A Study of Kurt Lewin’s Leadership Styles and Group Dynamics in Developing Responsibility and Performance among Engineering Students

Abstract

There had been a number of researches on how involving members in decision making for the discharge of an specific target or goal in any organizational structure can improve morale and motivation, procedural response and production in any organization but this procedure has very rarely been used or investigated in educational settings. This study investigated whether a correlation exists between the teacher’s leadership style (Kurt Levin’s leadership styles and group dynamics) in developing responsibility and performance targeted for good academic response among engineering students of National Institute of Technology Raipur. For the same a study was conducted involving students under different type of leadership. After adding some elements of autocratic style of leadership with democratic style of leadership a proposed style of leadership named Quasi-Democratic style was used as a tool in this study along with other two leadership styles i.e. Democratic and laissez-Faire style of leadership. 228 students of first semester and third semester were subject of this camouflaged study. This study is called so because no questionnaire was used but the data like response time in making team, failing to make team, demanding extension for project submission, reporting late, making excuses and even trying to escape from the project task etc. was collected as on regular basis by the first researcher (FR) and later classified and analysed by other two researchers . The natural and unforced responses of the students were collected and it was kept in care that students should never be aware of being diagnosed for their adoptability basic behaviour and learning responses. Thus, the researchers conducted the experiment to assess the impact of leadership style of the teacher on three groups i.e. quasi-democratic style (partially autocratic and mostly democratic) (QDS), democratic style (DS) and laissez-fair style (LFS). The study found that though all the styles were giving good response (but not equal responses)yet quasi-democratic style was most effective in inculcating desired traits and improving the response of the students and rooting skills frequently required at the level of mass education. Results indicate that the group where teacher had made partial decision and the students participated in classroom decisions, developed more favorable attitudes toward institute and subject, interacted more positively with peers and teacher, worked more consistently without supervision, and learned more than the group which was free from teacher’s control and where teacher had left entire decision on students. The results are indicative that the productive and creative curriculum application depends largely on students so they should be made involved in the strategy framing for curricular activities but with a stipulated guidance of the teachers. This study has a limitation as it was conducted among 228 students and only within 90 days means within a semester.