Enhancing leadership skills for community self-help organizations through behavioral instruction

Group members with skills to lead effective meetings are valuable resources of any community organization. The effects of a behaviorally based textbook and training procedures designed to teach members of community self-help groups to chair effective meetings were analyzed. Measures were collected during regularly scheduled meetings on chairperson performance, member participation, and the closure of discussion topics. The results showed that the use of specified chairperson activities increased after training for each of two chairperson trainees. Further, outcome data suggest that more decisions were made. These findings suggest that the chairperson training procedures may enhance the leadership and decision-making resources of community self-help groups.