Ineffective Group Dynamics Paper

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The Allegheny County Democratic Party: A Lesson in Ineffective Group Dynamics
Introduction
At the age of eighteen, every American citizen is bestowed the privilege and responsibility of registering to vote which also includes the task of choosing party affiliation, if any. However, merely checking a box on a federal form indicating group membership may not necessarily denote one is becoming a member of a high-performance group. In fact, in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, local leaders within one such political party seem to be expressing behaviors within group dynamics that convey a quite different message. Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald (D) and Allegheny County Controller Chelsa Wagner (D) have allowed, and even encouraged, details of a growing feud to be played out in the public realm via the media. The impact of such behavior is not merely a public distaste for one party over another, or one person over another, but stand to create large disparities in group dynamics and interpersonal relationships within the Allegheny County
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The behaviors exhibited by two of the county’s highest elected officials stands to impede the success of the group overall. Johnson and Johnson (2013) conclude their textbook, Joining Together, with seven guidelines for effective groups stating measures creating positive interdependence as guideline one. Without such interdependence, the subsequent guidelines are all but meaningless. Fitzgerald and Wagner’s behaviors, while unaddressed by party leadership, are creating factions within the group. The ultimate result could be a loss of faith in leadership by the overall membership and, consequently, a loss of membership. Leadership should, instead, encourage the establishment of conditions for participant change through arbitration or the engagement of a third party mediator (Shockley-Zalabak,

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