Teamwork One of My Experiences

Teamwork

One of my experiences where teamwork had been an important factor to achieve success was when my teammates and I, all of us hailed as representatives from different law schools, have to plan a conference, called Bay Area APALSA Conference participated by 9 law schools in the bay area. I held the responsibility of being an external VP which technically gave me greater responsibility, as compared to others, to lead the team and to ensure the success of the conference. We had 9 months to plan and prepare the conference and during that time, I was confident that having coordination and teamwork among ourselves can help us prepare in even just a few months time a conference that would be a success.

Before the team started its preparation for the conference, I had already anticipated that each of us will encounter different challenges at work. I for instance realized during the first few days of our team work that some of the team members possess condescending, tough, and egoistic personalities. Maybe this is due to the nature of the profession that all of us target, to become a lawyer and lawyers should be tough individuals. Hence, with such kind of personality, it seemed that no one in the team would like to become a "member." No one wants to be instructed or accept ideas and concepts from others. Instead, almost everyone wants to become the "leader" of the team. Being the VP of the team, I found this situation a great challenge. The question that popped to my mind then was how to lead such kind of individuals without demonstrating the same egoistic and arrogant personalities that they are; without implying "you must follow because I am the VP of this team." Rather, what I aimed then was "you will follow because you believe and respect in my leadership." managed to carry out several leadership strategies to overcome the challenges presented by some of my egoistic team members. The first thing that I considered is that all of us must have equal opportunities in contributing to our conference project. As a VP, I made it a point that I will play not as someone who commands but as someone who mediates between my members. Hence, the first team strategy that I proposed in the team is to allow open communication between each of us and at the same time hold periodic meetings where every member has the chance of delivering his ideas and thoughts concerning our conference plans and goals. Since I found that most of the team members are vocal and eager enough to make their ideas happen, team meeting is the best medium for the team to arrive at the best conference ideas and plans. The next key team leading strategy that I implemented was self-awareness. In that, being the VP of the team, I made it a point that I don't act excessively against my members just because I am the leader. Rather, I followed the same leadership that Jesus had shown to his disciples in which to become a good leader, one must be a good servant. For instance, many of the great ideas that we have implemented in the conference did not actually come from me but from every member of the team. The role that I generally played in our conference plan was to put into place all the team member's great ideas and concepts.