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And now remember the changes after three months since then. You became known to all, friendly
to the majority and a few came very close to your heart. Some of you became ‘star’ figures. The entire
class has now the duos, clichés and groups of different sizes without losing its original identity and
internal cohesiveness. Just ponder over how such a change took place ?
Key process to form the group is interaction among the members. During the process of
interaction among the members, they exchange information and further, evaluate each other’s strength
and weakness. With repeated exchanges another phenomenon i.e., acceptance of mutual influence
(exploration of leader-follower equation) takes place. Some members are accepted as leaders while
others follow them. The group values the thoughts and opinions of some members for decision-making
or anything that may serve the cause of the group. The leader-follower equation takes place in a subtle
way and without any formal commitment/agreement. Further, preferences and mutual likes and dislikes
play active role in this process. A few members interact among themselves more often than others. Such
preferences in interaction divide groups in many sub-groups. The group can now be said to be
formed.
A WELL-FORMED GROUP IS HETEROGENEOUS IN NATURE. IT IS SUB-DIVIDED INTO
SMALLER GROUPS WITHOUT ANY COMPROMISE ON ITS INTERNAL STRENGTH AND
COHESIVENESS. IT HAS SOME STAR (LEADERS) AND SOME SATELLITE FIGURES
(FOLLOWERS)

Lesson 4
The Average Officer
1. What is average ? The average is a number indicating the central value of a group of observations
or of individuals.
2. There are three main types of average, the Mean, the Mode and Median. The statistician will
always refer to them by their specific names, collectively he will refer to them as measures of
central tendency. Each form of central tendency measure gives a different concept of average.
3. The average whether it be a Mean, Median or Mode serves two important purposes.
The average does not mean a point but is a range—
(a) It is a shorthand description of a mass of quantitative data obtained from a sample.
(b) It also describes with some accuracy the population from which the sample is drawn.
4. On a ten-point rating scale, assuming the distribution to be normal, the average would constitute
44% of the sample.
5. Thus, Average does not mean a point but is a range. Individual within this range would be different
from each other yet would be termed as average.
Average Officer
6. Human personality is not a mechanical summation of various qualities. It is a product of their
integration. Adding the point values on each quality and dividing it by total number of qualities
would not help us to arrive at an average.
7. An average officer may be high in some qualities, low in some and middling in most. Another
officer, also an average may be high in some other qualities, low in a different few and middling on
the remaining. They are both average although different in personality profile.
Orientation of Average
Generally the average required is higher than the average available.
8. While selecting candidates an assessor must know what the average required is and also the
average available. Generally, the average required is higher than the average available, and the
difference is bridged by training.