In this chapter, we examined the complicated and fascinating questions of who influences whom and why. In the discussion of status and power, we saw that the two go hand in hand; that is, high-status individuals tend to have more power. An obvious extension of this is the notion that because of differing group norms, different characteristics bring about status in different groups. On a football team, the best athlete has the most status. Among college professors, the smartest person usually has the most status. In street gangs, the toughest member typically has the highest status. And so it goes from one group to another.
A major portion of this chapter dealt with the issues of leadership and followership. Although these two are not always discussed together, they are interrelated. Here the systems principle of equifinality applies. In other words, the leadership style that would be appropriate in one situation with one set of followers may not be the most appropriate in a different situation with a different set of followers. Another way to say it is that all leadership occurs in some context. As we change the context, the leader's behaviors also need to change in order to maintain effectiveness (Hughes, Ginnett, & Curphy, 2002). A great deal of study has led to the belief that the democratic leadership style is the most likely to get the best results in a great many cases. However, our systems approach reminds us that some situations require the authoritarian style as the most appropriate. In situations involving life-or-death decisions or in times of crisis requiring rapid decisions, the democratic approach may be too slow or simply impractical. As we saw earlier, two popular theoretical syntheses regarding leadership styles are offered by Fiedler (1967, 1974, 1993) and Hersey, Blanchard, and Johnson (2001). They all suggest a contingency theory of leadership: The best leadership style is one flexible enough to adapt to the situation. If asked which leadership style is best, they would answer, "It depends."
This chapter also covered the topics of social influence and conformity. Systems theory concepts are beautifully illustrated in the literature. Conformity pressure differs depending on the type of group (for example, military versus the commune), the style of leadership (say, authoritarian versus democratic), the personalities of the group members (dominant versus acquiescent), and a number of other factors. We know from the research literature that conformity is more likely (1) in a group in which membership is highly valued by its participants; (2) among members with dependent, obedient, and acquiescent personalities; (3) when the leader is more authoritarian; (4) when the group is unanimously against the deviant member; and (5) to produce public compliance than actual private acceptance. Conformity is clearly dependent on an entire constellation of other variables.
One study analyzed conformity in a systems way (although the authors did not identify their analysis as a systems analysis). Rarick, Soldow, and Geizer (1976) looked at conformity as a result of the combination of a person's personality and the situation in which he or she is placed. The personality variable was self-confidence (they call it self-monitoring), and the situational variable was group size (dyad or three- to six-person group). They found that less confident people conform more in three- to six-person groups than do highly confident people. This confirms numerous previous findings. However, they also found that in a dyad, confident people did not conform any more or less than those lacking in confidence. This study very nicely illustrates the systems approach that all these variables (and others) simultaneously influence one another.
The last section of this chapter dealt with group development. We know that groups go through fairly common phases, depending on the type of group. Some writers assume that all the phases occur during the course of one group discussion. Other writers believe that these phases evolve slowly over the group's lifetime. However, the systems theory approach suggests that these phases are simply parts of a recurring cycle of events that probably occur during a single meeting and tend to be repeated throughout the group's lifetime as well. This point of view seems to be the most theoretically valid and is supported by other authors who apply the systems approach to the analysis of small group interaction (see, for example, Ellis & Fisher, 1994).
