Leadership Skills

Group Dynamics

How members of a team work together is known as group dynamics. Strong teams have good communication, trust, and mutual respect. Team meetings should be structured and run efficiently, and everyone's time should be valued.

While we want our workplaces and group settings to be positive, we should avoid "group think." Group think is when a team strives for consensus without taking into consideration other viewpoints or perspectives. This often happens when after some type of messy conflict when a team begins to stifle ideas and encourage consensus rather than having an honest, open discussion, Decision making in that situation will not be as effective as possible.

One of the best ways to avoid group thinking is to maintain a safe and comfortable environment where ideas may be expressed and discussed. Other terms related to group thinking are hive mentality (related to bees functioning only within their own hive), doublethink (accepting two contradictory concepts as both being correct, i.e., ignoring conflict), and herd behavior (blindly following the herd).

Avoiding Group Thinking

• Encourage different perspectives
• Play devil's advocate, even if it is not your personal view
• Allow group members to give opinions and suggestions before the group leader
• Have different groups work on projects
• Consult experts, and ask them questions