I recall my two weeks of being manager as being relatively uneventful. Maybe it's the number of weeks that have passed since then, but not much sticks out or comes to mind from that time period. So instead of writing about the experiences I had when I was manager of Team Red Stapler, I'll pen a few reflective words about leadership in general.
There've been a few times where I've found myself placed in a position of leadership before; if I've learned anything, it's that I don't like being a leader. It's much simpler to be a follower, taking rather than giving orders. There's an increased sense of responsibility when you've been appointed head of some project, organization, or group, and it can weigh you down if you're not careful. For example, a group I was appointed head of was organizing an event. We were charged with handling thousands of dollars of donated funds, and the pressure of putting together a solid event while juggling school and other responsibilities was enormous. I often wanted to just throw in the towel to give myself time to focus on school but felt like doing so would cause a ripple effect amongst the people who were working together with me. Besides that, I didn't want to disappoint all the people who had donated to our cause either. So I wound up persevering.
As much as I find myself hating the added responsibilities of being in a position of leadership, when Marty Linsky asked the audience about what things they wanted to change and what could be done to change them I found a lot of my old pet peeves about the world coming to rise. I realize now that someone has got to do these things, and if no one else is going to then it may as well be us. Best part? Like Mr. Linsky said, you don't have to be in a traditional position of authority to make serious changes happen.
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Leadership, responsibility, and clarity
My period of leadership for Team Red Stapler was rather quiet compared to some of the other team leaders throughout the quarter, but there was still enough of a difference to being a team member to have an impact on how I understand leadership.
The most interesting aspect for me was that I felt very responsible for the performance of the team when I was manager. This is not entirely new: Often enough in other school related situations I feel responsible for making sure everyone is performing well. However, being vested explicitly as the manager amplified that responsibility considerably. I think that feeling responsible for your team's actions and performance is the first step for being an effective leader of a group, the starting point for everything.
I also found that I tend to prefer a task-oriented style of management, where clarity of responsibility is the most important thing. Ensuring that everyone knows what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, and how important it needs to be done was something I focused on quite a bit during my time as manager.
The most interesting aspect for me was that I felt very responsible for the performance of the team when I was manager. This is not entirely new: Often enough in other school related situations I feel responsible for making sure everyone is performing well. However, being vested explicitly as the manager amplified that responsibility considerably. I think that feeling responsible for your team's actions and performance is the first step for being an effective leader of a group, the starting point for everything.
I also found that I tend to prefer a task-oriented style of management, where clarity of responsibility is the most important thing. Ensuring that everyone knows what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, and how important it needs to be done was something I focused on quite a bit during my time as manager.
My Reign of Terror: Sherri as a Leader
Technically, I was the leader for the first 3 weeks of the quarter, but in actuality I am not sure I ever left the leadership role. I really tried to back away from that when it was no longer my turn, but that was very challenging because I have always been a ring leader of sorts. It was unnatural for me to completely let it go. Especially since I sensed my team kind of needed me to corral everyone to refocus if we started to veer off schedule.
I tried to think of what type of manager or leader I am as far as the various theories from the Leadership reading and I have determined that I am a little bit of both sides depending on the circumstances. I say both sides, because it seems like with each theory it was split into two categories to describe the traits associated with them. Starting with the definition of Leadership vs Management, sometimes I was more of a leader, focusing on the bigger picture of the project and how we could best approach it to ensure retention of knowledge and ways to eliminate having to do extra work in the end because we did not capture the essence of the objective we were working on. Other times I was definitely a manager, making decisions when necessary and managing day-to-day assignments for the group. Even with the X and Y theories, I have both characteristics. I am absolutely people-oriented and try to think of other's needs and take different personalities and strong suites into account, however, i am also task-oriented: if stuff needs to happen, then lets get it done.
One of the most challenging things I faced this quarter was the awkwardness of "calling people out." I tried, and think I succeeded, to be respectful in my reminders of our working agreements and restoring integrity to the team when commitments for completely portions of the project were not completed or if we people were late or missing at meetings we arranged. I always battled feeling like I was being a jerk or for even saying anything at all, like maybe I should just not care so much. But then I felt some solace when I read the article The Work of Leadership. In one of the first few paragraphs when describing what it means to be a leader it said, "Leaders who truly care for their followers expose them to the painful reality of their condition and demand that they fashion a response" (Heifetz). That really is a leader isn't it? It's not about being rude, but about acknowledging the tough things and not settling for less than awesomeness.
