Cohesiveness and Goals

Tonight we discussed the importance of cohesion, ways to promote it, and working towards goals as leaders and followers together. As one of the most seemingly obvious commodities of leadership, it is surprising how often it is overlooked. We were so stumped as to why we couldn't overcome the challenge of the second day of class as well as why we failed the tower challenge (and looking back we did in fact fail at that challenge, not even coming close to success). We came up with a plethora of reasons for our inadequacy in these challenges (lack of time, poor instructions, bad leadership, unwilling participants, etc. etc. etc.) and really what it all boils down to is cohesiveness. The answer was right there in front of us all along. On the first day of class we didn't have a goal and if we did, it varied so drastically from person to person that we were all going in a hundred different directions. There was no common purpose for us to achieve, except perhaps the assignment which was to observe and learn from leadership in the here and now. And we accomplished that, although inadvertently through some kind of Catch 22 (I can't really explain this without thoroughly confusing myself so I just won't go there). In contrast, with the tower building exercise, we did have a fairly defined goal but we were unable to coordinate our efforts effectively as a group. What we lacked in both cases is solidarity, or cohesion.

Cohesiveness is not just about getting along (although that definitely helps) it is about having the same goals! Take that a step further and it becomes about taking complementary actions towards those same goals and working together as one goal-reaching machine. The steps we take as individuals towards our group goal must be synchronized with other group members' actions so that we are all one the same track working toward the same goal. This was not the case during the tower building exercise. While we all knew our goal, our individual roles in achieving that goal as part of a group were not clearly defined. I found myself running around trying to help, but only found myself getting in the way until eventually I gave up. I felt helpless and I'm sure other members of my group felt the same.

I would like to revisit the point of having shared purpose because this is something that we talked about extensively last night and I feel that it is important. Feinberg demonstrated how drastically our goals for the class may differ from person to person. From his standpoint of instructor he would like to teach us to be better leaders--that is his goal. For the group leaders it might be for all of their members to come to class or to get an A. Then, as individuals, we may be satisfied with just passing the class while others such as myself hope to get something out of the class and in the process, earn an A. This presents leaders with the huge challenge of trying to meet all of these distinct needs and goals while trying to achieve their own.