Group Theory and Leadership

This essay explains about the emergence of group behaviour in organizations and how organizational behaviour and management thinking has been influenced from the social aspects of groups. It will also discuss about the improvement in performance and innovation in organizations with the help of group-based theories. The essay will also give a brief introduction of leadership in organizations and explain whether it is a social or individual phenomenon in organizations.

Organizational Behaviour is a study and understanding of individual and group behaviour of the members as well as the patterns of structure which helps in improving the performance and effectiveness of the organization (Mullins, 2005). It is social arrangement of people or members in organizations (Rosenfeld and Wilson, 1999). It has been found that whenever a person is joined by others in a group, he or she performs better, faster and more frequently (Weijun, 2006). We will see some examples of researches done in order to prove that groups perform better than individuals and helps in increasing performance and innovation in organization.

Every organization is made of its individual members. If the needs of an individual and the demands of the organization are opposite, there is sure to be a conflict. Thus, it is the work of the management to arrange the individual and the organization in order to achieve proper goals (Mullins, 2005). Groups are social and interpersonal tools or technology of action through which we achieve success which is beyond individual power (Thompson and McHugh, 2009). Social Aspects of Groups in Organization

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In an organization much of social behaviour takes place in groups. Interests of management in group working have increased efficiently. Managements are highly using teams to arrange the work, expecting that teams will deliver more than individuals. Teamworking has honored itself with a legendry status as a remedy to motivational and performance problems. Groups fulfill both self and social needs. (Fincham and Rhodes, 2005) A phenomenon of groups in which they outperform their best member is known as synergy.

Group discussions provide more alternatives than individuals, to eliminate inferior contributions and enhance positive thinking. Through synergy, members' motivation is enhanced. There is a famous team exercise by Hall (1971) named 'Lost on the Moon'. This exercise demonstrates the synergistic quality of group. The exercise says every member to imagine that being lost on the moon and prioritize from a set of items which he or she would carry to go to the mother-ship. The exercise is carried out in two stages.

First, asking individuals to respond and then form them into group and respond. At last it is seen that the group (via synergy) provides a better rank than any of the individuals' rank (Fincham and Rhodes, 2005). Innovation comes from creativity which is one of the most tangled and skillful quality of humans. In organizations, innovation does not simply relate to individuals being creative. Clegg et al. (2002) found that the social factors supports team and management and also predicts the ideas being implemented in an innovation oriented organization (Fincham and Rhodes, 2005).

Groups are more conservative than individuals while decision making which involves risks. "Group polarization is the tendency for group decisions to be more extreme than those of individuals. " Groups produce more extreme decisions because every member of a group believes that he or she will not be held responsible for any risky decision. Thus, group discussion creates an ornately wagon in which every individual would like to step to be saved from being left alone (Fincham and Rhodes, 2005).

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