ABSTRACT
There is no single, universally applicable style or method of working in a group. Different groups demand different leadership styles and each group will require a variety of behaviours and responses from the leader as it moves through its phases of development towards greater capability and maturity. Leadership in the group setting is determined by:
Agency requirements of the worker and group Group purpose Individual and group needs Personality and world view of the worker Role of the worker in the group
What distinguishes the leader is the authority given or ascribed to him or her to influence the group in certain ways, to achieve agreed goals. The employing or funding agency delegates authority to the leader to act on its behalf with a particular group of people. It substantiates this delegated authority with resource, time, and money, and in return expects him to behave in certain ways. The group members invest the leader with authority by virtue of his position, skill, or expert knowledge, and expect him to be able to move the group to perform the tasks it was called together to do. Whether the leader likes it or not he is required by his agency and perceived by his group to be a person who has authority and power to reward, induce, be an ‘expert’, be a model, inform, and empower (page 84). The first step in working with a group or in preparation for such work is full accep-
tance by the worker of the fact of her authority to influence and intervene in the group experience. There should be no attempt to deny or fudge this. The group worker must claim her authority! Unfortunately many workers have not resolved their own feelings and attitudes to authority, and send out conflicting or ambivalent messages about themselves as leaders. The result is to confuse group members, and to generate insecurity, suspicion, and fear that the worker cannot be relied on in a crisis. Reluctance or refusal by the group worker to provide the leadership and to act on her
authority can be very damaging at critical stages of transition when the group rightfully looks to the worker for guidance, reassurance, and structure. Very often, when looking back at why a particular group came to be a conflictual or apathetic experience for people, I have found that the roots lie in the vacuum created by a group worker not
facing up to the responsibility and obligations of her authority, and failing to provide the group with leadership when it needs a boundary and direction. To determine the nature of her authority base, the worker needs to be clear about the
requirements and expectations the agency has of her.
