Leadership Continuity in Problem-solving Groups: An Interactional Study

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of repression-sensitization communication network change, task change, and situation change on leadership continuity. Twenty-four five-man groups, homogeneously composed of either repressers or sensitizers, participated in a wheel network, a completely-connected network, and a leaderless group discussion (LGD) setting. Before the LGD setting they received either a success, failure, or no evaluation. Represser groups exhibited greater leadership continuity than sensitizer groups between the wheel and the completely-connected networks. However, through the three group settings, discontinuity tended to predominate regardless of personality or evaluation. A secondary analysis of the data investigated the reasons for these findings.

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