Well, here we are. It has been a long, stressful yet enlightening 10 weeks and we now stand at the finish line. I learned a great deal about my leadership style and and how what roles I fill best in a group setting.
My main personal goals for the term were to develop my ability to critically examine the work our group produced and to develop meaningful relationships with my group members in order to increase our over all group potential. I chose the first goal because in the past I have had a bad habit of developing group think early on in a planning process and getting married to sub-par ideas. Of the 5 leadership practices I considered “Challenging the Process” to be my weakest attribute so it seemed only natural for my goal to be oriented towards critical self reflection. The second goal was based on the personal belief that if a group of people really understands each other and can read the emotions of one another they can establish the platform for effective communication. When a group knows each other they can bring out the best in each other by focusing on the the talents of individuals and knowing how to motivate each other.
Going into the process, I knew that my first goal would be the most difficult. But it turns out, my fellow group members ended up being my best asset in achieving this. Early in the process I let them know what I struggled with and soon enough I was able to look for them to guidance. All I ever had to do was ask “Is this realistic” or “Are we going in the right direction” and instantly the group was able to take a step back and look critically at our product. One of the best ways I learned to do this was to look at the situation from as many different perspectives as possible. This proved an effective way to critically examine our work and find flaws in our practices. Over all I feel like it was an effective tool and helped develop my ability to “challenge the process” very well.
My second goal was focused on building a close working relationship with my team members. Throughout the term we all got very close and learned a lot about each other which provided a whole host of benefits. Firstly, it made our meetings fun. It wasn’t a total drag knowing that I had a group meeting during the day, and everyone seemed to share that sentiment. This led to much higher motivation and productivity during our meetings. Another benefit was a greater understanding to each others body language and reactions. We knew when someone was holding something back or was skeptical of an idea. From here all we had to do was ask what they thought and we usually got actionable feedback. I also learned how to communicate with each member differently depending on their background and my understanding of their values. How I talked to Chris, a gentleman from California, is very different from how I would talk to Jessie, a lady from continental China. Finally, I made an effort to make my emotions more visible and understandable. In my action plan I described how this would be an effective method of building trust between team members and developing a closer, more meaningful relationship.
Going forward I still have some things that I would like to improve in order to become a better and more effective leader. I can on course always make an effort to improve my ability to critically analyze a situation and try and challenge it in order to promote innovation. Of the other four practices, I also found that I could improve by building more emphasis on “Enabling Others to Act”. Often times people had skills and talents that completely surprised me. By taking a more active role in encouraging this, I could have improved both the project and helped them develop themselves further.
The final thing I would like to touch on about leadership before I wrap this up is the idea of developing others. At it’s core, I think this is what leadership really boils down to. To take someone who may be uncertain about the skills they have or their ability to lead themselves and to give them the opportunity to get their hands dirty and work on projects. I have found as a leader that this is one of the most crucial steps to building a strong team of compassionate, loyal and hard working individuals. If you focus on providing guidance and motivation to your team members they can develop the project as well as improve themselves. If you give them something tangible such as experience or a skill, they will put that much more effort into making sure the job gets done.
Well, that’s all I have for now. I enjoyed this term very much and learned a lot about myself and made some great friends. I look forward to applying all of this in the future.