group members identify and process this painful feeling. Figure 6-1 discusses shame and group therapy.

The group leader should be able to model empathic interaction for group members.

Leading Groups

Group therapy with clients who have histories of substance abuse or dependence requires active, responsive leaders who keep the group lively and on task, and ensure that members are engaged continuously and meaningfully with each other. Leaders, however, should not make themselves the center of attention. The leader should be aware of the differing personalities of the group members, while always searching for common themes in the group. Themes to focus on, for example, might include loss, abandonment, and self-value ( Pollack and Slan 1995 ).

Leaders vary therapeutic styles with the needs of clients

As explained in chapter 5 , group leaders should modify their styles to meet clients' needs at different times. During the early and middle stages of treatment, the therapist is more active, becoming less so in the late stage. Moreover, during the late stage of treatment, the therapist should offer less support and gratification. This keeps the group at an “optimal level of anxiety,” one that would be intolerable and counterproductive in the early or middle stages of treatment ( Flores 1997 ).

To determine the type of leadership required to support a client in treatment, the clinician should consider the client's capacity to manage affect, level of functioning, social supports, and stability, since these factors have some bearing upon alcohol or illicit drug use. These considerations are essential to determine the type of group best suited to meet the client's needs. For example, a client at the beginning stage of treatment who is high functioning and used to working in groups generally will require a less active therapist and less structure. On the other hand, a lower-functioning client who has little or no group experience and is just beginning treatment would best be placed in a structured, task-oriented group. Such a person also would benefit from a clinician who more actively expresses warmth and acceptance, thus helping to engage the client.

Leaders model behavior

It is more useful for the therapist to model group-appropriate behaviors than to assume the role of mentor, showing how to “do recovery.” For example, the therapist can model the way to listen actively, give accurate feedback, and display curiosity about apparent discrepancies in behavior and intent.

Therapists should be aware that self-disclosure is always going on, whether consciously or unconsciously. They intentionally should use self-disclosure only to meet the task-related needs of the group, and then only after thoughtful consideration, perhaps including a discussion with a supervisor.

Both therapists and their institutions should have a thoughtful policy about self-disclosure, including disclosure of a therapist's past experiences with substance abuse or addiction. Too often, self-disclosure occurs to meet the therapist's own needs (for example, for affiliation and approval) or to gratify clients. When personal questions are asked, group leaders need to consider the motivation behind the question. Often clients are simply seeking assurance that the therapist is able to understand and assist them ( Flores 1997 ).

Cotherapy is extremely powerful when carried out skillfully.

Leaders can be cotherapists

Cotherapy is an effective way to blend the diverse skills, resources, and therapeutic perspectives that two therapists can bring to a group. In addition, cotherapy is beneficial because, if properly carried out, it can provide

The opportunity to watch “functional, adaptive behavior in the co-leader pair”

Additional opportunities for family transferences when the leaders are of different genders

An opportunity for “two sets of eyes to view the situation” ( Vannicelli 1992 , p. 238)

Cotherapy, also called coleadership, is extremely powerful when carried out skillfully. A male-female cotherapy team may be especially helpful, for a number of reasons. It allows clients to explore their conscious and subconscious reactions to the presence of a parental dyad, or pair. It shows people of opposite sexes engaging in a healthy, nonexploitative relationship. It presents two different gender role models. It demonstrates role flexibility, as clients observe the variety of roles possible for a male or a female in a relationship. It provides an opportunity for clients to discover and work through their gender distortions ( Kahn 1996 ).

Frequently, however, cotherapy is not done well, and the result is destructive. At times, a supervisor and a subordinate act as cotherapists, and power differentials result. Alternatively, cotherapists are put together out of convenience, rather than their potential to work well together and improve and facilitate group process. True cotherapy takes place between clinicians of equal authority and mutual regard. (Naturally, the foregoing does not apply to training opportunities in which a trainee sits in with a seasoned group therapist. In such a setting, the trainee functions as an observer, not a cotherapist.)

Problems also may arise because institutions and leaders fail to allow enough time for cotherapists to prepare for group together and to process what has happened after the group has met. Some suggest that cotherapists confer for as much time outside the group as the length of the group itself, that is, 45 minutes of consultation for each 45-minute group session. While this amount of time may be ideal, the realities of most organizations do not make this level of commitment feasible. At the least, however, cotherapists should have a minimum of 15 minutes before and after each group meets.

Personal conflict or professional disagreements can be a third source of negative effects on the group. Thus, cotherapists should carefully work out their own conflicts and develop a leadership style suitable for the group before engaging in the therapeutic process. Cotherapists also should work out important theoretical differences before taking on a group, reaching full agreement on their view of the group and appropriate ways to facilitate the group's development ( Wheelan 1997 ). Achieving a healthy, collaborative, and productive cotherapy team will require a “(1) commitment of time and sharing, (2) the development of [mutual] respect…and (3) use of supervision to work out differences and identify…problems” ( Kahn 1996 , p. 443).

Inevitably, cotherapist relationships will grow and evolve over time. The relationship between the cotherapists and the group, too, will evolve. Both the cotherapists and the group should recognize this process and be ready to adapt to constant change and growth ( Dugo and Beck 1997 ). The most successful cotherapy is carried out “by partners who make a commitment to an ongoing relationship, who reason with each other, and who accept responsibility to work on the evolution of their relationship” ( Dugo and Beck 1997 , p. 2). The development of a healthy relationship between cotherapists will have a positive effect on their relationship to the group, relationships among members of the group, and on individuals within the group as they experience the continuous changes and growth of the group ( Dugo and Beck 1997 ).

Leaders are sensitive to ethical issues

Group therapy by nature is a powerful type of intervention. As the group process unfolds, the group leader needs to be alert, always ready to perceive and resolve issues with ethical dimensions. Some typical situations with ethical concerns follow.

Overriding group agreements

Group agreements give the group definition and clarity, and are essential for group safety. In rare situations, however, it would be unethical not to bend the rules to meet the needs of an individual. For example, group rules may say that failure to call in before an absence from group is cause for reporting the infraction to a referring agency. If the client can demonstrate that an unavoidable emergency prevented calling in, the group leader may agree that the offense does not merit a report. Furthermore, the needs of the group may sometimes override courtesies shown to an individual. For example, a group may have made an agreement not to discuss any group member when that member is not present. If, however, a member should relapse, become seriously ill, or experience some other dire problem, the no-discussion rule has to be set aside if the group leader is to allow the members to express their concerns for the missing member and to consider how that person's problem affects the group as a whole.

Group agreements give the group definition and clarity, and are essential for group safety.

Informing clients of options

Even when group participation is mandated, clients should be informed clearly of the options open to them. For example, the client deserves the option to discuss with program administrators any forms of treatment or leadership style that the client believes to be inappropriate. In such an instance, issues of cultural competence should be kept in mind, because what is appropriate for an individual or a group is by no means universal.

Preventing enmeshment

Leaders should be aware that the power of groups can have a dark side. Although cohesion is a positive outcome to be sought and supported, the strong desire for affiliation also can place undue pressure on group members who already are in the throes of a major transition from substance abuse to abstinent lives. The need to belong is so strong that it can sometimes cause a client to act in a way that is not genuine or consistent with personal ethics. Regardless of the kind of group, the leader needs to be aware of this possibility and to monitor group sharing to ensure that clients are not drawn into situations that violate their privacy or integrity. The leader is obligated to foster cohesion while respecting the rights and best interests of individuals.

The leader is obligated to foster cohesion while respecting the rights and best interests of individuals.

Acting in each client's best interest

It is possible that the group collectively may validate a particular course of action that may not be in a client's best interest. For example, if there is stress in one group member's marriage, other group members might support a course of action that could have dangerous or harmful consequences. Similarly, the group might engage in problem solving in some area of a member's life and recommend a course of action that would clearly be undesirable.

