Giving the power to the people

It is important to give the power to the people in team exercises. The team exercise on hotel business demonstrates so. I was doing banking and finance in my undergrad and thus, we do not have many team exercises or many group presentations. My results are 100% exam based and I find comfort in knowing that I am in control of my results and am in-charged of my own learning.

However, in reality, this is not the case. Working in organisations, one cannot suffice on being an individual instead of a team player. Even if you are a scientist, you still have to share your findings with your teammates.

The team exercise on hotel business caused me to panic silently. This is because, firstly, I raised my hand and volunteered to be a leader as I know it is time for me to step out of my comfort zone and put myself in a leadership position. Yet, leading a group of people that I have only known for more than a week is certainly a daunting task. Thoughts of failure crossed my mind many times and the glooming fate of getting "blamed" should the task go wrong frightens me. Yet, I decided to face my obstacle and step up to the challenge.

I read through the hotel business file and made sure I did not miss out important details to brief my team on later in the exercise. I also made sure to ask each individual's opinion and have a constructive discussion, should our answers differ. I gave the power to my team members to make decisions and then mull over the final decisions together. Turns out, our team made a profit in the first two rounds while I was there and throughout the exercise. I certainly learnt more on how to interact with different people and also my own leadership style. When to push and when to pull back. Certainly a great team exercise.

: 25 Feb 2016 23:47 |  Tags: And Excellence Leadership |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem