Leadership

Leadership is essential within most sports, such as football. An example of this would be Sir Alex Ferguson being born a leader like himself  has helped him to go on to become one of the best football managers in the world. Attributes which assists this quality such as enthusiasm, passion, the love of the game and the willingness to work hard is instilled upon his own players. This all helps create a team full of leaders similar to Sir Alex explaining why they are such a successful team. In comparison managers who lack the same experience and other attributes which make Sir Alex such a great leader have a less effective influence on their players. Football players look for a leader on and off the pitch mainly towards their manager so if there is an absence of leadership from the manager it has an adverse effect on the player and team as a whole resulting in a less successful team.

Carron's & Tuckmans

The comparisons between task and social cohesion can be shown directly through the different levels of football. Task cohesion can clearly be seen at a professional football level where a teams main goal is to win a match by working together and for each other because of the tangible result of doing so i.e trophies and money. Professional football players play the game as there job resulting in social cohesion being less a factor to why they want to win and play together. However social cohesion can be gained over time if players bond with each other personally through constantly being around one another and through success on the pitch. Grass roots football in comparison is the opposite with task cohesion being less of a factor to why people play football and work together. Playing at a level where there is less chance of tangible results players become friends outside the game making them play on the pitch for each other to gain success resulting in intangible results. The players at grass root levels are more often than not friends within a team they trust and support each other and so when they perform well and win football matches they develop a close relationship which help when times on and off the pitch are not going very well.

In the social psychology of groups, social loafing is the phenomenon of people exerting less effort to achieve a goal when they work in a group than when they work alone. This is seen as one of the main reasons groups are sometimes less productive than the combined performance of their members working as individuals, but should be distinguished from the coordination problems that groups sometime experience. Social loafing is also associated with two concepts that are typically used to explain why it occurs: The "free-rider" theory and the resulting "sucker effect", which is an individual’s reduction in effort in order to avoid pulling the weight of a fellow group member. Research on social loafing began with rope pulling experiments by Ringelmann, who found that members of a group tended to exert less effort into pulling a rope than did individuals alone. In more recent research, studies involving modern technology, such as online and distributed groups, have also shown clear evidence of social loafing. Many of the causes of social loafing stem from an individual feeling that his or her effort will not matter to the group.

Diffusion of responsibility/Evaluation potential as the number of people in the group increase, people tend to feel deindividuation. This term defines both the dissociation from individual achievement and the decrease of personal accountability, resulting in lower exerted effort for individuals in collaborative environments.

People could simply feel "lost in the crowd," so they feel that their effort would not be rewarded even if they put it forth. This idea can also cause people to feel as though they can simply "hide in the crowd" and avoid the averse effects of not applying themselves.

Dispensability of effort when a group member does not feel that his/her effort is justified in the context of the overall group, the individual will be less willing to assert the effort. If the group size is large, members can feel that their contribution will not be worth much to the overall cause because so many other contributions can or should occur. This leads people to not contribute as much or at all in large groups as they might have in smaller groups.

For example: Voting in the United States. Most people say that voting is important, and a good practice for them to do. However, every year a sub-optimal percentage of Americans turn up to vote, especially in presidential elections (only 51% in the 2000 election).[12] One vote may feel very small in a group of millions, so people may not think it is worth it to vote. If too many people think this way, there is a small percentage of voter turnouts.

[edit] "Sucker" effect/Aversion People feel that others in the group will leave them to do all the work while they take the credit. Because people do not want to feel like the "sucker," they wait to see how much effort others will put into a group before they put any in. If all the members try to avoid being the sucker, then everyone's effort will be significantly less than it would be if all of them were working as hard as they could.

For example, in a workplace environment, the establishment of an absence culture creates an attitude that all employees deserve to have a certain number of days of absence, regardless of whether or not they are actually sick. Therefore, if an employee has not used the maximum number of absence days, "he may feel that he is carrying an unfair share of the workload.

 Attribution and equity/Matching of effort Jackson and Harkins (1985) proposed that if someone feels that others in the group are slacking or that others will slack, he will lower his effort to match that of the others. This can occur whether it is apparent that the others are slacking or if someone simply believes that the group is slacking.[1][14] For example, in the Latane et al. study above, if a participant heard the others making less noise than anticipated, he could have lowered his effort in an attempt to equal that of the others, rather than aiming for the optimum.[8]

Submaximal goal setting by setting a goal that is based on maximization, people may feel that there is a set level that the group needs to be achieved. Because of this, they feel that they can work less hard for the overall desired effect.

For example, in the Latane et al. clapping and shouting study, people who were alone but told that they were part of a group screaming or clapping could have thought that there was a set level of noise that experimenters were looking for, and so assumed they could work less hard to achieve this level depending on the size of the group

Reducing social loafing

According to Dan J. Rothwell, it takes "the three C's of motivation" to get a group moving: collaboration, content, and choice. Thus, the answer to social loafing may be motivation. A competitive environment may not necessarily get group members motivated.

1. Collaboration is a way to get everyone involved in the group by assigning each member special, meaningful tasks. It is a way for the group members to share the knowledge and the tasks to be fulfilled unfailingly. For example, if Sally and Paul were loafing because they were not given specific tasks, then giving Paul the note taker duty and Sally the brainstorming duty will make them feel essential to the group. Sally and Paul will be less likely to want to let the group down, because they have specific obligations to complete.

2. Content identifies the importance of the individual's specific tasks within the group. If group members see their role as that involved in completing a worthy task, then they are more likely to fulfil it. For example, Sally may enjoy brainstorming, as she knows that she will bring a lot to the group if she fulfils this obligation. She feels that her obligation will be valued by the group.