It is the responsibility of the group facilitator to challenge the group's conclusions or recommendations when they deny individual autonomy or could lead to serious negative consequences. Any such challenge, however, should come in a nonshaming fashion, primarily through the review of other options.

Handling emotional contagion

Another's sharing, such as an agonized account of sexual abuse, can stir frightening memories and intense emotions in listeners. In this powerful and emotional atmosphere, the spreading excitement of the moment, or emotional contagion, requires the leader to

Protect individuals. The group leader should guard the right of each member to refrain from involvement. The leader makes it clear that each group member has a right to private emotions and feelings. When the group pressures a member to disclose information, the leader should remind the group that members need only reveal information about themselves at levels with which they are comfortable.

Protect boundaries. Group pressure or the group leader's interest should not obligate anyone to disclose intimate details that the client prefers not to share. At the same time, clients are responsible for managing their feelings in the face of the group's power and deciding what they will and won't share.

Regulate affect. At all times, the therapist should be mindful of the need to modulate affect (emotionality), always keeping it at a level that enables the work of the group to continue. Yalom (1995) suggests an intervention that group leaders could use to limit conflict or almost any unacceptable escalation of affect: “We've been expressing some intense feelings here today…. To prevent us from overload, it might be valuable to stop what we're doing and try together to understand what's been happening and where all these powerful feelings come from” (p. 350).

Working within professional limitations

Group leaders never should attempt to use group techniques or modalities for which they are not trained. When new techniques are used with any group, leaders should be certain to have appropriate training and the supervision of experts familiar with the techniques to be employed. Therapists likewise should decline to work with any population or in any situation for which they are unprepared. For example, an addiction counselor who has never run a long-term therapy group and has not learned how to do so should not accept an assignment to lead such a group. Further, a counselor cannot read about psychodrama and, using a workbook, successfully apply this highly charged technique with clients in an early stage of treatment. Such a misguided effort could have serious psychological consequences.

Ensuring role flexibility

Different group members may assume particular roles within the group. Natural leaders may emerge, as may a member who expresses anger for the group and someone who provides support. One client may take on a scapegoat role and then blame the group.

Playing different roles and examining their dynamics can provide a corrective emotional and interpersonal experience for the group. On the other hand, rigid roles can restrict group work. If, for example, a group consistently places individuals in particular roles, they may use their placements as defense mechanisms, thereby avoiding powerfully charged issues. It is easier, for example, to deal with the problems of being a scapegoat than it is to work on recovery from addiction.

While it is natural for group members to assume certain roles—there are, after all, natural leaders—individual members benefit from the opportunity to experience different aspects of themselves. Role variation also keeps the group lively and dynamic. These benefits will be lost if the same group members consistently assume the same roles in group. It is important for the group facilitator to support role sharing within the membership.

In all therapeutic settings, the clinician should be sensitive to issues of dual relationships.

Avoiding role conflict

In all therapeutic settings, the clinician should be sensitive to issues of dual relationships. A group leader's responsibilities outside the group that place him in a different relationship to group participants should not be allowed to compromise the leader's in-group role. For example, a client's group leader should not also be that client's Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) sponsor. Both roles and functions are important, but should not be performed by the same person. If the leader happens to be in recovery and is attending self-help meetings at which group members are present, this possible role conflict should be discussed with supervisors.

Ethical behavior is absolutely essential to group leadership. As the best practice guidelines (1998) from the Association for Specialists in Group Work (ASGW) declare, “ASGW views ethical process as being integral to group work and views Group Workers as ethical agents.”

The ASGW statement is regarded as so important that the entire text is reproduced in appendix E .

Leaders improve motivation

Client motivation is a vital factor in the success of treatment for substance use disorders. Motivation-boosting techniques have been shown to increase both treatment participation and outcomes ( Chappel 1994 ; Easton et al. 2000 ; Foote et al. 1999 ). Motivation generally improves when

Clients are engaged at the appropriate stage of change.

Clients receive support for change efforts.

The therapist explores choices and their consequences with the client.

The therapist honestly and openly communicates care and concern for group members.

The therapist points out the client's competencies.

Steps toward positive change are noted within the group and further encouragement is provided.

The therapist helps clients enjoy their triumphs with questions such as, “What's it like, Bill, to communicate your thoughts so clearly to Claire and to have her understand you so well?” or “What was it like to be able to communicate your frustration so directly?”

One effective motivational tool is the FRAMES approach, which uses the six key elements of Feedback, Responsibility, Advice, Menus (of change options), Empathic therapy, and Self-efficacy ( Miller and Sanchez 1994 ). This approach engages clients in their own treatment and motivates them to change in ways that are the least likely to trigger resistance. The FRAMES approach is discussed in detail in chapter 2 of TIP 35, Enhancing Motivation for Change in Substance Abuse Treatment ( CSAT 1999 b ).

When this kind of supportive technique is employed, however, a client's stage of change should be taken into account (see chapters 2 and 3 for more detailed discussions of the stages of change). Techniques to enhance motivation that are appropriate at one stage of change may not be useful at another stage and may even trigger treatment resistance or noncompliance ( CSAT 1999 b ). For example, clients in the contemplation stage are weighing the pros and cons of continued substance abuse. An intervention for the action stage is appropriate for a client who has already made a commitment to change. If such an intervention is used too early, the client understandably may fail to cooperate.

Leaders overcome resistance

Resistance is especially strong among clients referred by the courts. It generally arises as a defense against the pain that therapy and examining one's own behavior usually brings. In group therapy, resistance appears at both the individual and the group level. The group leader should have a repertoire of means to overcome the resistance that prevents successful substance abuse treatment in groups ( Milgram and Rubin 1992 ).

The group therapist should be prepared to work effectively against intense resistance to “experiencing, expressing, and understanding emotions” ( Cohen 1997 , p. 443). In order to overcome resistance to the experience of emotion, “the group members should experience feelings at a level of arousal wherein feelings are undeniable, but not to the extent that the group member is overcome” ( Cohen 1997 , p. 445).

Leaders defend limits

Providing a safe, therapeutic frame for clients and maintaining firm boundaries are among the most important functions of the group leader. For many group members, a properly conducted group will be the first opportunity to interact with others in a safe, supportive, and substance-free environment.

The boundaries established should be mutually agreed upon in a specific contract. When leaders point out boundaries and boundary violations, they should do so in a nonshaming, nonjudgmental, matter-of-fact way. Some possible ways of dealing with this situation might be

“This is a hard place to end, but …”

“I know how angry you're feeling, but we have agreed …”

When boundary violations occur, group members should be reminded of agreements and given an opportunity to discuss the meaning and implication of the limit-breaking behavior as they see it. For example, if three group members are coming in late, the leader might say, “It's interesting that although everyone who joined the group agreed to arrive on time, many members are having a difficult time meeting this agreement.” Or the leader might ask, “How would this group be different if everyone came on time?”

The group members may respond, for example, that they would not be obliged to repeat what already has been said to help latecomers catch up and, thus, get more out of each session. This group involvement in limit setting is crucial. It transmits power and responsibility to the group, and the leader avoids the isolated role of enforcer. While leaders inevitably will be regarded as authority figures, they certainly want to avoid creating the image of an insensitive, punitive authority.

Leaders maintain a safe therapeutic setting

Emotional aspects of safety.

Group members should learn to interact in positive ways. In the process, leaders should expect that people with substance abuse histories will have learned an extensive repertoire of intimidating, shaming, and other harmful behaviors. Because such conduct can make group members feel unsafe, the leader should use interventions that deflect the offensive behavior without shaming the shamer.

Shame is not a point, but a range, some researchers argue. “Healthy” shame “helps to regulate a person's behavior in the service of preserving self-esteem, values, and personal connection” at one end of the continuum ( Gans and Weber 2000 , p. 382). At the other end is “unmetabolized shame,” or shame that “in a narcissistically vulnerable person produces its pathological variants… Whereas guilt is a response to a thought or deed, shame connotes a more pervasive (self) condemnation” ( Gans and Weber 2000 , p. 382). It is thus potentially harmful to group members who are struggling to be honest with themselves and with the other group members.

