ABSTRACT
The group leader’s task is to work to ensure that what happens can be shaped towards achieving the group’s purpose. The materials the leader has at hand for doing this are the resources he/she brings, the resources group participants bring and the time-frame within which the group works. Groups occur within an historical context characterised by the particular political, social and economic conditions operating in that context. This means that the group is a social structure which shares in and reflects the nature of the particular society in which it occurs. This chapter provides approaches to understanding the life of the group and in so doing to give us a road map or a guide to the likely or possible routes which groups may take. Most descriptions of group phases and stages assume gender neutrality—that all groups will evolve and develop through phases and stages irrespective of the gender of participants.
