COMMUNICATION AND ADOPTION 3(3+0)

Lesson 39 : Opinion Leadership

Sociometric stars

All the members of a community, group or organization are asked to name three persons in order of preference as their leaders from the same group. The name obtaining the maximum choices is accepted as the possible leader. In this method, every member of the group has to mention his choice. Assumption is that a person liked by majority of the people is the most popular in the group and is capable of leading the group.

Advantages:

• It is easy and valid method.
• Suitable to most of the situations.
• Leader selected through this method may be able to organize group activities in a better way, because he has the majority support.
• More than one leader can be located for different jobs at the same time.

Limitations:

• It is difficult to contact all the members of the group especially in big communities.
• Selected person may not be interested to take up various responsibilities.
• He may not be a neutral person.
• Statistical analysis of this method is complex and time consuming.