Phases in the Co-leadership Dyad
(Taken from S.K. Winter, 1976)
The co-leader dyad can be viewed as a small group in
its own right – developing over time with its own internal issues, linked to
the phases and preoccupations of the larger group at the time.
Changing pressures exert themselves on co-leaders
rising from changing patterns of need in the group. Even stable relationship
can be shaken because the group can exert a powerful pressure.
Members are concerned about feeling safe. They want
do-leaders to support one another and agree.
*It is
important that group leaders feel united
and more alike
than different in their general
orientation toward the
group.
It is important to note that strong feelings of
harmony, similarity, mutual liking
rise at least in part from group members’ expectations and
desires and from the co-leaders’ own understandable needs for mutual support
during the anxious beginnings of the group.
The harmonious initial equilibrium is upset because
of a shift in member concerns.
Individual differences become obvious and conflict is
present within the previously polite and harmonious group.
Striking tendency is for one leader to be seen as
more instrumental (task-oriented, harsh, distant) and
the other as more expressive (warm, emotionally supportive, ineffective).
Co-leaders will be seen as (a) different from each
other and (b) compared and contrasted by group members.
*The group and
co-leaders are after the same thing: to break
up the co-leaders’ increasingly artificial and forced
uniformity role,
and to separate
the two individuals from each other.
Co-leaders must discover and come to terms with the
real differences between them. Differentiated roles will permit differences in
interests, abilities, ideologies, and personal styles to emerge in ways useful
to the group.
If co-leaders cannot work out a way to handle the
differences between them, the group will follow suit and experience increasing
difficulty with inter-member conflict and differentiation.
Backstage issues focus on:
relinquishing norms of
uniformity
uncovering all the negative
and competitive feelings of two partners
establishing the norm of a
unity which will permit a good deal more individuality
than seemed
necessary or desirable earlier in the group.
In this phase members look to the leaders less for
the support and boundary-setting functions so important in earlier phases and
more for help in effective task performance.
Co-leader differences can be used creatively if the
differences feel right to the two leaders and are useful to the task of the
group.
Co-leaders can agree or disagree openly in the group
without diverting the group from task progress.
*At this point
the maximum benefits and pleasures associated with
co-leading can be realized. The two leaders can work
spontaneously
with each other’s ideas or intuitions in the group. They can
use
one another’s strengths and compensate for each other’s
weaknesses.
Phase IV – Separation
Depending on the emotional significance of the group,
members may “return to the beginning,” become more dependent, look to the
leaders for reassurance about the value and meaning of what has gone before.
This mood will likely influence the leaders in the direction of a return to
greater unanimity of opinion and uniformity of role.
*Within the
co-leader dyad – separation becomes a major issue
just as in the group as a whole.
Deepest problems will arise if either or both
co-leaders care more about individual agendas (i.e., creating particular
impression) within the group than about forging consensus with the co-leading
partner.
If co-leaders disagree or engage in active conflict –
member trust and safety may be delayed.
Other problems arise in experienced leader/novice
leader teams where the experienced leader speaks up; novice is quiet, retiring.
Not a major problem in Phase I but problems could arise later if novice doesn’t
learn to voice resentments, contrary opinions, etc.
Problems here seem greatest when co-leaders are too
sensitive to each others’ reactions, too eager to subordinate to each other,
and too highly motivated to avoid conflict or maintain consensus at any price.
Important for co-leaders to be brave and secure
enough to deal with such feelings such as: being ignored by the other;
disagreeing with the other’s interventions; feeling more (or less) loved, more
sexually desired, more admired, and so on, by the group.
Emotional issues between co-leaders are less likely to
present problems than at earlier times.
Problems may develop if co-leaders are unable to
reach agreement on broad task issues or they do not validate each other’s
skills or competence for the group task.
Primary problems occur when one or both leaders is unable to handle her or his feelings about separation
from the group or the co-leader.
The task of co-leaders in each phase of group life is
to solve as a two-person group the particular problem being simultaneously
confronted by the group as a whole – while demonstrating to the group that the
deepest fear of the particular phase is not justified.
Co-leaders can demonstrate:
1. In
early meetings that mutual trust and solidarity are possible, that individual
differences can indeed be subsumed into a working whole.
2. In
phase II that within a group individuality is possible
and that conflict can be dealt with without tearing the group apart.
3. In
phase II, how the co-leader dyad can serve as a model of joint work on a task.
The leaders can demonstrate simultaneous existence of unity and diversity.
4. In
phase IV how to look back on collective accomplishments while
relinquishing attachment.
Diana
Hulse-Killacky, 1999