I tried to think of what type of manager or leader I am as far as the various theories from the Leadership reading and I have determined that I am a little bit of both sides depending on the circumstances. I say both sides, because it seems like with each theory it was split into two categories to describe the traits associated with them. Starting with the definition of Leadership vs Management, sometimes I was more of a leader, focusing on the bigger picture of the project and how we could best approach it to ensure retention of knowledge and ways to eliminate having to do extra work in the end because we did not capture the essence of the objective we were working on. Other times I was definitely a manager, making decisions when necessary and managing day-to-day assignments for the group. Even with the X and Y theories, I have both characteristics. I am absolutely people-oriented and try to think of other's needs and take different personalities and strong suites into account, however, i am also task-oriented: if stuff needs to happen, then lets get it done.
One of the most challenging things I faced this quarter was the awkwardness of "calling people out." I tried, and think I succeeded, to be respectful in my reminders of our working agreements and restoring integrity to the team when commitments for completely portions of the project were not completed or if we people were late or missing at meetings we arranged. I always battled feeling like I was being a jerk or for even saying anything at all, like maybe I should just not care so much. But then I felt some solace when I read the article The Work of Leadership. In one of the first few paragraphs when describing what it means to be a leader it said, "Leaders who truly care for their followers expose them to the painful reality of their condition and demand that they fashion a response" (Heifetz). That really is a leader isn't it? It's not about being rude, but about acknowledging the tough things and not settling for less than awesomeness.
Monday, March 18, 2013
Works of a Leader
A leader can be found within anyone. I believe that anyone can lead a team, as long as it is in the right field and with the right team. I have found that different people are going to lead in different scenarios. Whether you are playing a game, doing a project for class, or managing employees at work, a leader can be brought out of anyone. Of course certain people are more prone to be leaders. While I usually don't consider myself a leader because normally I consider myself having less experience than my teammates. However, I find myself more and more leading the team at work. Even other coworkers who have worked there longer and have more experience look up to me. So much of developing the leadership in a situation is developing a comfort and analyzing the environment.
The article on leadership talked about a leader being on a balcony, watching over their team. That is a great metaphor for saying that people have to take a look at the bigger picture. People get too caught up in the action that they forget to realize the scope of the project. A great leader has to be aware of this and always need to have the big picture in mind. I think they also need to pull their team to that view from time to time so the rest of the team does not lose focus on the project.
The article on leadership talked about a leader being on a balcony, watching over their team. That is a great metaphor for saying that people have to take a look at the bigger picture. People get too caught up in the action that they forget to realize the scope of the project. A great leader has to be aware of this and always need to have the big picture in mind. I think they also need to pull their team to that view from time to time so the rest of the team does not lose focus on the project.
Saturday, March 9, 2013
Designing our performance review system and its relation to workplace concepts
Designing our performance reviews was more involved than we initially realized. It wasn't as simple as slapping together a number of questions to ask; we needed to design an entire system to conduct performance reviews. To this end, we made a Google Form where team members could evaluate each other by giving ratings and comments in a variety of categories. Each team member also had a total of 100 points to distribute to their teammates. This meant we could not distribute points completely evenly; someone was definitely going to receive more. This encouraged us to give points truly based on an individual's performance as opposed to just evenly dealing out points.
When it came to the actual process of reviewing each other, we needed a system that would ensure anonymity of responses so that e.g. a reader wouldn't know from whom negative feedback or a low score came from. We solved this by employing a third party: a classmate who would compile submitted feedback and organized it by individual.
The system worked well for our first performance review, and I'm expecting we'll use it again for the final review. Having all team members submitting reviews provided us the feedback Katz describes as "360-degrees": a performance appraisal system involving not only one's peers but a person's manager and/or subordinates as well. For simplicity, we didn't use an essay appraisal style, but I could see it being applicable in situations where more depth is needed. Our current system serves both an informative and developmental purpose: it allows a reviewee to know whether they've been doing good or not overall and where their strengths and weaknesses lie. The only thing it lacks is an administrative purpose, i.e. stating whether the person deserves to be moved, promoted, fired, etc. That is obviously beyond the scope of the exercise, but it would still be interesting to have those options discussed as if it were a real-life work situation.
