An inquiry into leadership, counseling, and their relationship

Traditional classifications of leadership as authoritarian, democratic, and laissez-faire are not all inclusive. The newer approach is to see leadership as task centered or people centered. Thus, the leader may be instrumental in helping the group get its job done or the leader may help the group in meeting its social-emotional needs. Strangely enough however, instances can be found in which task or human relations leaders have used any one of the three classic approaches to leadership. The most successful leaders are able to combine task centeredness and person centeredness, but most leaders are not able to integrate these two approaches. So, most groups must have two separate leaders who complement the role of each other. For counselors, the significant aspect of the newer approach is that the roles of counseling and social-emotional leadership are identical. Professional counselors will have more education and specific preparation than sub-professionals or para-professionals, but the relationships with others are the same.