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this collaborative group will seek to find quick self-initiated strategies and techniques in order to reduce the amount of stress in high stakes situations.

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M 1. Belief in development of whole self, including a healthy balance of mental, social/emotional and physical well-being

M 2. Sense of acceptance, respect, support and inclusion for self and others in the school environment

M 3. Positive attitude toward work and learning

M 4. Self-confidence in ability to succeed

M 5. Belief in using abilities to their fullest to achieve high-quality results and outcomes

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1) We will begin by disseminating information through posters throughout the school.

2) Pitching the group during whole group guidance lesson.

3) Information will be shared on ClassDojo.

4) Based on data, we will reach out to parents of "at-risk" students and prioritize.

5) Forms will be made available to individual students by allowing teachers to share information to their parents as well.

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Students, Parents and their families will show their interest in the group. Then, there will be a pre-group screener/interviews available to the student and parent. In order to qualify there will need to be buy-in from the parent as well as the student. The counselor will group participants based on results from interviews performed.

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After the 8-10 participants of the group have been selected, the next step will be explaining in writing and obtaining permission and consent from the parents on the group.

The following wording will be included in the consent agreement.

I understand the general purposes, risks and methods of the "Let's STRESS-Less!" group . I consent to participate in the research project and the following has been explained to me: the research may not be of direct benefit to me. my participation is completely voluntary.

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1) Everything will remain confidential.

2)Always respect each other.

3) Contribute as much or as little as you see fit!

We will co-create two additional ground rules that will be included as a core value of the group.

4)

5)

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Stage 1: We will be sure to include ice breakers and activites that help build rapport amongst each other. Rapport is also a form of trust within each other. We will explicitly discuss confidentiality and its limits. We will then discuss any wonderings group memebers may have.

Stage 2: We will possibly do an activity outside of school. Whether it be a community srvice activity or attned an event together, this will continue to enhance team building experiences.

Stage 3: Outside of post- group surveys, we will then conduct exit interviews. There we will also be aware if anyone is still needing consultation or guidance on a individual basis.

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Democratic leaderhship style, this type of leader tends to be collaborative in nature and will hold their partner accountable and best of all is willing to listen!

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Key points

Leaders are prone to becoming autocratic because they have to manage large groups and make many difficult decisions with limited time.

Democratic leadership offers advantages over autocratic leadership, such as reduced hostility and increased efficiency on some types of tasks.

People can be both autocratic and democratic depending on the situation, but some factors predispose leaders to being autocratic.

As Ray Dalio, founder of the largest hedge fund in the world, writes in his book of management principles:

"Even the most benevolent leaders are prone to becoming more autocratic, if for no other reason than because managing a lot of people and having limited time to do it requires them to make numerous difficult choices quickly, and they sometimes lose patience with arguments and issue commands instead." ¹

Even if you consider yourself benevolent (who doesn't?), there is an ever-present impulse to be more autocratic-an impulse exacerbated by the situation. As a leader, if you want to encourage speaking up to improve decision making and team member satisfaction, you need to be more mindful of overcoming autocratic impulses and openly soliciting ideas from others. To openly solicit ideas from others is to be more democratic.

Studying the Effects of Democratic and Autocratic Leadership

The distinction between autocratic and democratic leadership styles has a long history in applied psychology and was the focus of one of the "founding fathers" of the field, Kurt Lewin, who studied these leadership styles in the late 1930s. Understanding the consequences of these styles was of great personal and practical importance to Lewin. He was born in Poland and lived in Germany through most of his life, serving in the German army in World War I.

As a Jewish individual, Lewin fortuitously left Germany in the early 1930s and would work the remainder of his career in the U.S. As a scholar, he wanted to shed scientific light on the political turmoil that was happening in the world, such as the rise of Nazism in Germany. Thus, studying the effects of democratic and autocratic leadership was of utmost importance and an area of study that could use more precise evidence. As he asks in a 1939 publication, "Is not democratic group life more pleasant, but authoritarianism more efficient? These are the sorts of questions to which 'opinionated' answers are many and varied today, and to which scientific answers, are, on that account, all the more necessary."

To develop a scientific answer, Lewin and colleagues experimentally created three "social climates"-authoritarian, democratic, and laissez-faire. To create these "social climates," an adult would act in accordance with one of these styles while leading a group of 10-year-old boys. To be authoritarian, the leader would determine all the policies of the group and dictate the work task. To be democratic, the leader would encourage group discussion about policies and facilitate group decision making. Laissez-faire leadership allowed complete freedom for the group with little or no participation from the leader. Accordingly, a laissez-faire style of leadership was deemed so ineffective for group functioning that it was abandoned in future studies as a leadership style. ³

In Lewin's studies, they found that when leaders were present, performance was roughly equal between the autocratic and democratic groups, but when the leaders left, performance declined for those in the autocratic group but not for the democratic group. ⁴ They also found, as one might guess, more submission of group members to authoritarian leaders and a greater need for instructions and directions.

