Team Membership The last team experience that I had was not in a work capacity, but in a volunteer capacity. I worked as a volunteer on a breast cancer funding multi-day walk. Many people believe the walk is the heart of the fundraiser, but I discovered that the walk itself is only a small part of the experience. The real work for the team begins months before the actual walk, as the team comes together, raises funds, and makes plans for their walk.

Group Task Role

The initiator of the group was our friend Lola, whose mother was undergoing treatment for breast cancer. While out with our friends one night, she asked if we would be willing to walk with her to support her mother. She started the group, and she continued to provide direction for the group. She helped suggest the name of the group, Barb's Boobies' Buddies; she kept team members motivated, and reminded people why we were involved in the group. She has also suggested that it be an annual group function, sustaining her role as initiator even though the "project" has ended.

Group Maintenance Role

The harmonizer of the group was our friend Tom. Some people in our group of friends can be very difficult. There were many different ideas about appropriate fundraisers, how we should handle the overnight sections of the walk, and so many other factors. There were even disagreements about the color of the group t-shirts....

Tom would remind people that the goal of the group was to raise money in honor of Lola's friend Barb. He would generally approach things in a genial manner, though he would sometimes be very blunt with people and remind them that this was not about any of us, even Lola, but about her mother.
Leadership

Lola was the leader of the group. She initiated it, brought us the information for it, and found members for the group. She did a good job organizing the group and the walk was a success. However, Lola is not the best natural leader and there are many ways that the group could have interacted more effectively. For example, as a group of friends, we regularly hang out at a few different locations. Lola arranged a fundraiser at one of the bars we frequent and had us invite people outside of our social circle to join us. However, we could have had multiple fundraisers at different locations. In addition, the bar owner said that he would have shared that evening's receipts with us that night if we had approached him about it. She missed several opportunities to make the group function better. The positive news about that is that leadership skills can be developed over a lifetime (Mind Tools, 2012).

The best leadership quality that Lola exhibited was her inclusiveness. When her ex-boyfriend found out that Lola was forming a group for the walk, he approached her about joining the group. He…