The boundaries established should be mutually agreed upon in a specific contract.

The group needs to feel safe without blaming or scapegoating an individual member. If a member makes an openly hostile comment, the leader's response should state clearly what has happened and set a firm boundary for the group that makes clear that group members are not to be attacked. Sometimes, the leader simply may need to state what has occurred in a factual manner: “Debby, you may not have intended this effect, but that last remark came across as really hurtful.”

When group members' responses lack empathy or treat one group member as a scapegoat, this targeted individual represents “a disowned part of other members of the group.” Members may fault Sally repeatedly for her critical nature and lack of openness. The leader may intervene with a comment such as, “We've taken up time dealing with Sally's problems. My guess is that part of the reason the group is so focused on this is that it's something everybody in here knows a little about and that this issue has a lot of meaning for the group. Perhaps the group is trying to kick this characteristic down and beat it out because it's too close to home and simply cannot be ignored” ( Vannicelli 1992 , p. 125).

When individual group members are verbally abusive and other group members are too intimidated to name the problem, the leader should find a way to provide “a safe environment in which such interactions can be productively processed and understood—not only by the attacking group member but also by the other members (who need to understand what is motivating their reluctance to respond)” ( Vannicelli 1992 , p. 165). To accomplish this goal, the leader may intervene with statements such as:

It is the therapist's responsibility to maintain the appropriate level of emotion and stimulation in the group.

To the group as a whole: “John has been pretty forthright with some of his feelings this evening. It seems as if others in here are having more difficulty sharing their feelings. Perhaps we can understand what it is about what John has shared or the way in which he shared it that makes it hard to respond” ( Vannicelli 1992 , p. 165).

To John: “John, how do you suppose Mary might be feeling just now about your response to her?” or “If you had just received the kind of feedback that you gave to Mary, how do you suppose you'd be feeling right now?” ( Vannicelli 1992 , pp. 165–166).

Whatever intervention is used should show the group “that it is appropriate to let people know how you feel, and that people can learn in the group how to do this in a way that doesn't push others away” ( Vannicelli 1992 , p. 166).

A client can be severely damaged by emotional overstimulation. It is the therapist's responsibility to maintain the appropriate level of emotion and stimulation in the group. This will “prevent a too sudden or too intense mobilization of feeling that cannot be adequately expressed in language” ( Rosenthal 1999 a , p. 159). The therapist can achieve this control by warning potential group members of the emotional hazards of revealing their feelings to a group of strangers and by helping new members regulate the amount of their self-disclosure.

Substance use

In a group of people trying to maintain abstinence, the presence of someone in the group who is intoxicated or actively using illicit drugs is a powerful reality that will upset many members. In this situation, the leader should intervene decisively. The leader will make it as easy as possible for the person who has relapsed to seek treatment, but a disruptive member should leave the group for the present. The leader also will help group members explore their feelings about the relapse and reaffirm the primary importance of members' agreement to remain abstinent. Some suggestions follow for situations involving relapse:

If clients come to sessions under the influence of alcohol or drugs , the leader should ensure that the individual does not drive home. Even a person walking home sometimes should be escorted to prevent falls, pedestrian accidents, and so on.

If a client obviously is intoxicated at the beginning of the group, that person should be asked to leave and return for the next session in a condition appropriate for participation ( Vannicelli 1992 ).

Vannicelli (1992) addresses several other situations that commonly occur:

Signs indicate that the client is not abstinent , but the client will not admit using alcohol or drugs. When signs (such as bloodshot eyes) indicate that the client is using substances repeatedly before coming to the group, but the client does not admit the infraction, the leader might:

Use empathy to join with the client, letting the member know that the leader understands why it's hard to acknowledge substance use to the group.

Describe the impasse, namely, that it is important that both client and therapist feel that they are in a credible relationship, but the way things are shaping up, it must be increasingly difficult for the client to come in week after week knowing that the therapist doubts him.

Brainstorm, permitting the group to solve the problem and get past the impasse ( Vannicelli 1992 ).

A client has been using alcohol or drugs, but will not acknowledge it. If other group members do not confront clients who are using substances, the leader should raise the issue in an empathic manner designed to encourage honesty, such as, “It must be hard for you, Sandy, to find yourself in a group in which you don't feel safe enough to talk about your drinking” ( Vannicelli 1992 , p. 65).

A client defiantly acknowledges using substances. A client who uses substances and clearly has no intention of stopping should be asked to leave the group. In contrast, a client who slips repeatedly needs an intervention that invites the group's help in setting conditions for continued participation: “It is clear, Maria, that you feel it is appropriate for you to stop using and yet, so far, the ways that you have been dealing with the problem have not been adequate. Since it is important that your behavior, as well as your words, support the group norm, we need to find ways that will be more effective in supporting abstinence.” The group may then help set up specific requirements for Maria that will help her maintain abstinence. Suggestions might include increased AA participation, the development of a relapse prevention plan, increased supportive social contact, or the use of medications (like Antabuse for alcoholism) ( Vannicelli 1992 , p. 68).

Many outpatient groups have mandated clients who are required to submit to urine tests. The counselor is required to report infractions or test failures. These stipulations should appear in the group agreement, so they do not come as a surprise to anyone.

Boundaries and physical contact

When physical boundaries are breached in the group, and no one in the group raises the issue, the leader should call the behavior to the group's attention. The leader should remind members of the terms of agreement, call attention to the questionable behavior in a straightforward, factual way, and invite group input with a comment such as, “Joe, you appear to be communicating something nonverbally by putting your hand on Mary's shoulder. Could you please put your actions into words?”

Most agencies have policies related to violent behavior; all group leaders should know what they are. In groups, threatening behavior should be intercepted decisively. If necessary, the leader may have to stand in front of a group member being physically threatened. Some situations require help, so a lone leader should never conduct a group session without other staff nearby. On occasion, police intervention may be necessary, which could be expected to disrupt the group experience completely.

The leader should not suggest touching, holding hands, or group hugs without first discussing this topic in group. This tactic will convey the message that strong feelings should be talked about, not avoided. In general, though, group members should be encouraged to put their thoughts and feelings into words, not actions.

Whenever the therapist invites the group to participate in any form of physical contact (for example, in psychodrama or dance therapy), individuals should be allowed to opt out without any negative perceptions within the group. All members uncomfortable with physical contact should be assured of permission to refrain from touching or having anyone touch them.

A group may need to set up specific requirements to help a member maintain abstinence.

Leaders also should make sure that suggestions to touch are intended to serve the clients' best interests and not the needs of the therapist. Under no circumstances should a counselor ask for or initiate physical contact. Like their clients, counselors need to learn that such impulses affect them as well. Nothing is wrong with feeling attracted to a client. It is wrong, however, for group leaders to allow these feelings to dictate or influence their behavior.

Group leaders carefully monitor the level of emotional intensity in the group.

Leaders help cool down affect

Group leaders carefully monitor the level of emotional intensity in the group, recognizing that too much too fast can bring on extremely uncomfortable feelings that will interfere with progress—especially for those in the earlier stages of recovery. When emotionally loaded topics (such as sexual abuse or trauma) come up and members begin to share the details of their experiences, the level of emotion may rapidly rise to a degree some group members are unable to tolerate.

At this point, the leader should give the group the opportunity to pause and determine whether or not to proceed. The leader might ask, “Something very powerful is going on right now. What is happening? How does it feel? Do we want to go further at this time?”

At times, when a client floods the room with emotional information, the therapist should mute the disturbing line of discussion. The leader should not express discomfort with the level of emotion or indicate a wish to avoid hearing what was being said. Leaders can say something such as

“As I ask you to stop, there's a danger that what you hear is, ‘I don't want to hear you.’ It's not that. It's just that for now, I'm concerned that you may come to feel as if you have shared more than you might wish.”

