Observation Record Of Me Leading A Team (P4, M3)
Example of when I led a team and how I preformed
My example of leading the team would have to be a co-run project and classmate of mine and I started to plan and hope to launch next term. In essence it is a sustainability project that will be run in school as a movement to make our school more sustainable towards the environment with the more and more rising environmental problems to do with our planet.
We started planning in about October last year and since then we have made a fair amount of progress. We have assigned tasks and teams, had meetings with different committees and made our first order of green trays. Basically there will be two projects running within the team. We decided to split up in half and both focus on one of the two. I will be focusing on the composter funding idea. We will be giving the option for people to use a green tray in the refectory rather than just a blue one and with that green tray they will agree to pay an extra dollar at the cashier to go towards the food composter that we want to buy for the school and then put all the refectory food to good use. Another idea was to set octopus machines at the entrance with a pre-set 1 dollar price were people who walk by can read about the project and then simply tap their octopus card on the machine. The other project will be focusing more on the students in our school. The other project is about teaching students in the school about the importance of sustainability and eventually teaching them how to use the composter. Since the year 11's had to go on exam leave at around April we were not able to launch it and therefore the project will no continue next term.
Below is a presentation about the particular project I am leading, the funding of the composter, which I had prepared for the meeting with Chartwells, the school catering company:
We started planning in about October last year and since then we have made a fair amount of progress. We have assigned tasks and teams, had meetings with different committees and made our first order of green trays. Basically there will be two projects running within the team. We decided to split up in half and both focus on one of the two. I will be focusing on the composter funding idea. We will be giving the option for people to use a green tray in the refectory rather than just a blue one and with that green tray they will agree to pay an extra dollar at the cashier to go towards the food composter that we want to buy for the school and then put all the refectory food to good use. Another idea was to set octopus machines at the entrance with a pre-set 1 dollar price were people who walk by can read about the project and then simply tap their octopus card on the machine. The other project will be focusing more on the students in our school. The other project is about teaching students in the school about the importance of sustainability and eventually teaching them how to use the composter. Since the year 11's had to go on exam leave at around April we were not able to launch it and therefore the project will no continue next term.
Below is a presentation about the particular project I am leading, the funding of the composter, which I had prepared for the meeting with Chartwells, the school catering company:
I also did quite a few other things, for example:
Evidence of that is below:
- Handing out roles and responsibilities
- Setting tasks and deadlines
- Organising regular meetings with the team to catch up on progress
- Meetings with teachers to discuss progress
- Regular emails with updates
- Set a FaceBook chat to keep in contact with everyone
Evidence of that is below:
SWOT Analysis Of How I Lead My Team And SMART Goals
My 2 SMART goals:
- Improve organisation of the teams work and deadline meetings by October 2015 by setting a team calendar on google calendar. This will be successfully when a trend of deadline being met is seen.
- improve calmness and patience by thinking through ideas when the other leader suggest some ideas by first thinking about it before immediately opening my mouth. I would like to see an improvement of this by November 2015. I will know when I have been successful with this when I see less arguments.
Recommendations For Future Leadership Development
To improve my leadership skills I have pointed out and established 3 ways that I will be able to improve this significantly:
Reference to theory: leadership style (variety), motivation techniques
- I feel like with the age group I work with on a daily basis the best type of leadership would be democratic due to an upbringing with a lot of development to do with freedom of speech and democracy slowly making its way into more and more countries. I myself and very autocratic, as the results showed on assignment 5, which is pretty much the opposite of the leadership my team mates are probably looking for. To improve this I should get more involved with the team. I should almost pretend to be on of the team members so I have a feeling of how they feel, so the best way to do this is not to always got as the leader and sometimes sit back and observe how maybe a better leader is doing his job and how it feels to be a team member under this leadership type. This can simply be done in the next unit in, which we will be learning about water based sport activities as there will be a variety of group exercises. By making this improvement it would cut a lot of the arguments we currently have in the team.
- Another weakness I analysed was the lack of motivation I was giving my team through the project and I definitely should improve this to avoid the team from slacking off. To improve this I should organise more team building activities to first and foremost build a relationship with my team mates. This can be done by either organising a lunch together or simply going on a trip related to the project, such as visiting a composting facility on Lantau island. By doing this I would now know everyone better and know probably the best way to encourage them, as everyone has a different personality and will be encouraged in different ways. Another thing I have to do is personally also be more energetic and more organised when it comes to the meetings. If I personally don't look encouraging and happy to be at the meetings the team will most likely be put of by that. So what I need to do is the day before the meeting make sure I have a solid plan about what we will talk about and also at the meetings be a bit more friendly with the team mates to keep a positive atmosphere. The final technique I will use to motivate the team is using Pink's Theory. Pink's Theory is a theory developed by Daniel Pink, he stated that cash is a good motivational reward, however only in certain jobs which require certain skills. After taking several experiment he realised that cash rewards are effective on in jobs that don’t require any cognitive thinking. For example cash rewards for high performance would work in a job such as McDonalds but not in an office job where a worker might have to develop strategies in who to target their desired market. Instead of using cash as reward though I will be using CAS, which stand for creativity, action and service. When I give them an activity I can mention that this will go towards their CAS, which is required to pass the final years of high school. For example if I give them a poster to make I can say that this will go towards their Creativity aspect of the CAS if it is done correctly.
- The final weakness I analysed on my SWOT analysis task was that my organisation skills when it came to organising and then attending the meetings myself, was not great. In the real world this could possibly cost you your job if it happens a few times. So to improve this I have decided that whenever there is a meeting I should firstly put a reminder on my calendar with an alarm which goes of 15 minutes before the meeting. I will also make sure to put a sticky note on my computer so I see it during the lesson and this will be a back up in case of the alarm. To avoid the meeting to starting off at a slow and sloppy pace I will also organise meeting briefs for each meeting with things we need to discuss about and the aims we need to achieve by the end of the meeting. Finally I will also get to all the meetings 5 minutes prior to the start to get ready with all the meeting resources. By doing this not only will it improve my organisation skills as a whole but also will improve the team motivation as they see my being more committed and organised.
Reference to theory: leadership style (variety), motivation techniques