Group Leadership and Conflict Summary

Were there any leadership strategies I identified?

Yes, I observed how the team leader kept taking the conversation back to the matter at hand when the team got too focused on one item instead of looking at the whole picture.

I also noticed how one of the team members took control of a situation that could have escalated when two of the team members were having difficulty agreeing.

It would have been good, I think, to let the professor finish describing his idea, since it was the only idea that was brought up, letting the professor talk about how a new class could combine with the one that could possibly be terminated, there could have been talk added that since the new class was similar to the one possibly being eliminated that the professor teaching said class could probably run it as he is the one with the most experience. Sale the class to the team and its possible benefits to the school.

Let the female professor, the one with the numbers finish what she has to say, it sounded like no one wanted to let her finish and maybe it is because she may have brought that same information up before and the team was tired of it; however; what about giving her a new assignment? Ask her, since she is good with numbers, to run a report to see what the numbers would possibly look like if the new class took off?

Encourage the professor, whose class was being eliminated, to add opinions and or ideas to the new class, as the idea came because of a book he lent to the teacher that came up with the idea itself.

Ask the fourth teacher, if she could think of anything that might not work with the idea since she is agreeing with a lot; however, she is not speaking her mind.

Anything else? Something different out there? Maybe a survey of the students that could be taking the class? Or take survey of what the kids are interested in? Not just on what the teachers have in mind.

My observation on the first portion of this assignment "Politics of Sociology" I see that the leadership is involved; however, he is not dominating the team.

I don't think this as a "Democratic Leadership" as the definition itself says that in democratic leadership, the leadership has more trust in the team and eventually will try to involve the members into decision making, Beebe and Masterson (2015).

I also don't think that this leadership is an "Authoritarian Leadership" as leaders here assume more intellectual and behavioral positions in groups and end up controlling everything from making the decision to giving orders Beebe and Masterson (2015).

With the Laissez-faire leadership they see themselves at the middle, they feel that they are no better or worse than the rest of the group members, and think that they group will end up instructing itself and therefore the laissez-faire leader is not a dominating person and does not dominate the team Beebe and Masterson (2015).