“I'm wondering how useful it would be for you to continue with what you're doing right now.” This intervention teaches individuals how to regulate their expression of emotions and provides an opportunity for the group to comment.

“Let's pause for a moment and every few minutes from now. How are you feeling right now? Let me know when you're ready to move on.”

A distinction needs to be made whether the strong feelings are related to there-and-then material or to here-and-now conduct. It is far less unsettling for someone to express anger—even rage—at a father who abused her 20 years ago than it is to have a client raging at and threatening to kill another group member. Also, the amount of appropriate affect will differ according to the group's purpose. Much stronger emotions are appropriate in psychodrama or gestalt groups than in psycho-educational or support groups.

For people who have had violence in their lives, strong negative emotions like anger can be terrifying. When a group member's rage adversely affects the group process, the leader may use an intervention such as

“Bill, stop for a moment and hear how what you're doing is affecting other people.”

“Bill, maybe it would be helpful for you to hear what other people have been thinking while you've been speaking.”

“Bill, as you've been talking, have you noticed what's been happening in the group?”

The thrust of such interventions is to modulate the expression of intense rage and encourage the angry person and others affected by the anger to pay attention to what has happened. Vannicelli (1992) suggests two other ways to modulate a highly charged situation:

Switch from emotion to cognition. The leader can introduce a cognitive element by asking clients about their thoughts or observations or about what has been taking place.

Move in time, from a present to a past focus or from past to present.

When intervening to control runaway affect, the leader always should be careful to support the genuine expressions of emotion that are appropriate for the group and the individual's stage of change.

Leaders encourage communication within the group

In support and interpersonal process groups, the leader's primary task is stimulating communication among group members, rather than between individual members and the leader. This function also may be important on some occasions in psychoeducational and skills-building groups. Some of the many appropriate interventions used to help members engage in meaningful dialog with each other are

Praising good communication when it happens.

Noticing a member's body language, and without shaming, asking that person to express the feeling out loud.

Building bridges between members with remarks such as, “It sounds as if both you and Maria have something in common …”

Helping the group complete unfinished business with questions such as, “At the end of our session last time, Sally and Joan were sharing some very important observations. Do you want to go back and explore those further?”

When someone has difficulty expressing a thought, putting the idea in words and asking, “Have I got it right?”

Helping members with difficulty verbalizing know that their contributions are valuable and putting them in charge of requesting assistance. The leader might ask, “I can see that you are struggling, Bert. My guess is that you are carrying a truth that's important for the group. Do you have any sense of how they can help you say it?”

In support and interpersonal process groups, the leader's primary task is stimulating communication among group members.

In general, group leaders should speak often, but briefly, especially in time-limited groups. In group, the best interventions usually are the ones that are short and simple. Effective leadership demands the ability to make short, simple, cogent remarks.

• Concepts, Techniques, and Considerations

Interventions

Interventions may be directed to an individual or the group as a whole. They can be used to clarify what is going on or to make it more explicit, redirect energy, stop a process that is not helpful, or help the group make a choice about what should be done. A well-timed, appropriate intervention has the power to

Help a client recognize blocks to connection with other people

Discover connections between the use of substances and inner thoughts and feelings

Understand attempts to regulate feeling states and relationships

Build coping skills

Perceive the effect of substance abuse on one's life

Notice meaningful inconsistencies among thoughts, feelings, and behavior

Perceive discrepancies between stated goals and what is actually being done

Any verbal intervention may carry important nonverbal elements. For example, different people would ascribe a variety of meanings to the words, “I am afraid that you have used again,” and the interpretation will vary further with the speaker's tone of voice and body language. Leaders should therefore be careful to avoid conveying an observation in a tone of voice that could create a barrier to understanding or response in the mind of the listener.

A process group that remains leader focused limits the potential for learning and growth.

Avoiding a leader-centered group

Generally a counselor leads several kinds of groups. Leadership duties may include a psychoeducational group, in which a leader usually takes charge and teaches content, and then a process group, in which the leader's role and responsibilities should shift dramatically. A process group that remains leader-focused limits the potential for learning and growth, yet all too often, interventions place the leader at the center of the group. For example, a common sight in a leader-centered group is a series of one-on-one interactions between the leader and individual group members. These sequential interventions do not use the full power of the group to support experiential change, and especially to build authentic, supportive interpersonal relationships. Some ways for a leader to move away from center stage:

In addition to using one's own skills, build skills in participants. Avoid doing for the group what it can do for itself.

Encourage the group to learn the skills necessary to support and encourage one another because too much or too frequent support from the clinician can lead to approval seeking, which blocks growth and independence. Supporting each other, of course, is a skill that should develop through group phases. Thus, in earlier phases of treatment, the leader may need to model ways of communicating support. Later, if a client is experiencing loss and grief, for example, the leader does not rush in to assure the client that all will soon be well. Instead, the leader would invite group members to empathize with each other's struggles, saying something like, “Joanne, my guess is at least six other people here are experts on this type of feeling. What does this bring up for others here?”

Refrain from taking on the responsibility to repair anything in the life of the clients. To a certain extent, they should be allowed to struggle with what is facing them. It would be appropriate, however, for the leader to access resources that will help clients resolve problems.

Confrontation

Confrontation is one form of intervention. In the past, therapists have used confrontation aggressively to challenge clients' defenses of their substance abuse and related untoward behaviors. In recent years, however, clinicians have come to recognize that when “confrontation” is equivalent to “attack,” it can have an adverse effect on the therapeutic alliance and process, ultimately leading to failure. Trying to force the client to share the clinician's view of a situation accomplishes no therapeutic purpose and can get in the way of the work.

A more useful way to think about confrontation is “pointing out inconsistencies,” such as disconnects between behaviors and stated goals. William R. Miller explains:

The linguistic roots of the verb “to confront” mean to come face to face. When you think about it that way, confrontation is precisely what we are trying to accomplish: to allow our clients to come face to face with a difficult and often threatening reality, to “let it in” rather than “block it out,” and to allow this reality to change them. That makes confrontation a goal of counseling rather than a particular style or technique… [T]hen the question becomes, What is the best way to achieve that goal? Evidence is strong that direct, forceful, aggressive approaches are perhaps the least effective way to help people consider new information and change their perceptions ( CSAT 1999 b , p. 10).

Confrontation in this light is a part of the change process, and therefore part of the helping process. Its purpose is to help clients see and accept reality so they can change accordingly ( Miller and Rollnick 1991 ). With this broader understanding of what interventions that “confront” the client really mean, it is not useful to divide therapy into “supportive” and “confrontative” categories.

Transference and Countertransference

Transference means that people project parts of important relationships from the past into relationships in the present. For example, Heather may find that Juan reminds her of her judgmental father. When Juan voices his suspicion that she has been drinking, Heather feels the same feelings she felt when her father criticized all her supposed failings. Within the microcosm of the group, this type of incident not only relates the here-and-now to the past, but also offers Heather an opportunity to learn a different, more self-respecting way of responding to a remark that she perceives as criticism.

The emotion inherent in groups is not limited to clients. The groups inevitably stir up strong feelings in leaders. The therapist's emotional response to a group member's transference is referred to as countertransference. Vannicelli (2001) describes three forms of countertransference:

Feelings of having been there. Leaders with family or personal histories with substance abuse have a treasure in their extraordinary ability to empathize with clients who abuse substances. If that empathy is not adequately understood and controlled, however, it can become a problem, particularly if the therapist tries to act as a role model or sponsor, or discloses too much personal information.

Feelings of helplessness when the therapist is more invested in the treatment than the client is. Treating highly resistant populations, such as clients referred to treatment by the courts, can cause leaders to feel powerless, demoralized, or even angry. The best way to deal with this type of countertransference may be to use the energy of the resistance to fuel the session. (See “Resistance in Group,” next section.)

Feelings of incompetence due to unfamiliarity with culture and jargon. It is helpful for leaders to be familiar with 12-Step programs, cultures, and languages. If a group member uses unfamiliar terms, however, the leader should ask the client to explain what the term means to that person, using a question like, “‘Letting go’ means something a bit different to each person. Can you say a little more about how this relates to your situation?” ( Vannicelli 2001 , p. 58).

