How To Be an Effective Group Leader

Introduction

Groups of people meeting to discuss their common problems, needs, fears, hopes, and aspirations have probably existed since the beginning of man's ability to communicate with verbal symbols. In recent years, the meeting of groups for the democratic interchange of ideas as a conscious process has become more prevalent. This is witnessed by the increased membership in churches, discussion groups, forums, service-giving agencies, service and civic clubs, professional fraternities and sororities, encounter and sensitivity groups, community centers, and a variety of youth organizations.

The organizations and groups to which a person belongs usually play an important role in his life, contributing to his education, his leisure, and providing a medium through which he can express his ideas and opinions to other people and learn from them. His need for these associations more than likely has increased due to the complexity of modern society. Smaller family units and compartmentalization of human responsibilities have increased the feelings of alienation in our technological society.

Furthermore, the growing complexities of society have become the responsibility of government, social agencies, institutions, and organizations, ranging from the neighborhood up to national and international levels. The demands in areas of problem-solving, education, and gaining public support foster a mushrooming number of committees, commissions, study groups, and workshops which call upon adults and youths from all walks of life to share in a large or small way the responsibility for making it a better world in which to live.

The success of any group, whether it be a Boy Scout troop, the public relations committee of the local PTA, or a commission named by the president to study a national problem, depends to a large extent on its leadership. Without strong and competent leadership, the most well-meaning group will be reduced to impotency or chaos.

Most of these groups are made up of volunteers, and their leaders, chosen from their ranks to serve as president, chairman, or whatever, are not professionally trained for their roles. It is to these persons -- the youth who finds himself head of a school organization, the woman elected president of her professional sorority, and the man who, with little previous experience, is named chairman of a state commission -- that this book is dedicated.

It is essentially a how-to-do-it text, covering the whys and wherefores, the dos and don'ts of leadership, the magic of leading groups.

For a number of years, I have been engaged in the training of both adults and youths to be group leaders. In my work with all types of groups, I have become increasingly aware of the need for a particular kind of book, one in which group leadership methods and techniques are explained in nontechnical terms, a book which takes the novice step-by-step toward competent leadership and which will, at the same time, provide the more experienced with a guide and a reminder. Long in search of such a text, I decided to write it myself.

In endeavoring to meet this need, I have tried to keep the focus on the countless untrained leaders who have assumed, or will assume, the responsibility for the leadership of a group of people -- children, adolescents, adults or elderly people. I have attempted to present leadership training in clear, nonprofessional terminology. I have written about those items which are discussed with leaders when they ask, "What procedures must I know to lead a group? How do I go about it? Are there any guidelines I can follow?"

I have used considerable illustrative material which has evolved from my experience as a leader and my efforts to train others. I believe the cases used from my files and memory will be of use to readers.

Copyright © 1975 by Bill D. Schul