Collective Leadership and Circles: Not Invented Here

Improving interprofessional teamwork in a community mental health team: a team building circle program based on the restorative justice paradigm

Improving teamwork among mental health practitioners is crucial. However, there have been few intervention studies on teamwork enhancement among community mental health practitioners in South Korea. We aimed to determine the effectiveness of the Team Building Circle program (TBC) based on the restorative justice paradigm, which sought to promote integration and cohesion. The TBC was developed to improve conflict interpretation mind-set, interpersonal skills, and teamwork among practitioners in community mental health centers. We conducted a quasi-experimental study using a pre and posttest design with a non-equivalent control group. The participants were 44 practitioners from four community mental health centers. Data were collected before the implementation TBC (pretest), just after (posttest), and 3 months after TBC (follow-up test). A generalized estimating equation model was used for analysis. Our findings indicate that the intervention group had improved scores in the ability to cope with interpersonal stress in a constructive way, interpersonal relationship skills, and teamwork compared to the control group. To improve teamwork among community mental health practitioners, managers are encouraged to consider providing TBC intervention.

Why is collective leadership so elusive?

This ‘Leading Questions’ thought piece explores the elusive nature of collective leadership. We use our previous experiences to explore issues that tend to go unnoticed and unreported within the academic analysis of collective forms of leadership, including (1) the motives of those commissioning and conducting applied research to ‘make a difference’ through collective forms of leadership; (2) the performative effects of how ‘collective leadership’ is framed; and (3) the extent to which ambiguity around the nature of collective leadership makes it a powerful ‘empty signifier’ for holding incompatible and inconsistent conceptions and ideologies. Such issues, we suggest, are inherent features of the landscape of collective leadership theory, policy and practice and have important implications for scholars, practitioners and developers.

Advocating for the Use of Restorative Justice Practices: Examining the Overlap between Restorative Justice and Behavior Analysis

Broadly defined, restorative justice (RJ) is a set of procedures based in Indigenous peacemaking practices that reduces recidivism and guides the effective reparation of harm. RJ practices provide harm-affected parties an opportunity for engagement in the resolution process, which theoretically enhances community well-being. RJ practices overlap significantly with behavior-analytic principles. Implementing RJ practices from a context-focused, appetitive-based approach that focuses on classes of behaviors may address harmful behaviors within police organizations. RJ practices may also facilitate changes in contexts that support behaviors valued by the community. The current review discusses criminal and restorative justice, RJ processes and practices, the effectiveness of RJ in various contexts, how RJ overlaps with behavior-analytic principles and existing behavior science models in general, research suggestions, and recommendations for behavior analysts implementing RJ within police organizations and communities to address officer misconduct.

Igniting Collective Freedom: An Integrative Behavioral Model of Acceptance and Commitment Toward Black Liberation

Racism continues to reveal disastrous effects on the Black community. There exists no behavior-analytic literature with a specific focus on ending Black psychological suffering due to continual acts of violence perpetrated against the community. I present a behavioral model to promote Black psychological liberation, infusing preestablished frameworks of Black psychology and cultural healing practices with acceptance and commitment therapy. The model addresses behaviors observed within systemic and internalized racism.

Creating Inclusive and Equitable Cultural Practices by Linking Leadership to Systemic Change

From a global pandemic to the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Rayshard Brooks, and others in the Black community, the year 2020 has cast light on long-standing social injustices. With this has come a critical social movement and a call for change-specifically, a call for transformative solutions that address not only new challenges but also centuries of systemic issues, such as systemic oppression and systemic racism. Leadership across the globe has scrambled to answer the call, some issuing statements committed to change, others engaging in necessary action. What is critical, however, is that leadership understands the cultural factors that have given rise to centuries of oppressive practices, and that leaders are held accountable for the commitments they have expressed. Leadership must promote, create, and maintain prosocial, inclusive, and healthy work environments. This requires new cultural practices and a focused organizational model. Equally important is the need to resolve ambiguity and communicate effectively, with strategic consideration of constituent perspectives and needs. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to discuss the contribution of behavior analysis to addressing systemic oppression, as well as the pivotal role leadership communication plays in occasioning social change. It is our hope that this conceptual work will inspire behavior scientists to advance the field of behavior analysis and social movements in the direction of equitable, prosocial change that dismantles systemic oppression.

The Will to Fight: Aversion-Induced Aggression and the Role of Motivation in Intergroup Conflicts

Aggressive behavior is a source of many significant human problems, most notably the catastrophic loss of life and resources that can result from violent conflicts between groups. Aggressive behavior is particularly likely to arise from aversive conditions that function as motivating operations (MOs) that establish the stimulation produced by aggressive acts as reinforcing. We describe the behavior that arises from these circumstances as aversion-induced aggression (AIA) and argue that the MOs associated with AIA are important factors in initiating and sustaining violent conflicts between groups. In support of this, we survey the basic nonhuman research that has demonstrated the aggression-motivating functions of aversive stimuli. We extend our analysis of AIA to humans and describe how the special properties of verbal stimuli serve as the basis for notable differences between AIA in humans and nonhumans. We describe how aversive conditions may be exploited by leaders to establish support for aggression against another group in the pursuit of their objectives. We suggest that conflicts between groups cannot be resolved in the long term unless the motivational conditions from which conflicts arise are alleviated. Aggression is rarely effective in this regard because it exacerbates these conditions. For this reason, we advocate against the use of aggression as a tool for resolving conflicts between groups and consider how behavior science may contribute to the development and evaluation of alternative nonviolent practices.