3. Choice gives the group members the opportunity to choose the task they want to fulfil. Assigning roles in a group causes complaints and frustration. Allowing group members the freedom to choose their role makes social loafing less significant, and encourages the members to work together as a team.

Thompson stresses that ability and motivation are essential, but insufficient for effective team functioning. A team must also coordinate the skills, efforts, and actions of its members in order to effectively achieve its goal. Thompson's recommendations can be separated into motivation strategies and coordination strategies:

Motivation strategies

·         Promote involvement

·         Reward team members for performance

·         Strengthen team cohesion

·         Increase personal responsibility

·         Use team contracts

·         Provide team performance reviews and feedback

Coordination strategies

·         Using single-digit teams

·         Having an agenda

·         Training team members together

·         Spending more time practicing

·         Minimizing links in communication

What is group cohesion?

The concept of cohesion has been an important factor in the study of group behaviour and its significance is often a source of motivation for group leaders.

Cliches such as 'Together we stand,divided we fall' 'There is no i in team' or 'Players play,team win' are often used to show individuals the importance of team cohesion.

Definitions of Group Cohesion

Carron, Brawley and Widmeyer (1998) defined cohesion as ' a dynamic process that is reflected intendency of a group to stick together and remain united in the pursuit of its instrumental objectives and/or for the satisfaction of memebers needs'

Mudrack (1989) Stated that cohesion ' seems intuitiely easy to understand and describe.. this ease of description has failed to translate into an ease of definition'

Cohesion-Attraction

Members of cohesive groups tend to like thier fellow members
Hogg: Social attraction vs personal attraction

Digram- cohesion attraction

Cohesion- Unity

Cohesive groups stick together as members 'cohere' to one another and the group, members report feeling a sense of belonging.

Digram- Cohesion unity

Cohesion Teamwork

The combined activities of two or more individuals who coordinate their efforts to achieve goals.
Collective efficacy: a high level of confidence about success as the tasks the group acepts.
Esprit de corps: feeling of unity commitment confidence and enthusiaum for the group shared by most of all the members.


Digram- cohesion teamwork

Carron's Antendents/ Factors affecting the development and growth

Cohesion Carron's general conceptual model of cohesion offered four general antecedents of cohesion
1) Environmental: Scholarships, contracts, eligbility, familiy, expectations, etc
2) Personal: Social background, personalilty, gender, attitudes, etc
3) Leadership: communication, goals, roles
4) Team Fators: Group Norms, Task/social cohesion

The Carron's antendents/factors affecting the development and growth model shows both task and social apsects of cohesion. It also shows what effects a group and what helps a group become one.

There are two aspects of group cohesion

Task cohesion: The degree to which group members work together and are commited to achieve common goals such as winning a match.

Social cohesion: The degree to which group members like each other and get on well, trust and support each other.

These to aspects of group cohesion shows that as a person you may be committed to achieve goals and targets for the team, but not that particuarly attatched to the other members of the team.


Does cohesion develop over time?

Cohesion develops over time in a relatively predictable pattern.

Tuckmans five stage model of group development:
1) Orientation (forming) stage
2) Conflict (storming) stage
3) Structure development (norming) stage
4) Work (perfoming) stage
5) Dissolution (adjouring) stage (planned & unplanned)

Forming:

• First moments of a newly fromed groups
• Often marked by tension, guarded interchanges and low levels of interaction
• People monitor their behaviour and are tentative when expression opinions.

Storming:

• Tension increases in the storming phase, over goals, procedures, authority
• Conflict often causes fight and flight responses
• Conflict is a required elementfor creating team cohesion

Norming:

• Group becomes more unified and organized
• Mutal trust and support increases
• Rules, roles and goals are established
• Communication increases

Performing:

• Productivity is usually not instantaneous, thus productivity must wait until the group matures
• Many groups get side tracked by the storming or norming phases
• More mature groups spend less time in conflict and need less guidance than less mature teams

Adjouring

• Either planned or spontaneous
• Can be stressfull for team members

Overall in my conclusion a group needs to have teamwork, attraction and unity so they can produce an effective group. With the Carron's general model of cohesion shows how a group can develop with leadership and team factor's. Personal factors such as personalilty and attitudes help the group because some members of the group can encourage others with their personality and attitudes. Also the enviroment can also develop the group with rewards and personal rewards. The Tuckman theory shows how the group develops in stages once all the stages are achieved then the group becomes an effective group. So over time a group can become effecitive with time, support from one another, attraction, teamwork, unity and factors such as leadership, personal factors, enviromental factors.

Leadership

Cognitive-Mediational Model of Leadership

Smoll and Smith (1989) proposed a theoretical model of leadership behaviour that emphasizes relationships among situational, cognitive, behavioural, and individual difference variables.

The effects of coaches behaviours are a function of their own personal characteristics, which are mediated not only by situational factors but also the meaning that athletes arrtibute to those coaching behaviours. In essences players attitudes towards their coahes and sport experiences area affected by their preception and recall of the coaches.

Digram

The model above displays the mediational model, with player perception of coach behaviours mediating the impact of coach behaviours on player responses. However this entire process is affected by situational factors and coach players and individual differences.


Multidimensional Model of sport leadership

This model developed specifically for sport or physical activity is the multidimensional model of sport leadership (Chelladurai, 1978,1990)

Digram

This theory is simuilar to the Smith and Smoll model, Chelladurai's model posits that leader effectiveness in sport will vary depending on the characteristics of the athletes and contraints of the situation.


Overall both these theories have simuilar ways to show how leadership can effect how athletes learn  from there coaches. The theories show how different characterisitics can effect learners and how they respond to the coach. For example if the coach has bad characterisitics then the learners are not going to respond to the coach very well.