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This study examined the relationship between listening effectiveness and leadership emergence in the task-oriented small group. Subjects were 51 undergraduate students in lO classroom groups assigned as zero-history, leaderless work groups. The groups met together for 12 weeks prior to participating in the study. Groups were videotaped conducting a decisionmaking discussion, and members later completed a recall instrument, a listeningperceptions instrument, and a leadership-perceptions instrument. Three sets of coders viewed the taped discussions and coded listening effectiveness, leadership behavior, and recall. Results show strong, positive relationships among all variables except recall, indicating that emergent leaders typically display more effective listening skills than the other members.

This study examined the perceptions of members of 23 task-oriented classroom small groups regarding the variables of leadership and listening. Following the completion of a long-term class assignment, groups were divided in half Half of each group completed a leadership assessment instrument while the other half completed a listening assessment instrument. Spearman correlations were computed on the data gathered. Results indicate a significant positive correlation between member rankings of leadership behavior and member rankings of listening effectiveness.