It was during my junior year of high school that I was granted the opportunity to attend the National Student Leadership Conference in Boston, Massachusetts. The program, which consisted of a week of daily seminars and structured problem-solving activities, was designed to hone interpersonal skillsets crucial towards development into an effective leader. The culmination of the conference occurred during its last two days, with a camp-wide competition between assigned groups of participants. Each group was given the same case study, and it was up to the team members to determine their own unique path towards solving the issue outlined. The solution required a conglomerate of faculty interviews, calculations, and additional field work, and was to be presented to the rest of the attendees upon completion, when a winner would be selected by the staff.
Initially, I was under the impression that because of the highly driven and competitive nature of the each of the group members, the project would be completed promptly and to faculty acclaim, however these attributes proved to be counterintuitive. From the conceptualization of a strategy to the enactment of tactics, my group dynamic was overwhelmed with all five of its members attempting to serve as dictator of the group. This resulted in heated debates, and as promising as the group was as “junior leaders,” evidently, we all struggled with conflict resolution. Eventually, after growing frustrated, breaking up, and completing the first day of field work with no real synchronization as a team, we mutually decided that a change must be made for the final 24 hours. At this point, I suggested that instead of each member taking charge of the entire case study, that varying aspects of the challenge be divided up among each of us, based on the individual interests and strengths we possessed. This allowed each member to fulfill a leadership role and vastly decreased the analytical disagreements present within the team. Additionally, with all members feeling satisfied on their level of intellectual contribution, communication was a lot more positive and open, and occurred during all aspects of problem solving, either face-to-face or on the phone, during interviews. Ultimately, my team was able to make a group of strong, type A personalities function efficiently as a unit, and we received first place after our case study presentation.
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On a deeper level, I came to realize that the reason the leadership conference ended with a team assignment, was because true development can be reached through opening one’s mind to others. Without respect for peers’ ideas and perspectives and an ability to work compatibly with them, it will be hard to absorb new information in life and improve on both a professional and personal plane. This experience also educated me on the importance of being passionate about what you contribute to a group. For example, at the beginning of my conference group, each team member insisted upon taking control of the entire unit, giving cluttered instructions and skewing dynamic. When the roles were shrunken to assign each contributor with a focus they were passionate about, however, the teammates were able to provide guidance of a higher quality and with much more enthusiasm, and this led to a much greater end product. Likewise, I became aware that goals can be met extremely swiftly when each group member contributes a fair amount, and that a strong performance does not necessarily depend on one teammate doing a majority of the assignment (an issue I am guilty of in every academic setting). Negatively, the start of this team project exposed me to how dysfunctional group work can be, yet the triumph that arose from it did attest to the fact that not all damage is irreversible, and that it is always possible to learn from and overcome past failures.
