¶ … negative group roles and how I dealt with the negative group member
My very first encounter with negative group roles was when I was seventeen years old and while working part-time at a local electronics store. At the electronics store, we were divided into various groups that were headed by different group leaders. Our salary was based on a basic pay as well as commission. This means that our earnings depended much on our push for more sales. The sales force of every individual was highly dependent on the amount of group cohesion and strategy which we put in place in attracting more clients to our stand as well as to our groups. In regard to the sales and promotion functions, we were allowed to engage potential clients via email, phone calls and direct conversations. This means that we had to work together in ensuring that our sales and marketing strategy was the best. One of our group members by the name of Jack was counterproductive and exuded negative group roles. He would always complain that the group was not being rewarded well for its efforts and he always urged us to boycott our duties. He was also not happy with the fact that our group was headed by a female, Amanda. He believed that women generally could not be leaders and therefore Amanda should...
Jack was discriminatory, cruel and unjust in most of his engagements in our group. His attitude and behavior weighed down on our group performance as he decided to openly undermine the authority of Amanda as well as of the remuneration policy that was set up by the company. His role in the company was very negative since objected the group leadership while also stirring a rebellion within the group.
The negative consequences of group think
Group think is defined by Janis (1989,1982) as the extreme level of concurrence that is sought that a certain group adopts while making its decisions. Group think is noted by Turner et al. (1992) as likely to occur in cases when a group experiences various antecedents conditions like high cohesion, limited methodological inquiry, insulation from various experts, high stress, low-self-esteem, directive leadership as well as high stress levels. There is also little hope of reaching a better solution than the ones that are preferred by the leader. The conditions that lead to group think are collective rationalization, stereotyping, self-censorship among others. Recent examples of group think on the global or national arena are the recent financial…