The therapist's emotional response to a group member's transference is referred to as countertransference.

When countertransference occurs, the clinician needs to bring all feelings associated with it to awareness and manage them appropriately. Good supervision can be really helpful. Countertransference is not bad. It is inevitable, and with the help of supervision, the group leader can use countertransference to support the group process ( Vannicelli 2001 ).

Resistance in Group

Resistance arises as an often unconscious defense to protect the client from the pain of self-examination. These processes within the client or group impede the open expression of thoughts and feelings, or block the progress of an individual or group. The effective leader will neither ignore resistance nor attempt to override it. Instead, the leader helps the individual and group understand what is getting in the way, welcoming the resistance as an opportunity to understand something important going on for the client or the group. Further, resistance may be viewed as energy that can be harnessed and used in a variety of ways, once the therapist has helped the client and group understand what is happening and what the resistant person or persons actually want ( Vannicelli 2001 ).

In groups that are mandated to enter treatment, members often have little interest in being present, so strong resistance is to be expected. Even this resistance, however, can be incorporated into treatment. For example, the leader may invite the group members to talk about the difficulties experienced in coming to the session or to express their outrage at having been required to come. The leader can respond to this anger by saying, “I am impressed by how open people have been in sharing their feelings this evening and in being so forthcoming about really speaking up. My hope is that people will continue to be able to talk in this open way to make our time together as useful as possible” ( Vannicelli 2001 , p. 55).

For the group leader, strict adherence to confidentiality regulations builds trust.

Leaders should recognize that clients are not always aware that their reasons for nonattendance or lateness may be resistance. The most helpful attitude on the clinician's part is curiosity and an interest in exploring what is happening and what can be learned from it. Leaders need not battle resistance. It is not the enemy. Indeed, it is usually the necessary precursor to change.

It would be a serious mistake, however, to imagine that resistance always melts away once someone calls attention to it. “Resistance is always there for a reason, and the group members should not be expected to give it up until the emotional forces held in check by it are sufficiently discharged or converted, so that they are no longer a danger to the safety of the group or its members” ( Flores 1997 , p. 538).

When a group (rather than an individual) is resistant, the leader may have contributed to the creation of this phenomenon and efforts need to be made to understand the leader's role in the problem. Sometimes, “resistance can be induced by leaders who are passive, hostile, ineffective, guarded, weak, or in need of constant admiration and excessive friendliness” ( Flores 1997 , p. 538).

Confidentiality

For the group leader, strict adherence to confidentiality regulations builds trust. If the bounds of confidentiality are broken, grave legal and personal consequences may result. All group leaders should be thoroughly familiar with Federal laws on confidentiality (42 C.F.R. Part 2, Confidentiality of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Patient Records; see Figure 6-2 ) and relevant agency policies. Confidentiality is recognized as “a central tenet of the practice of psychotherapy” ( Parker et al. 1997 , p. 157), yet a vast majority of States either have vague statutes dealing with confidentiality in group therapy or have no statutes at all. Even where a privilege of confidentiality does exist in law, enforcement of the law that protects it is often difficult ( Parker et al. 1997 ). Clinicians should be aware of this legal problem and should warn clients that what they say in group may not be kept strictly confidential. Some studies indicate that a significant number of therapists do not advise group members that confidentiality has limits ( Parker et al. 1997 ).

Confidentiality and 42 C.F.R., Part 2.

One set of confidentiality issues has to do with the use of personal information in a group session. Group leaders have many sources of information on a client, including the names of the client's employer and spouse, as well as any ties to the court system. A group leader should be clear about how information from these sources may and may not be used in group.

Clinicians consider the bounds of confidentiality as existing around the treatment enterprise, not around a particular treatment group. Clients should know that everyone on the treatment team has access to relevant information. In addition, clinicians should make it clear to clients that confidentiality cannot be used to conceal continued substance abuse, and the therapist will not be drawn into colluding with the client to hide substance use infractions. Clinicians also should advise clients of the exact circumstances under which therapists are legally required to break confidentiality (see Figure 6-2 ).

A second set of confidentiality issues has to do with the group leader's relationships with clients and clients with one another. When counseling a client in both individual therapy and a group context, for example, the leader should know exactly how information learned in individual therapy may be used in the group context. In almost every case, it is more beneficial for the client to divulge such information than for the clinician to reveal it. In an individual session, the therapist and the client can plan how the issue will be brought up in group. This preparation gives clients ample time to decide what to say and what they want from the group. The therapist can prompt clients to share information in the group with a comment like, “I wonder if the group understands what a hard time you've been having over the last 2 weeks?” On the other hand, therapists should reserve the right to determine what information will be discussed in group. A leader may say firmly, “Understand that whatever you tell me may or may not be introduced in group. I will not keep important information from the group, if I feel that withholding the information will impede your progress or interfere with your recovery.“

Clinicians should warn clients that what they say in group may not be kept strictly confidential.

Still other confidentiality issues arise when clients discuss information from the group beyond its bounds. Violations of confidentiality among members should be managed in the same way as other boundary violations; that is, empathic joining with those involved followed by a factual reiteration of the agreement that has been broken and an invitation to group members to discuss their perceptions and feelings. In some cases, when this boundary is violated, the group may feel a need for additional clarification or addenda to the group agreement. The leader may ask, both at the beginning of the group or when issues arise, whether the group feels it needs additional agreements in order to work safely. Such amendments, however, should not seek to renegotiate the terms of the original group agreement. See Figure 6-2 (see p. 110) for helpful information on confidentiality and the law.

Because a group facilitator generally is part of the larger substance abuse treatment program, it is recommended that the group facilitator take a practical approach to exceptions. This practical approach is to have the group facilitator discuss the potential application of the exceptions with the program director or member of the program staff who is the lead on the confidentiality regulation.

Biopsychosocial and Spiritual Framework—Treating the Whole Person

Substance use disorders include a wide range of symptoms with different levels of associated disability. Clients always bring into treatment vulnerabilities other than their alcohol or illicit drug dependencies. Group interventions may be needed to resolve psychological problems, physical ailments, social stresses, and perhaps, spiritual emptiness or bankruptcy. In short, successful treatment for substance use disorders should address the whole person, including that person's spiritual growth.

While the group experience is a powerful tool in the treatment of substance use disorders, it is not the only tool. Other interventions, such as individual therapy, psychological interventions, pharmacological supports, and intensive case management, may all be necessary to achieve long-term remission from the symptoms of addictive disorders.

For example, people who are homeless with a co-occurring mental disorder have three complicated sets of problems that require a continuous and comprehensive care system—one that integrates or coordinates interventions in (1) the mental health system, (2) the addiction system, and (3) the social service system for homeless persons. In group therapy, each condition should be regarded as a primary interactive problem; that is, one in which each problem develops independently but contributes to both of the others ( Minkoff and Drake 1992 ).

One model offered for treating homeless persons with substance use disorder is a modified training group designed to accommodate a large number of members whenever a traditional small group is not possible. In this model, participants meet in a large group with the clinician and then break into smaller groups to discuss, practice, or role-play the particular topic.

Each group has a client leader, and the clinician circulates among the groups to ensure that the topic is understood and that discussion is proceeding. The clinician does not participate in the groups. Researchers describing this model note that because the clinicians step back from assuming leadership roles in the groups, the clients become empowered to take group sessions in the necessary direction and demonstrate feelings and insights that might not occur in a group formally led by a clinician ( Goldberg and Simpson 1995 ).

Successful treatment for substance use disorders should address the whole person.

It is well known that 12-Step programs are an important part of many therapeutic programs ( Page and Berkow 1998 ). While 12-Step programs have a proven record of success in helping people overcome substance use disorders, there is a basic conflict inherent in them that group therapists need to reconcile. In the 12-Step program, people are urged to cede control to a higher power. Yet, in group, the clinician is prompting clients to take control of their emotions, behavior, and lives.

