1st experience as a Leader in WMG
I'm really learning a lot in this module...seriously...
I've been leaders many times in my life, in college or at work... but none of them helped me to receive real feedbacks that can help me grow each time. Back in schook when you lead, you either make people love you and follow you, or they dislike you. At work when you lead, you either win the respect, or you lose your face; sometimes if you lead badly, you even get fired :-)
But in here, really is a great chance to just try, and give everything a shot. Maybe sometimes it's not very realistic situations, but we get to think about from so many different perspectives, and try to see if each different styles work out for us; also if it doesn't, why not? What do we really want? Who we really want? What kind of leader we really wanna follow? These are all very useful for us to examine in the future...
This morning I'm sorry that I missed the class, since my landlord had to fix something...When I arrived in the afternoon, I instantly volunteered to be a leader and try to get involved in the activities asap. The result turned out wonderfully.
There were some learning points for myself:
1. Make sure always ask everybody's ideas, coz sometimes some people might have great ones to share. Those might be the opportunities for me as well as company's assets.
2. If I become a manager one day, I should help my people to do better in their jobs, not throwing jobs at them or complain if they didn't do a good job.
3. be assertive! clear goals for people to follow
4. be nice, but not too nice. leaders still need to charm the people to listen/respect me. A too democratic one doesn't help sometimes.
5. I do talk less and listen more :-) Coz I wanna make sure I understand what everybody's thinking, what they want. Otherwise all my talking would be pointless.
6. During the meeting, I didn't manage to retain my authority throughout, which I thought I did. But obviosuly when I made my points, my teammates weren't threatened. :-) Meaning: They'll use the cap for the coffee cup, but will not move to the kitchen if they still split the coffee out. Therefore, next time, after playing nice leader, I need to be more harsh on this! :-) and make sure they all listened and agreed to the trade.
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Tomorrow's presentation, I'm the leader again. And I think we had a very good meeting. Looking forward to our presentation tomorrow! Good luck people!
26 Jan 2010 02:59
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Tags: Leadership
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Comments (4)
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It looks like it helps you a lot, I totally agree wiht you about asking everybody’s ideas first and comparing them to your thought first. I’m so glad to talk to you about nice, but not too nice, how to balance and how to make it works.
28 Jan 2010, 18:07
Yes, it did. :-) and this learning is like a “continuous” reminder of what we should do for the things that we have passion in.
I’m trying to say here is sometimes we learnt something, but after a while we forgot about it…we’re not continuously improving or reminding ourselves to do the right things. For example, I was leader many times in my life, and I learnt a lot from each of the experience I had. Some of the learning might root inside of me and become part of me…but some just being forgotten sometimes.
That’s why I realised again today that Writing everything down, eg. The Blog…is going to track my learning for the rest of my life :-)
This is something I should be keep doing… Because we wanna be able to remind ourselves the good things we’ve learnt from time to time. Maybe years later, when we review this again, it’s going to be a whole new journey :-)
Wish you the same :-)
28 Jan 2010, 18:43
Hello Lavinia;
I think you made a good choice to play a democratic role in this coffee time. Because; you had me as a team member. As you would understand, I made my mind about not to change the situation and I was more than ready to defend it. So if you were not played a democratic role than we would be in a serious challenge. :P That would also sth. which we should experience but if that happens pls. forgive me after the game. :)
Cheers…
p.s.: Practice makes perfect and every new experience is useful if you can add value to your life.
28 Jan 2010, 20:31
Thank you Doganay, coz I think the best way to practice leadership is play yourself and see if being yourself works! :-) that’s the easiest way and everything you do or act comes from within!
And don’t worry at all, I can take criticise very well :
) I’m pretty confident in that! :) and I don’t get offended personally, I’m very task targeted person :) So everything we discussed, if we ever threw temper at each other, that’s all focused on the matter we discussed. That’s my principle :)BIG SMILE!
28 Jan 2010, 20:44
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