Co-leadership is not only significance in group interventions but also in psychotherapy group leadership. Use of co–leadership in group interventions is not only important administratively, but may also profit group members directly.
For instance, the relationship between the two leaders can be a very good example to the group members, showing them how to interact healthily with each other (Dies, 1994, cited in Miles and Kivlighan, 2008). Co-leaders are also able to offer each other support, as well as cooperate to achieve and sustain objectivity.
Their presence is also suitable in minimizing tension especially in the case of those therapists who are just beginning their profession (Dies, 1994 cited in Miles and Kivlighan 2008). The co-leaders also share different ideas and views concerning the group and its members, and may help one another to handle differences and counter-reactions from the group (Yalom, 1995, cited in Miles and Kivlighan, 2008).
Co-leadership and group interventions
A lot is yet to be explored on how group dynamics can be affected by co-leader relationships. However, effect of co-leader relationship to group climate (a specific part of group dynamics) can help one comprehend the relationship between co-leadership and group member outcomes. Group climate includes those aspects within the therapeutic setting that encourage similar and related compatible types.
This group climate can be directly attributed to psychotherapy group dynamism (McKenzie, 1983, cited in Miles and Kivlighan, 2008). In addition, therapy-client association in personal psychotherapy can be likened to group cohesion, an element of group climate (Yalom, 1995, cited in Miles and Kivlighan 2008).
Since group climate is essential in group psychotherapy changes, a study of factors that determine the establishment of group climate such as co-leadership may be vital to help comprehend occurrence of change in group interventions.
According to a questionnaire-based research, three factors affect the relationship between group climate and group member outcome. These include the “engaged, avoiding and conflict factors” (GCQ-S; MacKenzie, 1983, cited in Miles and Kivlighan, 2008).
The engaged factor outlines the group’s significance to its members, the members’ closeness, and the cohesion of the entire group. Avoidance factor on the other hand refers to a case of group members evading any change-related responsibilities. The conflict factor relates to the degree of conflict and lack of trust among the group members (GCQ-S; MacKenzie, 1983 cited in Miles and Kivlighan, 2008).
Apart from being shown to relate to group member outcome, group climate has also been shown to be the link between the leadership of the group and the outcome of group members. A similar research revealed that both the level and pattern of engagement development had a relationship with group outcome (Kivlighan and Tarrant 2001, cited in Miles and Kivlighan, 2008).
Co-leadership and Team cognition
In order to understand how various aspects of co-leader relationship affect group climate, it is crucial to first comprehend the concept of teamwork and perceive co-leaders as teams. It is also prudent at this point to understand what a team is.
A team can be said to be a group of individuals who work while depending on each other in order to reach a common objective. Co-leaders can then be perceived as teams since they work together for a group intervention’s leadership.
Team cognition can be used to understand the co-leadership aspects in group interventions. Basically, team cognition, obtained from organizational research, can be described as the functioning of a team with regard to the formation and use of information (MacMillan, Entin & Serfaty, 2004 cited in Miles and Kivlighan 2008).
It also particularly refers to shared mental models such as information and knowledge vested in team members and how they use it.
Shared mental models have various benefits within a team. They help one to clearly explain team performance since they shed light on member interactions in addition to enhancing the possibility of anticipating the performance of the team. Apart from this, they give insight on the challenges of a team and how to solve them (Cannon-Bowers & Salas, 2001, cited in Miles and Kivlighan, 2008).
For instance, knowing the level of similarity that exists among members of a team, mental models may be used both to elaborate more and anticipate team members’ degree of involvement on a given responsibility. A research has shown that the degree of similarity among the team members mental model as pertaining an ideal member goes a long way to affecting team participation.
When team members think in the same way about who an ideal member is, the level of knowledge held by them in determining team members performance matters less than when they think differently.
In addition to anticipating performance, team cognition also shows a team’s effectiveness such that similar mental models of what encompasses a ‘team’ were directly related to the performance of a team and that team processes such as synchronization, communication, and collaboration enhanced this relationship.
Although a study on team related mental model has been used to anticipate and analyze team the performance of the team mainly from industrial-organizational perspective, the application of team cognition phenomena to co-leader teams is still in a limbo.
Although most co-led groups have an advantage of co-leaders ability to share diverse views and opinions regarding the group and its members, no research has shown the degree of co-leaders mental models regarding their group and its link to group climate among other parameters.
Effectiveness of the Co-leadership model
Different researches have been carried out to investigate the effect on group performance arising when either co-leaders or single leaders are used. There is one that was carried out to investigate the effectiveness of co-leadership on both client and therapist training outcomes (Hendrix et al. 2001, cited in Miles and Kivlighan, 2008).
Both qualitative (such as variations in the training levels of the co-leaders) and quantitative means were used to examine the use of varied pairs of co-leader teams. There were so many clients from different families with different problems that were assigned to both individual and co-led therapists. Results did not show much difference in the use of individual therapists and those of co-leaders.
However, the qualitative results indicated that there were some benefits accruing to those groups that had co-leader teams. Such benefits were additional knowledge and insights that were offered from another leader (therapist). There was knowledge sharing that motivated them to be risk takers.