As a result, some researchers have stated that it is “impossible to integrate psychotherapy and AA approaches dealing with addictions without compromising one approach or the other” ( Page and Berkow 1998 , pp. 1–2). Another researcher has argued that “the AA approach is consistent with existential philosophy” because both stress that people should accept their “human limitations and security-seeking behaviors” ( Page and Berkow 1998 , p. 2). Although the literature currently has few straightforward discussions of spirituality and its role in the dynamics of group therapy, most clinicians would agree that the spiritual well-being of the client is essential to breaking free of substance abuse.

When clients join self-help groups, they sometimes hear from individuals who strongly oppose the use of any medication. Some people in 12-Step programs erroneously believe, for example, that the use of pharmacological adjuncts to therapy is a violation of the program's principles. They consequently oppose methadone maintenance, the use of Antabuse, or the use of medications needed to control co-occurring disorders.

Recent research has clearly demonstrated the ability of self-help groups to improve outcomes.

Clinicians should be prepared to handle these misapprehensions. One way to help would be to refer apprehensive clients to the pamphlet, The AA Member — Medications and Other Drugs: A Report from a Group of Physicians in AA ( Alcoholics Anonymous World Services 1984 ). It stresses the value of appropriate medication prescribed by a physician who understands addictive disorders and reassures clients that such use of medication is wholly consistent with AA and Narcotics Anonymous' 12-Step programs.

Many clients enrolled in a process group for persons with substance use disorders are likely participating in a 12-Step program or other self-help groups as well. On occasion, apparently conflicting messages can be an issue. For instance, many people with addiction histories try to use AA and its jargon as material for resistance. Such problems can readily be managed, provided the therapist is thoroughly familiar with the self-help group. Matano and Yalom (1991) strongly recommend that group leaders become thoroughly familiar with AA's language, steps, and traditions because misconceptions about the program, whether by the client or therapist, can raise barriers to recovery.

Recent research has clearly demonstrated the ability of self-help groups to improve outcomes ( Tonigan et al. 1996 ). Research also has shown that clients receiving mental health services as well as participating in 12-Step meetings have an even better prognosis ( Ouimette et al. 1998 ). Marilyn Freimuth's research on integrating group psychotherapy and 12-Step work has shown that “if mere co-participation in psychotherapy and 12-Step groups supports a client's recovery, it is reasonable to expect that a more integrated approach will provide further benefits” ( Freimuth 2000 , p. 298). Both activities “support abstinence and emotional growth” ( Freimuth 2000 , p. 301). Together, the two modalities supply multiple relationship models, potentially of immense value to the client.

Some suggestions for maximizing the therapeutic potential of participation in both process and 12-Step groups follow:

Orientation should prepare new group members who are also members of 12-Step groups for differences in the two groups. A key difference will be the fact that members interact with each other. Such “cross talk” is discouraged at 12-Step meetings. “The new psychotherapy group member may need to be told that the topic of conversation is much wider than the 12-Step meeting's focus on addiction and recovery, and that it includes feelings and reactions toward other group members” ( Freimuth 2000 , p. 300; see also Vannicelli 1992 ).

During early recovery, it is particularly important to avoid making the 12-Step program's encouragement of “unquestioning acceptance” a focus of analysis in group therapy. Too critical an interpretation offered too early may disrupt the 12-Step program's status as an “ideal object,” belief in which “is critical to maintaining early abstinence” ( Dodes 1988 ; Freimuth 2000 , p. 305).

Sometimes clients experience “splitting”—seeing “the [12-Step] program as the all-good parent and all others, including the therapist/group as the all-bad/ambivalent object. ” Later, the split may be just the opposite ( Freimuth 2000 ). The group leader should be attuned to this potential and should be prepared to work through these perceptions and the feelings underlying them. Further, when the process group is perceived as the “less than” modality and the client enthusiastically quotes insights from a 12-Step group, the therapist should watch for possible countertransference and bear in mind the benefits the client is receiving from both programs.

Sponsors of 12-Step members may distrust therapy and discourage group member from continuing in treatment. The leader should be prepared to respond to a variety of potential issues in ways that avoid appearing to compete with the self-help group. For example, if a client says, “In my AA group, they say I don't need to be here. As long as I'm not drinking, my life is fine.” The therapist might acknowledge the importance of continued sobriety, but remind the client of depression experienced before the onset of heavy drinking.

Group leaders should beware of their possible biases against 12-Step groups that may be based on inaccurate information. For example, it is not true that the 12-Step philosophy opposes therapy and medication, as AA World Service pamphlets clarify. It also is a misconception that 12-Step programs encourage people to abdicate responsibility for substance use. AA, however, does urge people with addiction problems to attend meetings in the early stages of recovery, even though they may still be using alcohol or illicit drugs. Finally, some clinicians believe that 12-Step programs discourage strong negative emotions. On the contrary, “there is no unilateral discouragement of negative affects within [12-Step] program philosophy; only when anger threatens sobriety is it considered necessary to circumvent negative feelings” ( Freimuth 2000 , p. 308).

The following vignette illustrates a typical intervention intended to clarify and harmonize appropriate participation in 12-Step and process groups:

The group leader knew that Henry, who was well along in recovery but new to group, had not expressed his anger at Jenna for having cut him off for the third time. When asked how he experienced Jenna, he simply replied that according to the program you are not to take another person's inventory. The leader took the opportunity to say that in group therapy it is important to consider one's feelings about what others say and do even if [the feelings] are negative. Expressing one's own feelings is different from focusing on another's character (taking his inventory) ( Freimuth 2000 , p. 308).

No matter what the modality, however, group therapy is sure to remain an integral part of substance abuse treatment.

Addressing life issues

Substance abuse affects every aspect of life: home, family, friends, job, health, emotional well-being, and beliefs. As clients move into recovery, the wide range of issues they should face may overwhelm them. Leaders need to help clients rank the importance of the challenges, taking care to make the best possible use of the resources the client and the leader can bring to bear.

Naturally, clients will vary in their ability to address many concerns simultaneously.

Naturally, clients will vary in their ability to address many concerns simultaneously; capacity for change also is variable. For example, some individuals with cognitive impairments will have a much harder time than others engaging in a change process. In the early stage of treatment, such clients need simple ideas, structures, and principles.

As the client moves forward, the clinician can keep in mind the issues that a client is not ready or able to manage. As this process goes on, the leader should remember that the client's priorities matter more than what the leader thinks ought to come next. Unless both client and leader operate in the same motivational framework the leader will not be able to help the client make progress.

The leader should explore the importance of spiritual life with the group.

No matter what is missing—even if it is a roof over the client's head—it is possible to engage the client in treatment. A client never should be told to come back after problems other than substance abuse have been resolved. On some front, constructive work can always be done. Of course, this assertion does not mean that critical needs can be ignored until treatment for substance abuse is well underway. The therapist should recognize that a client preoccupied with the need to find a place to sleep will not be able to engage fully in treatment until urgent, practical needs are met.

Life issues facing the client provide two powerful points of therapeutic leverage that leaders can use to motivate the client to pursue recovery. First, group leaders should be aware that people with alcoholism and other addictions will not give up their substance use until the pain it brings outweighs the pleasure it produces. Consequently, they should be helped to see the way alcohol and drugs affect important areas of their lives. Second, early in treatment, group leaders should learn what is important to each client that continued substance abuse might jeopardize. For some individuals, it is their job. For others, it is their spouse, health, family, or self-respect. In some cases, it might be the threat of incarceration. Such knowledge can be used to encourage, and even coerce, individuals to utilize the tools of treatment, group, or AA ( Flores 1997 ).

