ABSTRACT
This chapter provides basic knowledge of important group leadership styles, characteristics, and skills for effective group leadership. Specific group work techniques include active listening, blocking, clarifying, confrontation, empathy, evaluating skills, initiating skills, instructing skills, linking, modeling, feedback, questioning, and summarizing. Group leaders can use a variety of leadership styles, usually described according to how much structure a leader chooses to impose on a group and how much control a leader exercises over the interactions and communications within a group. Factors such as the inclusion of specific content and activities, the sequencing and flow of content, and the timing of various interventions all look different depending on the level of structure provided in a group. Enthusiasm for group work is closely connected with a leader's belief in the group process. Maintaining enthusiasm for group work can be difficult at times, even when a leader truly believes in the work being done.
