I have always thought of myself as a leader; but not really a "loud" leader, one that lead by actions rather than talking. So when time came around to decide who would be the Chief Production Officer (CPO), I decided to step up to the plate, and rather willingly I must add. I have almost always been the leader of groups projects: I'm responsible, keep track of things, turn things in on time and I usually know what is going on most of the time, but I have never been leader of a project thats lasted more than 2 weeks (and this one would certainly last more than that). When I jumped at the chance of being the leader of my group, my teammates agreed because I am the most responsible of the three and I can keep track of everything but they also gave me one condition: I had to be more ASSERTIVE. This came as a shock to me seeing as I did used to have a problem with assertiveness as a child but I honestly thought I had come out of my shell. But alright, I was up to the challenge of becoming Paolo's level of assertiveness. The first meeting we had was the most stressful for me because I felt that I was being overpowered and shut-down by my teammates and their stubbornness was putting me on edge. So I took a 30 second walk to cool off and came back into the class ready to attack. Although they were still as stubborn as they had been before I left the class, I had a new attitude towards working with them: I was open about their ideas as well as they were open about mine, seeing as I had told them that that was what needed to happen if we wanted to be successful. Over the course of the week, I have found myself changing sentences from 'can you please do this' to 'please do it' or 'have you already done it'. Yes, I might sometimes give in to people, but being CPO has, and still is, helping me go from the "follow my actions and we'll be successful" leader to the "do what I say and we'll be successful" leader. Yes, this might sound bossy to some, but in reality, it is exactly what my team needs in order to succeed.
2 Comments
Gisella Silva
9/1/2014 01:45:16 am
Caro, really good blog entry. I think that like you said, there is times when being assertive is very necessary, and from what I've seen so far, you are doing a great job with leading your team!
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Corey Topf
9/2/2014 09:06:25 am
Feedback! https://diigo.com/02mctc
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Author"Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light." Archives
June 2015
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