Teamwork, leadership, and team dynamics in service learning projects

Service Learning Project

Working in teams provides us with an opportunity to accomplish more than we would if we worked individually, yet we can also learn a lot about ourselves as part of this process. In this course, I had the benefit of working with some great people as part of a team, and this experience has added value for me. This paper will outline some of the learning that I did during this project, with respect to teamwork and leadership.

Team Dynamics

In our education we often end up working by ourselves, but in the working world there is a lot of teamwork. To be a leader in a teamwork situation requires acquiring specific skills about teamwork that would help us to achieve our objectives and become better leaders for the future. One of the first things that we learned was about the stages of team development -- forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning. The first couple of stages went fairly well for the team. We basically deferred the leadership decision to see who the natural leaders would be. This is because we learned about trait theory and other leadership theories. It was important that since there was no formal authority on the team that we awaited the emergence of informal authority.

The next step was to establish goals, a vision and communication flows. I saw this as an excellent opportunity to promote my ideas and take on a bit of a leadership role. We decided that we would utilize consensus decision-making techniques, because those would allow for group input. We worried about groupthink, and watched for the signs of it, and made sure that we had good communication flow throughout the project.

Leadership

We opted to let leaders emerge in the group. We had decided on what our vision and objectives were going to be, and then opted for consensus-building as our primary means of finding decision. We knew that over the course of the project, the leaders would emerge. This is pretty much what happened, so that people naturally fell into roles within the team, based on their own expertise and personality types. This experience fit well with the trait theory of leadership, where the people who ended up in charge just seemed to have certain qualities, like wanting to be in charge and wanting to lead.

The team worked best without a set formal leader, but there were risks. We thought that if two people insisted on being the leader that we could have problems. Such a situation would be like having too many chefs in the kitchen, and the wrong kind of conflict could result. We were lucky to avoid that. There was also the risk that not enough leadership would be present, something that could also have been troubling because the team would have been unable to make decisions. Thankfully, the constitution of the team was good and everybody was able to find a role.

Motivation

We are all here because we have a lot of intrinsic motivation. We want to achieve things. I think that we all have talent, and want to learn more about the best ways to put that talent to work. We want to get to a goo university and in doing so put our best foot forwards in the world. To tap into this, we worked a lot both as individuals and then brought that work back to the group to hash out the details. This allowed each person -- all of us talented -- to enjoy a certain amount of autonomy even while working within the team framework. I felt that this approach worked really well, and allowed people like me who work well with others to excel just as much as the more introverted people were able to.

We are all motivated by the opportunities that will come from success here. I know for myself it is evident that I am fortunate to be in this position. That alone drives me to work harder, and take the steps needed to ensure my successful move onto university next year. I know what it takes, and that is a lot of hard work, and I think that with a little help I will be able to take from this experience something quite valuable to the next level.

Reflections about Myself

One of the great things about this program was the way I was able to learn about myself and just really get a chance to think about my future. I loved the teamwork and especially learning about things like leadership and motivation. I had never really thought about these things before, and they certainly had me engaging in self-analysis to get a better understanding of my own capabilities.

Thinking about leadership in particular was important and valuable, because it gave me a chance to look into the future. This creates tremendous motivation, because for the first time in my life I was able to see myself out in the working world contributing to critical projects. To envision myself in a leadership role -- something I am not accustomed to yet but that I feel is a natural thing for me -- was really special. It seems clear that this is one of the most valuable components of the program because it helps to build motivation and confidence. When you do not have that much experience with things like that, and you are not surrounded by leaders, it is important to have the opportunity to see it for yourself. Nothing motivates you more to succeed than knowing that not only can you succeed, but you should succeed because you have the will and the ability.

Reflections about Social Justice

One of the big things to take away from this experience is that I experienced a lot of these things for the first time. I got to think of myself as a leader, and to work with really talented people. These are the kinds of experiences you don't always get where I'm from. Not to say bad about my community, but I think that when you think about social justice you realize that some people have more access to these types of opportunities. It is more natural for them to think about these sorts of things and view themselves in that positive light. For me and I think for a lot of people that I worked with, this was a new thing. This was something for us that gives us an opportunity that we otherwise might not have had.

It is a shame to have talented people go to waste, just because maybe they aren't surrounded by tremendously successful people. You can learn a lot from your family, but sometimes you need a little extra guidance or a little extra motivation that comes from knowing you really can be anything you want to be. I feel like some doors have opened for me, and that is exactly the sort of thing this program is for, to open doors for people who might not have had open doors otherwise.

So there is a lot of social justice, and I think it's the right kind. it's the kind of social justice that builds confidence and self-reliance. Because of that I think that the program really serves its constituents well. It has helped me a lot and I am really looking forward to university next year where I can excel, something I had wondered about. For me, I think the social justice aspect has been great.