Roles in Groups.

Essay by money21College, UndergraduateA+, November 2005

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As groups are forming it is easy to see that each group member has unique skills and strengths. As a group starts to develop, each group member starts to play a certain role within the group. Roles are very important within in a group because they are part of the basic structure. The roles of small groups are not usually assigned in advance, but overtime emerge within the group. Roles within a group can arise from individuals stepping up to fulfill a role or they already have the skills needed to fulfill a certain role. The group roles can be seen predominantly in the movie "Cool Runnings" where four Jamaican men join together with a coach to become Jamaica's first ever bobsled team. As the new bobsled team is starting their journey toward the Olympic Games, the five characters must learn how to work together as a group. The members of the bobsled team all have different skills and strengths that start to contribute to the overall success of the group.

As the movie continues the team members begin to take on informal individual roles within the group. These informal roles can be explained in three main categories consisting of task roles, maintenance roles, and disruptive roles.

The first main role category of a group is called task roles which according to Rothwell "Move the group toward the attainment of its goals. The central communication function of task roles is to extract the maximum productivity from the group (123)". The task roles are very important because once a group knows what it wants to accomplish, these roles help the group accomplish its task. In the movie "Cool Runnings" the group's goal is to compete in the Olympic Games. In order to accomplish this goal the team depends on their coach...