FEATURES OF REACHING CONSENSUS IN THE PRESENCE OF THE LEADER AND THE HEAD IN A SOCIALGROUP

The question of how the time to reach a consensus and its variability change under the conditions of the appearance of an informal leader or an official head in a group is examines.The research demonstrated the distinction known in psychology (for small groups) between the behaviour of an official head of a group and a leader.From the results, it was concluded that the presence of a leader in a group provides a more balanced decision that takes into account the positions of other members of the group.In case if there is a head, consensus is achieved on average in fewer number of interaction cycles, but the consensus decision is based only on the opinion of the head himself.It was found that the variability of the average number of agreements in a group is higher if the group has a leader rather than a head.This confirms that leadership is a more complicated system of relations in a group compared to authoritarian management.The authoritarianism of group members affects the speed of reaching consensus in both cases: the higher the average authoritarianism of the group, the greater is the average number of agreements required to achieve consensus.