London, April 2 (Inditop.com) Do you find yourself leading groups, or are you more comfortable following others? The latest research shows that if you want to be a leader you are better off at the edges of a crowd, and not in the middle of the action.
In experiments on crowd behaviour, a biological science research team at the University of Leeds also found that successful leaders display more decisive behaviour, spending less time following others and acting more quickly than others in the group.
Lead researcher Jolyon Faria, who conducted the study as part of his PhD, said: “It was interesting to find that the most effective leaders remained on the edges of the group and attempted to lead from the front….”
“For instance, a better understanding of human crowd behaviour can help us design buildings more effectively for evacuation scenarios,” said Faria.
“It can also inform strategies for moving large numbers of people, useful for events where large crowds need to be moved as quickly and efficiently as possible by a relatively small number of event staff,” added Faria.
The research team asked groups of eight students to walk around continuously in a specified area and remain as a group without speaking or gesturing to one another, says a Leeds release.
One person was asked to move towards a target, whilst remaining a member of the group, without letting the others know that he or she was leading them to a target. In a second set of experiments, the students were told to follow “the leader,” but not told who the leader was.
In the second set, it was found that those leaders who remained on the edge of the group were able to move their group towards a target much more quickly than the leaders that chose to remain in the centre.
