Leadership, Team Dynamics, and Group Process
Leadership models
Candidates should recognize transactional (exchange, contingent reward), transformational (idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, individualized consideration), servant, situational, and distributed/shared leadership. Know that leadership effectiveness is context-dependent-there is no universally best style. Traps include treating transformational leadership as always superior and confusing management (planning, control) with leadership (direction, influence).
Group process
Understand stages of group development (forming, storming, norming, performing, adjourning), Tuckman's cautions about linearity, and concepts like psychological safety, group norms, roles, cohesion, and groupthink. Distinguish task from maintenance functions. Recognize scapegoating, social loafing, and dominant-member dynamics as process issues requiring facilitation, not content correction.
Facilitation traps
Common exam traps: intervening on content when the process is the problem; allowing the loudest voice to define consensus; and mistaking silence for agreement. Also note that conflict is not inherently dysfunctional-task conflict can improve decisions while relationship conflict erodes them.
Rule of thumb
Use the "process before content" heuristic: when a group is stuck, name what is happening in the room (participation, safety, clarity of goal) before pushing the task forward.
Worked example
A team meeting derails as two members spar. Rather than adjudicating the content, the facilitator names the pattern, checks the shared goal, and proposes a structured turn-taking format-addressing process so the content can proceed.