- Honesty
- You are responsible for a team of people and it’s important that your business and its employees are a reflection of yourself. If you make honest and ethical behavior a key value, your team will follow you. Honesty was a key component in this class because students had to take constructive criticism from not only Mrs. Ingersoll but from their peers as well. One example of how honesty was used in class was when we were brainstorming for ideas about the t-shirt. Some people’s ideas were not good ideas so we had to let them know that their idea was not useful. We then proceeding to tell them what they were looking for so the student could provide better ideas next time.
- Ability to delegate
- Its important to remember that trusting your team with your idea is a sign of strength, not weakness. Delegating tasks to the appropriate departments is one of the most important skills you can develop as your business grows. The key to delegation is identifying the strengths of your team, and capitalizing on them. Find out what each team member enjoys doing most. Chances are if they find that task more enjoyable, they will likely put more thought and effort behind it. This will not only prove to your team that you trust and believe in them, but will also free up your time to focus on the higher level tasks, that should not be delegated. With a lot of group tasks, there are a lot of arguments about what’s a good or bad idea, who’s right and wrong and more. Ryan Sterne, a senior and participant in Deca, took on the role of a leader and helped delegate issues and debates that were held within the class. This provided social equality amongst the students and allowed them to work more on the project rather argue why they were right.
- Communication
Being able to clearly describe what you want done is extremely important. If you can’t relate your vision to your team, you won’t all be working towards the same goal. Training new members and creating a productive work environment all depend on healthy lines of communication. Whether that stems from an open door policy to your office, or making it a point to talk to your staff on a daily basis, making yourself available to discuss issues is vital. Communication was key within groups because when group work was divided up, we had to figure out who was doing what. In my group, we communicated who was staying in the classroom to make announcements about spirit days and who was to go make the posters to hang around the school saying what the upcoming spirit day was and when it was.
https://www.papermasters.com/images/skills-communication.jpg- Sense of humor
- Encourage your team to laugh at the mistakes instead of crying. If you are constantly learning to find the humor in the struggles, your work environment will become a happy and healthy space, where your employees look forward to working in, rather than dreading it. Make it a point to crack jokes with your team and encourage personal discussions of weekend plans and trips. It’s these short breaks from the task at hand that help keep productivity levels high and morale even higher. In the book 7 Habits of Being a Highly Effective teen, the author incorporated humor through his personal life within the texts so the reader would find the reading educational, humorous and relatable. I found the book much more educational when I realized I face some of the same problems the author does and how he created change in his life in order to compensate for the mishaps.
- Confidence
- Part of your job as a leader is to put out fires and maintain the team morale. Keep up your confidence level, and assure everyone that setbacks are natural and the important thing is to focus on the larger goal. As the leader, by staying calm and confident, you will help keep the team feeling the same. Remember, your team will take cues from you, so if you exude a level of calm damage control, your team will pick up on that feeling. In the movie Emilio’s Dream, a young African American man was born with disabled legs, like many others in his community. Instead of giving up and accepting his fate, Emilio biked around his country in order to support his family. When his story became public, people decided to help Emilio. Emilio came to the US and got surgery so he could have prosthetic legs. None of this would’ve been possible if Emilio didn’t have the high confidence that he had.
- Commitment
If you expect your team to work hard and produce quality content, you’re going to need to lead by example. There is no greater motivation than seeing the boss down in the trenches working alongside everyone else, showing that hard work is being done on every level. It’s important to show your commitment not only to the work at hand, but also to your promises. You want to create a reputation for not just working hard, but also be known as a fair leader. In order to see out projects, the members of the group had to be committed to work. In class, Mrs. Ingersoll and students stressed the importance of commitment because if not everyone was on task and working then the project would collapse and fail. Commitment also played a huge role in the trust exercises with the hula hoop outside. We needed everyone to work together in order to raise the hula hoop up with one finger. If we didn’t work together then it wouldn’t work at all.http://goodies.im/uploads/commitment.jpg - Positive attitude
- You want to keep your team motivated towards the continued success of the company, and keep the energy levels up. Keep the office mood a fine balance between productivity and playfulness. If your team is feeling happy and upbeat, chances are they won’t mind staying that extra hour to finish a report, or devoting their best work to the brand. A positive attitude is necessary when working on a project because if there is any negativity involved, it brings down others and it destroys the working atmosphere created by all the students. Some students in the class have ruined group discussions and projects because they thought that the assignment was “mediocre”. What they should’ve done is taken one for the team and tried there best because a negative attitude isn’t going to get you anywhere in life, let alone a high school class assignment.
- Creative
- It’s important to learn to think outside the box and to choose which of two bad choices is the best option. Don’t immediately choose the first or easiest possibility; sometimes its best to give these issues some thought, and even turn to your team for guidance. By utilizing all possible options before making a rash decision, you can typically reach the end conclusion you were aiming for. Creativity was key in our “Promote School Spirit” project because it forced the students to think on their own and outside the box. Creativity was used to create posters, t-shirts, and new forms of notifying the student body about upcoming games (Giant posters with schedules).
- Intuition
- When something unexpected occurs, or you are thrown into a new scenario, your team will look to you for guidance. Drawing on past experience is a good reflex, as is reaching out to your mentors for support. Eventually though, the tough decisions will be up to you to decide and you will need to depend on your gut instinct for answers. Learning to trust yourself is as important as your team learning to trust you. One decision making process that affected the whole class was interviewing teachers to be the new principal after Dr. Pryma retires. Although we all had different ideas of what we wanted as a leader for the GBN community and most of the people were alike, we all came to a group consensus on who fit the part of being the next principal of GBN.
- Ability to inspire
Whether everyone owns a piece of equity, or you operate on a bonus system, generating enthusiasm for the hard work you are all putting in is so important. Being able to inspire your team is great for focusing on the future goals, but it is also important for the current issues. Acknowledge the work that everyone has dedicated and commend the team on each of their efforts. It is your job to keep spirits up, and that begins with an appreciation for the hard work. Whenever Mrs. Ingersoll told us to share our ideas with our classmates or when we shared our finish projects with each other, everyone was keep to say “Good job” or “Nice work”. Everyone worked together in order to promote a cheerful and happy attitude within the classroom, making working more fun. Even though Mrs. Ingersoll told us we did a good job, it was nice to hear it from our peers because its a different type of recognition.http://buymelaughs.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/inspirational-quotes-about-life-3.jpg
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