Each type of group presents unique opportunities and challenges.
An important role of the nurse manager is to link service areas with groups at higher levels in the organization. This link facilitates problem solving, coordination, and communication throughout the organization. Leadership roles in work groups are important and may also be either formal or informal. For example, the nurse manager formally leads the unit or service area staff but may also informally lead a support group of nurse managers.
The leader’s influence on group processes, formal or informal, and the ability of the group to work together as a team often determine whether the group accomplishes its goals. Nurse manag- ers may effectively manage work groups and turn them into teams by understanding principles of group processes and applying them to group decision making, team building, and leading com- mittees and task forces.
Group and Team Processes The modified version of Homans’s (1950, 1961) social system conceptual scheme presented in Figure 11-1 provides a framework for understanding group inputs, processes, and outcomes. The schematic depicts the effects of organizational and individual background factors on group leadership, including dynamics (tasks, activities, interactions, attitudes) and processes (forming, storming, norming, performing, adjourning). Elements of the required group system and pro- cesses influence each other and the emergent group system and social structure.
This system determines the productivity of the group as well as members’ quality of work life, such as job satisfaction, development, growth, and similarity in thinking. The framework distinguishes required factors that are imposed by the external system from factors that emerge from the internal dynamics of the group.
According to Homans’s framework, the three essential elements of a group system are activities, interactions, and attitudes. Activities are the observable behaviors of group members. Interactions are the verbal or nonverbal exchanges of words or objects among two or more group members. Attitudes are the perceptions, feelings, and values held by individual group members, which may be both positive and negative. To understand and guide group functioning, a manager should analyze the activities, interactions, and attitudes of work group members.
Homans’s framework indicates that background factors, the manager’s leadership style, and the organizational system influence the normal development of the group. Groups, whether formal or informal, typically develop in these phases: form, storm, norm, perform, and adjourn or re-form. In the initial stage, forming, individuals assemble into a well-defined cluster. Group members are cautious in approaching each other as they come together as a group and begin to understand requirements of group membership. At this stage, the members often depend on a leader to define purpose, tasks, and roles.