Incorporating faith

While spirituality and faith may offer to some the hope, nurturing, sense of purpose and meaning, and support needed to move toward recovery, people obviously interpret spiritual matters in diverse ways. It is important not to confuse spirituality with religion. Even if clients are not religious, their spiritual life is important. Some clinicians mistakenly conclude that their own understanding of spirituality will help the client. Other clinicians err in the opposite direction and are overly reluctant to address spiritual beliefs. Actually, a middle ground is preferable. The leader should explore the importance of spiritual life with the group, and if the search for spiritual meaning is important, the clinician can incorporate it into group discussions.

For clients who lack meaningful connection to anything beyond themselves, the group may be the first step toward a search for meaning or a feeling of belonging to something greater than the self. The clinician's role in group therapy simply is to create an environment within which such ego-transcending connections can be experienced.

Integrating Care

Interaction with other health care professionals.

Professionals within the entire healthcare network need to become more aware of the role of group therapy for people abusing substances. To build the understanding needed to support people in recovery, group leaders should educate others serving this population as often as opportunities arise, such as when clinicians from different sectors of the healthcare system work together on a case. Similar needs for understanding exist with probation officers, families, and primary care physicians.

Integration of group therapy and other forms of therapy

It is common for a client to be in both individual and group therapy simultaneously. The dual relationship creates both problems and opportunities. Skilled therapists can use what they discover in group about the client's style of relatedness to enhance individual therapy. Conversely, the individual alliance can help the client use the group effectively. So long as the therapist does not collude consciously or unconsciously with the client to keep what is said as a secret between them, most obstacles can be overcome.

In conjoint treatment, that is, a situation in which one therapist sees a client individually while another therapist treats the same client in a group, the therapists should be in close communication with each other. Clinicians should coordinate the treatment plan, keeping important interpersonal issues alive in both settings. The client should know that this collaboration routinely occurs for the client's benefit.

Medication knowledge base

Clinicians need general knowledge of common medications used to assist in recovery, relapse prevention, and co-occurring disorders. Group leaders should be aware of various medication needs of clients, the type of medications prescribed, and potential side effects. Prescribing medication involves striking a balance between therapeutic and detrimental pharmacological effects. For example, benzodiazepines can reduce anxiety, but they can be sedating and might lead to dependency.

The pregroup interview for long-term groups should ask what medications group members are taking and the names of prescribing physicians so cooperative treatment is possible. For example, if a client is awake all night with drug cravings, the therapist might talk with the physician to determine whether appropriate medication could help the client through the difficult period following substance abuse cessation. Therapists should be wary, however. From former days of active substance abuse, clients may have ties to careless physicians who enabled addiction by providing cross-addictive medications. If an evaluation of prescription medications is needed, counselors should refer the client to a consulting physician working with the agency or to a physician knowledgeable about chemical dependency. Attention needs to be paid to medications prescribed for physical illnesses as well. For example, it would be important for the group leader to know that a group member has diabetes and requires medication.

Conflict in group therapy is normal, healthy, and unavoidable.

Management of the Group

Handling conflict in group.

Conflict in group therapy is normal, healthy, and unavoidable. When it occurs, the therapist's task is to make the most of it as a learning opportunity. Conflict can present opportunities for group members to find meaningful connections with each other and within their own lives.

Handling anger, developing empathy for a different viewpoint, managing emotions, and working through disagreements respectfully are all major and worthwhile tasks for recovering clients. The leader's judgment and management are crucial as these tasks are handled. It is just as unhelpful to clients to let the conflict go too far as it is to shut down a conflict before it gets worked through. The therapist must gauge the verbal and nonverbal reactions of every group member to ensure that everyone can manage the emotional level of the conflict.

After a conflict, it is important for the group leader to speak privately with group members and see how each is feeling.

The clinician also facilitates interactions between members in conflict and calls attention to subtle, sometimes unhealthy patterns. For example, a group may have a member, Mary, who frequently disagrees with others. Group peers regard Mary as a source of conflict, and some of them have even asked Mary (the scapegoat) to leave so that they can get on with group work. In such a situation, the therapist might ask, “Do you think this group would learn more about handling this type of situation if Mary left the group or stayed in the group?” An alternative tack would be, “I think the group members are avoiding a unique opportunity to learn something about yourselves. Giving in to the fantasy of getting rid of Mary would rob each of you of the chance to understand yourself better. It would also prevent you from learning how to deal with people who upset you.”

Conflicts within groups may be overt or covert. The therapist helps the group to label covert conflicts and bring them into the open. The observation that a conflict exists and that the group needs to pay attention to it actually makes group members feel safer. The therapist is not responsible, however, for resolving conflicts. Once the conflict is observed, the decision to explore it further is made based on whether such inquiry would be productive for the group as a whole. In reaching this decision, the therapist should consider the function the conflict is serving for the group. It actually may be the most useful current opportunity for growth in the group.

On the other hand, as Vannicelli (1992) points out, conflicts can be repetitive and predictable. When two members are embroiled in an endless loop of conflict, Vannicelli suggests that the leader may handle the situation by asking, “John, did you know what Sally was likely to say when you said X?” and “Sally, did you know what John was likely to say when you said Y?” “Since both participants are likely to answer, ‘Yes, of course,’ the therapist would then inquire what use it might serve for them to engage in this dialogue when the expected outcome is so apparent to both of them (as well as to other members of the group). This kind of distraction activity or defensive maneuver should come to signal to group members that something important is being avoided. It is the leader's task to help the group figure out what that might be and then to move on” ( Vannicelli 1992 , p. 121).

Group leaders also should be aware that many conflicts that appear to scapegoat a group member are actually displaced anger that a member feels toward the therapist. When the therapist suspects this kind of situation, the possibility should be forthrightly presented to the group with a comment such as, “I notice, Joe, that you have been upset with Jean quite a bit lately. I also know that you have been a little annoyed with me a since couple weeks ago about the way I handled that phone call from your boss. Do you think some of your anger belongs with me?”

Individual responses to particular conflicts can be complex, and may resonate powerfully according to a client's personal values and beliefs, family, and culture. Therefore, after a conflict, it is important for the group leader to speak privately with group members and see how each is feeling. Leaders also often use the last 5 minutes of a session in which a conflict has occurred to give group members an opportunity to express their concerns.

Subgroup management

In any group, subgroups inevitably will form. Individuals always will feel more affinity and more potential for alliance with some members than with others. One key role for the therapist in such cases is to make covert alliances overt. The therapist can involve the group in identifying subgroups by saying, “I notice Jill and Mike are finding they have a good deal in common. Who else is in Jill and Mike's subgroup?”

Subgroups can sometimes provoke anxiety, especially when a therapy group is made up of individuals acquainted before becoming group members. Group members may have used drugs together, slept together, worked together, or experienced residential substance abuse treatment together. Obviously, such connections are potentially disruptive, so when groups are formed, group leaders should consider whether subgroups would exist.

When subgroups somehow stymie full participation in the group, the therapist may be able to reframe what the subgroup is doing. At other times, a change in the room arrangement may be able to reconfigure undesirable combinations. On occasion, however, subtle approaches fail. For instance, adolescents talking among themselves or making obscene gestures during the session should be told factually and firmly that what they are doing is not permissible. The group leader might say, “We can't do our work with distractions going on. Your behavior is disrespectful and it attempts to shame others in the group. I won't tolerate any abuse of members in this group.”

Subgroups are not always negative. The leader for example may intentionally foster a subgroup that helps marginally connected clients move into the life of the group. This gambit might involve a question like, “Juanita, do you think it might help Joe if you talked some about your experience with this issue?” Further, to build helpful connections between group members, a group member might be asked, “Bob, who else in this group do you think might know something about what you've just said?”

Responding to disruptive behavior

Clients who cannot stop talking.

When a client talks on and on, he or she may not know what is expected in a therapy group. The group leader might ask the verbose client, “Bob, what are you hoping the group will learn from what you have been sharing?” If Bob's answer is, “Huh, well nothing really,” it might be time to ask more experienced group members to give Bob a sense of how the group works. At other times, clients tend to talk more than their share because they are not sure what else to do. It may come as a relief to have their monolog interrupted ( Vannicelli 1992 , p. 167).