Even though these were the reported benefits from co-leadership, a few challenges were reported as well. These included not only control issues, but also the need to be thoroughly knowledgeable about the therapeutic system. Such benefits of co-leadership like willingness to be risk takers might go a long way to influence group aspects like group climate.
The Development process in Co-leadership
The development process of the co-leader relationship can be described in four stages (Dick et al. 1980, cited in Miles and Kivlighan, 2008). These include “formation, development, stabilization, and refreshment “(Miles and Kivlighan, 2008). During the formation stage, co-leaders are mainly pre-occupied with personal issues that revolve around proficiency and uncertainty.
It is also at this point that basic developmental and interpersonal issues arise. Co-therapy is not encouraged at this stage. During the development stage, co-leaders concentrate mainly on supporting and helping each other. The third stage, stabilization focuses mainly on the relationship between the group, co-leaders, and tasks. The co-leaders help each other to grow up and hence external supervision is unnecessary.
The final stage (refreshing) is marked by enthusiasm and the desire for more therapeutic growth (Dick et al. 1980, cited in Miles and Kivlighan, 2008). It is therefore essential that co-leaders go through these development stages prior to leading any group (Wheelan, 1997).
It is further argued that co-leaders play pivotal roles in group development and that as the group continues to grow, its needs with regard to leadership also change (Wheelan, 1997).
Whereas newer groups require greater emphasis on task dimensions, mature groups on the other hand need a leadership that focuses more on the relational dimensions of the group (Miles and Kivlighan, 2008). Definitely, a co-leader who has undergone these thorough development stages will be in better position to not only collaborate with fellow co-leaders, but also to offer the best leadership as per the group requirements.
It is imperative to understand the co-leadership related processes since co-leaders play a vital role when it comes to group climate. Study has indicated that group climate plays a vital role in linking group leadership with group member outcomes. Although this has been established, more study and research as to how group leadership affects group climate is still underway (Miles and Kivlighan, 2008).
Comparison between group and individual based interventions
A study in team cognition reveals that cognitive effects within individuals and teams occur in just the same way. This concept of common cognitive models helps to comprehend performance through its elucidation of interactions, helps to anticipate performance, and sheds light on a team’s main hurdles and their respective remedies.
Whereas research has shown a positive relationship between team cognition and group participation, other studies have revealed increased team efficiency arising from shared mental models (Miles and Kivlighan, 2008).
At times, managers are faced with multifaceted challenges that require team involvement to be able to overcome.
That is why Dr. Bill Hodgeson, despite being an expert in both Chemistry and management was faced with a complex problem within Lederle laboratories and he could not think of another way but to assemble a team of intelligent persons loaded with varied experiences to help deal with the issue (Gellerman, 1998).
Studies from psychotherapy of schizophrenic patients have indicated that symptoms of patients did not appear to have reduced after an individual based treatment (Schwatz, 1984, cited in Dixon, and Scott, 1995).
It is further reported that unlike research in group therapy, researches in individual intervention therapies have mostly been faced with methodological difficulties (Keith and Mosher, 1980, cited in Dixon, and Scott, 1995).
Studies including group psychotherapy interventions for both inpatient and outpatient settings were carried out. For the latter case, the efficacy of the interventions was missing especially for the acute psychotic patients except for the cases where the intervention was properly structured and well defined so as to result to changes in some behavioral aspects like attitudes (Scooler and Keith, 1993, cited in Dixon, and Scott, 1995).
On the other hand, results from group psychotherapy interventions within the outpatient settings did not give consistent results regarding reduction of the disease causes and re-hospitalization (Parloff and Dies 1977, cited in Dixon, and Scott, 1995).
Research on these interventions has had several shortcomings especially in methodologies and implementation.
The common issues have been insufficient skills acquisition and experience of psychotherapists, insufficient information on the minimum number of sessions to be attended by a patient, insufficient group comparisons, imbalanced procedures of group tasks, not attending to diagnosis related to psychiatry and lack of non-standard outcome parameters.
The accuracy and generalizability of the results is therefore thwarted by the errors and deficiencies in these studies (Dixon and Scott, 1995).
Conclusion
Group based interventions become distinct due to the presence of co-leaders. For co-leadership to be effective, the co-leaders ought to undergo the four different stages of development before meeting the group. These include the formation, development, stabilization, and refreshment stages. This is the only way to make them display teamwork, which is a vital ingredient in making them affect group climate.
Teamwork on the other hand helps them develop mental models that affect both group participation and group member outcomes. This is what makes this method superior over individual based intervention. The latter method also has limited leader skills and experiences required for efficient group participation. The limitation of both methods is insufficiency in their methodological and executional aspects.
References
Dixon, B. and Scott, J. (1995). Psychological Interventions for Schizophrenia. Web.
Gellerman, S. W. (1998). How people work: Psychological approaches to management problems. NY, Library of Congress. Web.
Miles, J, and Kivlighan, D. (2008). Team cognition in group interventions: the relation between co-leaders’ shared mental models of the group and group climate. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 12(3), 191-209.