Media Studies Chapter 5 Discuss How Participants Felt During The Role Playing Role Feedback Exercise Purposes

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CHAPTER FIVE

Roles and Leadership in Groups

I. Lecture/discussion on roles, explaining emergence of roles, types of roles,

role conflict and role fixation.

II. Show Quiet Rage: The Stanford Prison Study. Available from Philip Zimbardo at

Stanford University (psychology department) An excellent 1992 production with

III. Show excerpt of movie The Doctor (role reversal). Show resident doctors in a

hospital told by the William Hurt character to dress up as patients (end of

movie) and/or William Hurt character as a patient with busy nurses ignoring him

and forcing him to wait. Powerfully illustrates the impact of reversing roles (from

doctor to patient, student to teacher, child to parent).

IV. “Role Expectation, Role Performance” exercise

A. Purposes:

1. To illustrate role expectation can create self-fulfilling prophecies (we

become the role): the power of roles to shape behavior.

2. To demonstrate that role emergence comes from the transactions of

group members and the roles members’ play must be endorsed by

the group.

3. To illustrate hidden agendas.

B. Time required: approximately 35 minutes

C. Instructions:

1. Divide the class into four or five groups (5-6 members works best).

2. Members of two groups will have labels stuck to their foreheads.

These labels will assign roles and dictate the behavior for group

members. Labels (roles) are not revealed to those receiving them.

The labels (file folder labels with sticky backing work best) are:

a. LEADER: follow me

b. ISOLATE: ignore me

3. Members of the remaining groups will receive slips of paper with roles

designated and behavior specified. Members are not to reveal what is on the

slips of paper. Choose from the following:

a. CLOWN: you are a disruptive character. You will goof off, crack

inappropriate jokes, make frequent asides, side-track the group with

irrelevant comments, etc.

c. LEADER: you will run this group. Do not allow other members to

assume the role of leader. Provide direction for group discussion and

bring the group to an eventual decision.

d. ISOLATE: you are bored with this task. You will resist contributing

anything to the discussion. Remain silent unless spoken to directly, and

then answer half-heartedly and with brief responses. Don’t be too obvious.

Simply melt into the background. Don’t be obnoxious, just bored and

uninterested.

4. Have all groups pick a stimulating topic for 10 minutes of discussion (while

the facilitator assigns roles as instructed above), or give groups a

controversial newspaper article or editorial to discuss.

5. Encourage everyone to play their roles with as much accuracy as possible.

D. Processing the exercise:

1. In the labeled groups, have participants (in turn) guess what role they each

thought they were and why they thought that. In the “hidden agenda” roles

groups (slips of paper), have group members try to guess what role each

participant was playing.

2. Discuss the results:

a. Labeled groups usually have several members who become the role

designated, especially isolates, leaders, and clowns. This shows the power of

role labeling and how groups shape roles played by members. If the group

wants you to be an isolate, you will become an isolate because after being

ignored, you will give up and shut up.

b. Interactions among members of groups with hidden roles usually show very

clearly the problem of hidden agendas (personal goals pursued by members

without the group’s knowledge: in this case a specific role planned in advance

of any discussion).

c. Discuss how participants felt during the role playing.

V. “Role Feedback” exercise

A. Purposes:

1. To provide useful feedback from symposium group members.

2. To allow group members to compare how they saw themselves interacting in

the group versus how group members saw them.

B. Time required: about 30 minutes.

C. Instructions:

1. Have class divide into their symposium groups for the last time.

2. Pass out the feedback form below. Have each group member take as many

copies of the feedback form as there are members in their symposium group.

3. Each group member should fill out a form about him or herself then fill out

the form on every other member in their groups.

4. Tell participants not to hand out the finished forms to the appropriate

members until everyone has finished the task, then distribute the forms all at

once. Anonymity is not required but usually works best.

D. Processing the exercise

1. Allow participants to discuss the feedback if they so wish.

2. Encourage all participants to learn from this feedback so they can improve for

their second symposium group in any areas deemed inadequate.

3. Have participants focus on role flexibility versus role fixation.

FEEDBACK FORM

INSTRUCTIONS: Please fill out this feedback form for yourself and each member of

your term group. You may remain anonymous if you wish.

Name of Group Member:___________________

1. The degree of participation was:

Low1 2 3 4 5High

2. How task-oriented (showed interest in meeting group goals) was this person?

Low1 2 3 4 5High

3. How socially oriented (concerned about the relationships among group members)

was this person?

Low1 2 3 4 5High

4. How much influence did this person exert on the group’s decisions?

Low1 2 34 5High

Using the scale above, indicate the degree to which this person played the following

roles:

TASK

_____Initiator-Contributor _____ Coordinator

_____ Information Seeker _____ Secretary-Recorder

_____ Opinion Seeker _____ Director

_____ Information Giver _____ Devil’s Advocate

_____ Clarifier-Elaborator

MAINTENANCE

_____ Supporter-Encourager _____ Gatekeeper-Expediter

_____ Harmonizer-Tension Reliever _____ Feeling Expresser

DISRUPTIVE

_____ Stagehog _____ Fighter-Controller

_____ Isolate _____ Zealot

_____ Clown _____ Cynic

_____ Blocker

VI. Excerpt from the movie, The Breakfast Club

A. Show the segment where the students are left to themselves by the autocratic

teacher and the Judd Nelson character becomes abusive and derisive. End the

segment where the group lies to protect the Judd Nelson character from the abuse

of the teacher (about 15 minute excerpt: from the beginning of the movie).