If group members exhibit no interest in stopping a perpetually filibustering client, it may be appropriate to examine this silent cooperation. The group may be all too willing to allow the talker to ramble on, to avoid examining their own past failed patterns of substance abuse and forge a more productive future. When this motive is suspected, the leader should explore what group members have and have not done to signal the speaker that it is time to yield the floor. It also may be advisable to help the talker find a more effective strategy for being heard and understood ( Vannicelli 1992 ).

In managing subgroups, one key role for the therapist is to make covert alliances overt.

Clients who interrupt

Interruptions disrupt the flow of discussion in the group, with frustrating results. The client who interrupts is often someone new to the group and not yet accustomed to its norms and rhythms. The leader may invite the group to comment by saying, “What just happened?” If the group observes, “Jim seemed real anxious to get in right now,” the leader might intervene with, “You know, Jim, my hunch is that you don't know us well enough yet to be certain that the group will pay adequate attention to your issues; thus, at this point, you feel quite a lot of pressure to be heard and understood. My guess is that when other people are speaking you are often so distracted by your worries that it may even be hard to completely follow what is going on” ( Vannicelli 1992 , p. 170).

Sometimes, clients are unable to participate in ways consistent with group agreements.

Clients who flee a session

Clients who run out of a session often are acting on an impulse that others share. It would be productive in such instances to discuss these feelings with the group and to determine what members can do to talk about these feelings when they arise. The leader should stress the point that no matter what is going on in the group, the therapeutic work requires members to remain in the room and talk about problems instead of attempting to escape them ( Vannicelli 1992 ). If a member is unable to meet this requirement, reevaluation of that person's placement in the group is indicated.

Contraindications for continued participation in group

Sometimes, clients are unable to participate in ways consistent with group agreements. They may attend irregularly, come to the group intoxicated, show little or no impulse control, or fail to take medication to control a co-occurring disorder. Though removing someone from the group is very serious and should never be done without careful thought and consultation, it is sometimes necessary. It may be required because of a policy of the institution, because the therapist lacks the skills needed to deal with a particular problem or condition, or because an individual's behavior threatens the group in some significant and insupportable way.

Though groups do debate many issues, the decision to remove an individual is not one the group makes. On the contrary, the leader makes the decision and explains to the group in a clear and forthright manner why the action was taken. Members then are allotted time to work through their responses to what is bound to be a highly charged event. Anger at the group leader for acting without group input or acting too slowly is common in expulsion situations, and should be explored.

Managing Other Common Problems

Coming late or missing sessions.

Sometimes, addiction counselors view the client who comes to group late as a person who, in some sense, is behaving badly. It is more productive to see this kind of boundary violation as a message to be deciphered. Sometimes this attempt will fail, and the clinician may decide the behavior interferes with the group work too much to be tolerated.

A group member who is silent is conveying a message as clearly as one who speaks. Silent messages should be heard and understood, since nonresponsiveness may provide clues to clients' difficulties in connecting with their own inner lives or with others ( Vannicelli 1992 ).

Special consideration is sometimes necessary for clients who speak English as a second language (ESL). Such clients may be silent, or respond only after a delay, because they need time to translate what has just been said into their first language. Experiences involving strong feelings can be especially hard to translate, so the delay can be longer. Further, when feelings are running high, even fluent ESL speakers may not be able to find the right words to say what they mean or may be unable to understand what another group member is saying about an intense experience.

When the group is in progress and clients seem present in body but not in mind, it helps to tune into them just as they are tuning out. The leader should explore what was happening as an individual became inattentive. Perhaps the person was escaping from specific difficult material or was having more general difficulties connecting with other people. It may be helpful to involve the group in giving feedback to clients whose attention falters. It also is possible, however, that the group as a whole is sidestepping matters that have to do with connectedness. The member who tunes out might be carrying this message for the group ( Vannicelli 1992 ).

Participating only around the issues of others

Even when group members are disclosing little about themselves, they may be gaining a great deal from the group experience, remaining engaged around issues that others bring up. To encourage a member to share more, however, a leader might introduce the topic of how well members know each other and how well they want to be known. This topic could be explored in terms of percentages. For instance, a man might estimate that group members know about 35 percent about him, and he would eventually like them to know 75 percent. Such a discussion would yield important information about how much individuals wish to be known by others ( Vannicelli 1992 ).

Fear of losing control

As Vannicelli (1992) notes, sometimes clients avoid opening up because they are afraid they might break down in front of others—a fear particularly common in the initial phases of groups. When this restraint becomes a barrier to clients feeling acute pain, the therapist should help them remember ways that they have handled strong feelings in the past.

For example, if a female client says she might “cry forever” once she begins, the leader might gently inquire, “Did that ever happen?” Clients are often surprised to realize that tears generally do not last very long. The therapist can further assist this client by asking, “How were you able to stop?” ( Vannicelli 1992 , p. 152).

A group member who is silent is conveying a message as clearly as one who speaks.

When a client's fears of breaking down or becoming unable to function may be founded in reality (for example, when a client has recently been hospitalized), the therapist should validate the feelings of fear, and should concentrate on the strength of the person's adaptive abilities ( Vannicelli 1992 ).

Fragile clients with psychological emergencies

Since clients know that the group leader is contractually bound to end the group's work on time, they often wait intentionally until the last few minutes of group to share emotionally charged information. They may reveal something particularly sad or difficult for them to deal with. It is important for the leader to recognize they have deliberately chosen this time to share this information. The timing is the client's way of limiting the group's responses and avoiding an onslaught of interest. All the same, the group members or leader should point out this self-defeating behavior and encourage the client to change it.

Clients may feel great anxiety after disclosing something important.

Near the end of a session, for example, a group leader has an exchange with a group member named Lan, who has been silent throughout the session:

Leader: Lan, you've been pretty quiet today. I hope we will hear more about what is happening with you next week.

Lan: I don't think you'll see me next week.

Further exploration reveals that Lan intends to kill herself that night. In view of the approaching time boundary, what should the leader do?

In such a situation, the group leader has dual responsibilities. First, the leader should respond to Lan's crisis. Second, the incident should be handled in a way that reassures other group members and preserves the integrity of the group. Group members will have a high level of anxiety about such a situation. Because of their concern, some group leaders are willing to extend the time boundary for that session only, provided that all members are willing and able to stay. Others feel strongly that the time boundary should be maintained and that the leader should pledge to work with Lan individually right after the session. Whatever the decision and subsequent action, the leader should not simply drift casually and quietly over the time boundary. The important message is that boundaries should be honored and that Lan will get the help she needs. The group leader can say explicitly that Lan's needs will be addressed after group.

Figure 6-3 shows that group leaders should be prepared to deal not only with substance abuse issues, but with co-occurring psychiatric concerns as well.

Jody's Arm.

Anxiety and resistance after self-disclosure

Clients may feel great anxiety after disclosing something important, such as the fact that they are gay or incest victims. Often, they wonder about two possibilities: “Does this mean that I have to keep talking about it? Does this mean that if new people come into the group, I have to tell them too?” ( Vannicelli 1992 , p. 160).

To the first question, the therapist can respond with the assurance, “People disclose in here when they are ready.” To the second, the member who has made the disclosure can be assured of not having to reiterate the disclosure when new clients enter. Further, the disclosing member is now at a different stage of development, so the group leader could say, “Perhaps the fact that you have opened up the secret a little bit suggests that you are not feeling that it is so important to hide it any more. My guess is that this, itself, will have some bearing on how you conduct yourself with new members who come into the group” ( Vannicelli 1992 , p. 160 & p. 161).

This is an open-access report distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Public Domain License. You can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.

• Cite this Page Substance Abuse Treatment: Group Therapy [Internet]. Rockville (MD): Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (US); 2005. (Treatment Improvement Protocol (TIP) Series, No. 41.) 6 Group Leadership, Concepts, and Techniques.
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