Fundamentals of Extension Education

Roles of leadership

• Group spokesmen: The leader has responsibility of speaking for the group and representing the group’s interest and position faithfully and accursedly. This means that he is fully aware of the group’s consensus of opinion and how it may or may not coincide with his individual thinking.
• Group harmonizer: All social groups usually have both uniformities and differences of opinion to maintain harmony with a group, emphasis must be placed upon the uniformities among the members rather than upon individual differences. The leader is responsible for pointing out to the group, when potencies conflict situations arise, that the common purpose is sufficiently worthy of cooperation that the differences be resolved peacefully. But it should be remembered that the role of the group harmonizer is to promote harmony in line with the basic purpose of the group, not to promote harmony simply for harmony’s sake.
• Group planner: Generally persons are chosen for leadership positions because it is assumed that they know a little more about the problems confronting the group and the possible solutions than the other members of the group
• Group executive: Most groups have some established methods of conducting business and achieving consensus of opinion on issues that come before them. The leader is the one who presides when the group is conducting business as a group executive the leader is responsible for seeing that the business of organization is carried on according to democratic principles.
• Group educator/teacher: In many groups the person elected as leader is one who has had more training and experiences that most of the members of the group. It is assumed that the leader knows more about the work of the particular group than most of the members.
• Symbol of group ideals: All social groups have implicit or explicit norms or ideals. as a rule, persons accepted as leaders are those who have adopted these norms and leave by them. The group expects its leadership to embody the ideals of the group. If a person cannot accept the ideals of the group and consistently make an effort to achieve them, he should decline to accept the role of leadership for the organization.
• Group discussion chairman: The preceding six roles have been based upon Sanderson statement of the group functions of leaders. The leadership roles are all interdependent and related to one another. In recent years there has been an increase interest in group discussion. Generally a group meets for a panel discussion or a form or a group thinking conference something apart from the routine business of the organization.
• Group supervisor : Professional leaders such as extension officers, in addition to serving as leaders of social groups also devote a portion of their time of working with lay leaders and group organizations like youth clubs, cooperative ,farmers associations etc these organisations have their own lay leaders. The extension officer’s role is not to take over the work of the lay leaders, but rather to serve in the capacity to advise them.