Leadership experience

 My own experience convinces me that it is hard to succeed without a strong leader in any teamwork or organisation. My leadership skills have been developing since high school, where I was a volleyball team captain.

 However, I believe that the most valuable experience as a leader I received was working on the final project at the university with a team of four students. When all the teams were established on the first day of the project, I took the lead as I was very interested in the topic. The first challenge was to assign different parts of the projects to my teammates. I knew only two students in my team well enough to decide where they would be most effective and did not know the strengths and weaknesses of the rest of the group.

 Initially, I proposed everyone pick the topic that they would be happy to work with as I had to rely on their feelings as well. Unfortunately, I realised that it was my mistake as a manager. I did not take into consideration that one of the students was able to participate only online and let her take the complex part of the assignment. While the whole team was working together, she was working mainly on her own, and I could not control the pace and quality of her work. Consequently, it resulted in miscommunication and issues that we had to fix at the last minute. Moreover, another teammate had personal problems and could not finish his part of the work; therefore, I decided to do it myself as most of the tasks I delegated to the others and had some extra time. 

Despite all the limitations that my team had, we successfully completed the project and received an excellent grade. Frankly, I really enjoyed being in charge. I realised that I am a responsible person and that every problem can be fixed if you make an effort.

 According to Nanjundeswaraswamy and Swamy (2014), leadership is when the leader tries to encourage people to work voluntarily to achieve a common goal. Now I completely understand that freedom is essential for each person and that I could do better if I listen to others.

I believe that my style of leadership is leaning towards democratic. I seek control over the group to be able to respond to the problem as soon as possible, but at the same time, I encourage them to be involved in any decision I make. 

Reference:

Nanjundeswaraswamy, T.S. and Swamy, D.R., 2014. Leadership styles. Advances in management, 7(2), p.57.