Leadership Continuity in Problem-solving Groups: An Interactional Study

In: Human relations: towards the integration of the social sciences, Volume 26, Issue 6, p. 753-774

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of repression-sensitization communication network change, task change, and situation change on leadership continuity. Twenty-four five-man groups, homogeneously composed of either repressers or sensitizers, participated in a wheel network, a completely-connected network, and a leaderless group discussion (LGD) setting. Before the LGD setting they received either a success, failure, or no evaluation. Represser groups exhibited greater leadership continuity than sensitizer groups between the wheel and the completely-connected networks. However, through the three group settings, discontinuity tended to predominate regardless of personality or evaluation. A secondary analysis of the data investigated the reasons for these findings.