They also observed more hostility in the autocratic compared to the democratic group, most notably when the leader was absent. Among many factors, Lewin and colleagues surmised this was a result of the "tension" created in the group (what we might now call " stress"), and that this tension needed an outlet which was through hostility. ⁵ While Lewin and colleagues were interested in how leadership styles promoted aggression, one might conclude that a more hostile environment with more submission is not a climate where individuals will freely speak their minds.

Democratic Leadership Is More Effective for Some Tasks

Although Lewin's studies were with children, (with obvious drawbacks to interpreting the results in the workplace), the conceptual distinction between autocratic and democratic leaders was a major advance that helped leadership scholars in future decades. More recently, in a meta-analysis of 23 studies on the impact of leadership styles on productivity, democratic leadership was found to be more effective (compared to autocratic leadership) on "moderately or highly complex tasks." ⁶ In these tasks, you need the wisdom of the group to be fully used in comparison to the dictates of a leader.

In summarizing the field, John Gastil defined democratic leadership as "giving group members responsibility, improving the general abilities and leadership skills of other group members, and assisting the group in its decision-making process." 7 The below table offers an outline of the key features of autocratic and democratic leadership in their "pure forms."

Leadership Essential Reads

While autocratic leadership can be viewed more charitably--as occasionally being directive and making decisions with little input from others--it can be portrayed with stronger moral overtones. This includes being demeaning and abusive to subordinates and demanding loyalty and submissiveness. ⁸ This, of course, can be a dangerous form of autocratic leadership, but as Dalio notes, a central point is overcoming autocratic impulses, which even the most benevolent of us might have given the circumstances. Thus, I am stressing how we might overcome being a "good-natured" autocrat, who, for whatever reason, is slipping towards being too directive and is making decisions with little or no deliberation from others.

Different Situations Require Distinct Leadership Styles

While being autocratic or democratic is described in its pure form, we can, of course, switch styles given the dictates of the situation. When is being autocratic functional? When is being democratic functional? By and large, democratic leadership has many advantages. However, in some instances, the situation may warrant autocratic impulses, especially if there is time pressure. In addition, a leader's judgment may be well-grounded given his or her experience in a domain, and thus his or her expertise and judgment is better than others.

Although in some situations this may be true, in others you need to harness all the knowledge and expertise of a diverse group to make the best decision possible. This requires, of course, a realization that you don't know everything. A certain degree of intellectual humility is needed to realize that in most situations, but not all, the collective or majority will make a better decision than a single individual. This humility may be hard to come by but can often result from past failures where we realize our limitations.

While we can be both autocratic and democratic given a situation, we are also likely to be predisposed to one style over another. In an overview of the factors increasing the likelihood of being autocratic, Peter Harms of the University of Alabama and colleagues outline several factors. These include, among others, being less agreeable, having a high need for power, being less emotionally stable (e.g. suspicious), and being narcissistic. These are suggestive traits that impact one's likelihood of being autocratic. One's predisposition to be autocratic would be a very complex mix of someone's inherited predispositions, life history, and situational conditions.

Thus, to improve performance on your team and encourage speaking up, ask yourself: Am I more autocratic or democratic? Only indulge your autocratic impulses at strategic moments. Avoid laissez-faire leadership at all costs and be mindful of being more democratic in your leadership style.

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What research reveals about facilitating group decision making.

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Two Primary Factors will be:

1) Instillation of Hope because through being able to listen and understand someone's worries makes others feel as though they are not alone and can heal from their perceived problem.

2) Altruism because there is a sense of ownership by one being able to identify and sympathize with someone else that may even have the same problem.

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Legal Requirements of Small Group Counseling 

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Legal Requirements of Small Group Counseling 

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B-PF 3. Apply legal and ethical principles of the school counseling profession

b. Adhere to the legal responsibilities of the role of the school counselor including the unique legal and ethical principles of working with minor students in a school setting

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Ethical Requirements for Small Group Counseling 

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Ethical Requirements for Small Group Counseling 

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d. Fulfill legal and ethical obligations to families, teachers, administrators and other school staff

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ASCA National Standards for Students. (n.d.). https://static.pdesas.org/content/documents/asca_national_standards_for_students.pdf

ASCA student standards: Mindsets & Behaviors for student success. ASCA Student Standards: Mindsets & Behaviors for Student Success - American School Counselor Association (ASCA). (n.d.). https://www.schoolcounselor.org/Standards-Positions/Standards/ASCA-Mindsets-Behaviors-for-Student-Success

ASCA School Counselor Professional Standards & ... (n.d.-b). https://www.schoolcounselor.org/getmedia/a8d59c2c-51de-4ec3-a565-a3235f3b93c3/SC-Competencies.pdf