When it came to the actual process of reviewing each other, we needed a system that would ensure anonymity of responses so that e.g. a reader wouldn't know from whom negative feedback or a low score came from. We solved this by employing a third party: a classmate who would compile submitted feedback and organized it by individual.
The system worked well for our first performance review, and I'm expecting we'll use it again for the final review. Having all team members submitting reviews provided us the feedback Katz describes as "360-degrees": a performance appraisal system involving not only one's peers but a person's manager and/or subordinates as well. For simplicity, we didn't use an essay appraisal style, but I could see it being applicable in situations where more depth is needed. Our current system serves both an informative and developmental purpose: it allows a reviewee to know whether they've been doing good or not overall and where their strengths and weaknesses lie. The only thing it lacks is an administrative purpose, i.e. stating whether the person deserves to be moved, promoted, fired, etc. That is obviously beyond the scope of the exercise, but it would still be interesting to have those options discussed as if it were a real-life work situation.
Designing a simple performance review system
When we sat down to design the performance review system which we would use at the end of class, a number of challenges presented themselves. How would the scoring be conducted and whether any ancillary methods of providing feedback were the immediate concerns, followed by how to create a format that would allow for flexibility in the number of people providing input on a single review.
The overall scoring system, where each individual would have 100 points to distribute among his colleagues, was defined by the assignment, but we decided to add two other methods of giving feedback, by adding a graphic rating scale in 5 major categories and by soliciting opinions from each member of the group.
The last major piece of the report is how it is produced. The document we created is just the framework for the final report. All the team members conduct their review through a form which is then submitted to and compiled by a third party. This eliminates the potential for a conflict of interest when an employee creates their own performance review. If we had more time, or if this were in use for real, the third party would be either some other employee dedicated to the task, or a computer system to compile and produce the reports.
The overall scoring system, where each individual would have 100 points to distribute among his colleagues, was defined by the assignment, but we decided to add two other methods of giving feedback, by adding a graphic rating scale in 5 major categories and by soliciting opinions from each member of the group.
The last major piece of the report is how it is produced. The document we created is just the framework for the final report. All the team members conduct their review through a form which is then submitted to and compiled by a third party. This eliminates the potential for a conflict of interest when an employee creates their own performance review. If we had more time, or if this were in use for real, the third party would be either some other employee dedicated to the task, or a computer system to compile and produce the reports.
The Red Stapler Performance Review :)
The team got together one Saturday afternoon to develop our methodology for completing our team performance review. Some had never given or received one, outside of a classroom style peer review, luckily I had some experience in this area. We looked at various examples online and between that and chapter 9 in the Tucker book, we came up with a system that worked for us.
We broke down the most important aspects of high-performance according to our team, like how good we are at working in a team, if we were reliable, and if the quality of work we produced was on par. We gave each section a numerical ranking, which is exemplary of the graphic rating scale technique or profile rating sheet. We also required a textual response in each category to give more personal feedback. The method we used also falls under the category of peer appraisals and field review because of the different roles each group member has and because we are all peers, at least in the sense of schooling.
I thought the creation of the performance review was really helpful. It was great to get the feedback from my team and to give it as well. I think the insight to how the other members of my group viewed me made me want to try even harder and give more to make our experience as successful and enjoyable as possible.
We broke down the most important aspects of high-performance according to our team, like how good we are at working in a team, if we were reliable, and if the quality of work we produced was on par. We gave each section a numerical ranking, which is exemplary of the graphic rating scale technique or profile rating sheet. We also required a textual response in each category to give more personal feedback. The method we used also falls under the category of peer appraisals and field review because of the different roles each group member has and because we are all peers, at least in the sense of schooling.
I thought the creation of the performance review was really helpful. It was great to get the feedback from my team and to give it as well. I think the insight to how the other members of my group viewed me made me want to try even harder and give more to make our experience as successful and enjoyable as possible.
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