B. Discuss role emergence in the movie segment, the types of roles played

(especially disruptive roles), the influence of one individual on the group, dealing

with a difficult group member, and the role shifts that occur when the teacher

(outsider) attacks one of the members, even a disruptive member.

VII. Excerpt from the movie, A League of Their Own.

A. This movie tells the story of the first professional women’s baseball league. The

Rockford Peaches coach, Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks), is a former professional

baseball player turned drunk. He shows little initial interest in the team, but

eventually he decides to coach them seriously. Show two excerpts from this

movie. First, show the scene where Dugan is berating Evelyn for a throw that

misses the cutoff player (“There’s no crying in baseball”). It begins about

B. These two scenes provide a nice contrast of leadership styles. In the first scene,

Dugan is abusive to Evelyn (emotional incontinence). His memorable line,

“There’s no crying in baseball” applies a leadership style (directive/autocratic)

that fits poorly with his female players. They need encouragement (selling style),

not ridicule. In the second scene Dugan struggles mightily to control

C. These two scenes also show the importance of the social dimension in groups.

Leaders must be cognizant of the interpersonal relations between leader and

followers (coach and players), not merely task driven. Dugan is task oriented in

the first scene and unconscious of the importance of social relations to task

D. Additionally, these two excerpts show the influence followers have on leaders.

Leaders must meet the expectations of followers to lead effectively. Dugan in the

E. There are several additional scenes that can be excerpted from this movie to show

“emotional incontinence” of coach Dugan, autocratic(directive) versus

democratic (participative) leadership styles, and the centrality of competent

communication to effective leadership.

VIII. Lecture/discussion on leadership with special focus on the Hersey and Blanchard

situational leadership model.

IX. An excerpt from the movie, The Dream Team, if this movie is not shown as a

substitute for the Twelve Angry Men exam/paper described earlier, can be shown here

for analysis of informal roles, pattern of leadership emergence, leadership styles,

functional approaches to leadership, and leadership and teambuilding.

A. Begin clip about two-thirds into the film. The Dream Team members are looking

for their psychiatrist, Dr. Weitzman. They enter a hospital. Finish the movie from

this point: about 45 minutes total. A shorter clip (last 20 minutes of film),

beginning with all four team members in jail, could be used if desired.

B. Distribute a list of questions for group members to answer as they view the video

clip. Suggested questions:

1. Which specific informal rules (e.g., information-giver, stagehog, harmonizer)

do Dream Team members play? What are the results? Any role fixation?

2. Billy emerges as team leader. Does this emergence follow closely the

INFORMAL ROLES

Task Roles

1. Initiator-Contributor: Offers ideas; proposes solutions

2. Information Seeker: Solicits clarification, ideas, and evidence

3. Opinion-Seeker: Requests viewpoints from others

4. Information Giver: Provides relevant and significant information

Maintenance Roles

1. Supporter-Encourager: Provides praise and encouragement

2. Harmonizer-Tension Reliever: Reduces tension through humor/smoothing

Disruptive Roles

1. Stagehog: Monopolizes conversation

PATTERN OF LEADER EMERGENCE

General Pattern (Process of Elimination)

Phase One

Quiet members eliminated

Members who express strong, unqualified assertions eliminated

Uninformed, unintelligent, and/or unskilled eliminated

Phase Two, part one

Bossy, dictatorial members eliminated

Phase Two, part two

Member who provides solution in crisis considered for leader

Member who exhibits effective listening skills considered for

leader

Member who acquires a lieutenant considered for leader

If more than one member acquires lieutenant, possible stalemate

How to Become Leader

Manifest conformity to group norms, values, and goals

Display proper motivation to lead

Avoid the “thou shalt nots”

Modifying Factors of Leader Emergence

Gender bias

Ethnic bias

PERSPECTIVES ON

LEADERSHIP EFFECTIVENESS

TRAITS PERSPECTIVE (necessary but not sufficient leadership traits)

Verbal Skills

Social Skills

Modicum of Intelligence

STYLES PERSPECTIVE

Autocratic (Directive)

Democratic (Participative)

Laissez Faire (Sit on your Derriere)

SITUATIONAL PERSPECTIVE

Telling Style: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :– Readiness level

FUNCTIONAL PERSPECTIVE

Vital Functions

Leader As Completer (“Leadership is a process, not a person”)

COMMUNICATION COMPETENCE PERSPECTIVE

“Extraordinary leadership requires extraordinary communication”

“Effective leadership is an adaptive process”