There are many different leadership skills that are proven to be extremely effective when performed correctly.
Victoria Caputo
There are many different leadership skills that are proven to be extremely effective when performed correctly. With that being said, some are easier to utilize than others. For me, I believe that the easiest leadership skill for me to incorporate in my own group leadership is encouraging and supporting. Discomfort is an extremely common feeling in group therapy (Jacobs et al, 2016), so this is a leadership skill that will need to be used extremely often. Being someone who has been through therapy herself and has social anxiety, I understand first-hand what that discomfort feels like. That relatable experience makes it easier for me to be empathetic towards the members who struggle with this. That empathy easily increases the amount of encouragement and support I can give the members. Communicating this encouragement and support is done through words as well as also through body language, such as “with warmth in your voice, a pleasant facial expression, and an ‘open’ posture” (Jacobs et al, 2016, p. 138). This body language not only gives encouragement and support, but also shows the member that you are actively listening when they are speaking, another extremely important leadership skill.
I feel that I am a very strong active listener, and that I will definitely be able to easily incorporate it into my own group leadership. I do realize that in a group setting it could be a bit more challenging given that the leader has to listen to more people at once, which makes the quality of listening a bit more difficult (Jacobs et al, 2016). Knowing that, I can go into the group session being more prepared and ready for that challenge, and focus intently on ensuring that I am actively listening to each group member.
Forsyth (2019) describes the interactional approach of leadership as one that “considers both personal qualities as well as situational factors when predicting leadership” (p. 271). My situational factors of being bullied when I was a child has led to personal qualities of anxiety and shyness that don’t always align with an effective leader. While understanding social anxiety makes encouraging and supporting a bit easier, living with it makes cutting off a bit harder to incorporate in my own group leadership. I am little more soft spoken and shy, and the act of stopping someone from talking and taking over what they were saying is very uncomfortable for me. While I know that sometimes it is absolutely necessary, it does not make the skill of cutting someone off any easier. It’s also very uncomfortable for me when I feel like I am doing something to hurt someone’s feelings or make them angry, which is a very common fear amongst emerging leaders, making cutting off one of the hardest leadership skills to demonstrate (Jacobs et al, 2016).
Forsyth, D. (2019). Group dynamics. Seventh Edition. Cengage Learning.
Jacobs, E., Schimmel, C., Masson, R., & Harvill, R. (2016). Group counseling strategies and skills. Eight Edition. Cengage Learning.
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