How should leaders be selected?
 

I was reading through the Patriarchy, misogyny, and sexism in robotics thread and came upon this post by Akash. I think the topic sparks a very interesting discussion but we shouldn't be having it in her thread.

How should student leaders be selected? Democracy by the students? Committee of mentors? Democracy by the mentors and students?


Let's not let this become a rehash of the classic 'mentors touching robots = bad' thread.

Re: How should leaders be selected?
 

If you'd like me to elaborate, let me know. Otherwise, I think I will invite one of the leaders on MORT to talk about their selection process, as I think it has now become quite refined and is executed well in regards to overall team leaders as well as driveteam selections.

Re: How should leaders be selected?
 

On 11, we have a very extensive application process. There are questions and essays that have to be answered, as well as interviews with mentors. Information like build and volunteer hours is considered. For mechanical positions, students submit design concepts and how they would execute them. I am summarizing this really tightly, but the application I submitted last year to become captain was close to 20,000 words long.

Both mentors, and graduating captains have input, but the final decision comes down to mentors. We really like the process, it works well for us, and ensures that the students who are willing to take initiative get the positions they belong in.

Re: How should leaders be selected?
 

I'm interested in both the how and the why but more why than how.

Re: How should leaders be selected?
 

Our leadership is decided by a consensus of the mentors and existing leadership. Generally, after a couple seasons, it is clear which students will naturally replace graduating leaders. We can see which students take initiative, are responsible, knowledgeable, and simply good leaders. There really isn't much to it.

EDIT: I suppose it would be good to say that Team 100 has an official roster of 55 as of December 5. You can probably take 5-7 off that for people who dropped when build season started. Out of that ~50, ~30 come to the majority of worksessions. A (relatively) small core team may be why we don't have a real application process.

Re: How should leaders be selected?
 

A few years ago 610 implemented a very effective application process where, like 11, the ultimate decisions lies in the hands of the mentors.

After competition season is over you are nominated by your fellow team members for a leadership role, at which point you can fill in a Google Form, write an application, or whichever system the team decides is most efficient that year.

For the general team we implemented a similar system because we got to the point where our lab could not support the capacity of interested students. In our first year of running the application system, we got 70+ applications!

The data is then sent to the mentors where they "do their magic" and come back to the lab with a posted team list. (Very similar to what you would expect to see after auditioning for a play).

This system has worked well for us over the past few years.

As a student who started off on the programming team, and quickly realized I enjoyed competition season more than build season, I became very involved in helping create the scouting/strategy division on the team. I started coding scouting systems and thinking of different ways to make the flow of information from scouting to strategy more efficient. I realized that, even though it was not a sanctioned position (like being a member of the Pit Crew or Drive Team), it was something that allowed me to learn more programming (I owe my HTML, CSS, HTML5, PHP, MYSQL, AJAX, JQuery skills to developing scouting systems) while being an integral part at competition.

Personally I think every team should implement an application/nomination system because it not only still leaves the ultimate decision to the mentors, but it allows a passionate individual to express why they think they are right for the job and what they can add to the team. I believe that without this application process that I would not have had the same opportunity to have a leadership position as I did.

If anyone has a reason as to why implementing an application process to their team is bad, I would like to hear it.

Re: How should leaders be selected?
 

Our Team Captain and heads of departments are all elected by the students.

As ablatner said, it's usually very easy to tell who is gravitating towards those positions.

Re: How should leaders be selected?
 

Perhaps the first question you should ask is what do you use your student leaders for? Do they schedule and run meetings? Do they drive your robot design? Do they do the paperwork for FIRST (I hope not, TIMS has to be used by a non-student!)? Is it so they have something good to put on their college applications? Do they track your finances?

I think these answers vary from team to team. I think it is obvious that what your leaders are responsible for should have a huge impact on how they are selected.

Anecdotally, 1276 had no elected/titled student leaders period. Obviously returning students got a lot more responsibility, but there were no formal titles or defined roles. Most (all?) of the paperwork has handled by NEMs, and everyone was expected to pitch in at fundraising, outreach, etc. During build, we gathered around a big whiteboard with the to-do list, and everyone (mentors & students) got assigned a task. If you finished it, you found Keith and got a new one. Obviously the task was selected with the individual(s) in mind. It worked, really, really well.

You don't get to elect your boss, and good leadership does not mean you are extremely popular all of the time.

When it comes to parent politics, Ed Law really did a great job in this thread.

Re: How should leaders be selected?
 

With us, all leaders are seniors (unless no senior is qualified for a certain role).
As soon as our last event is over, the juniors start talking among themselves to decide on who will do what and what they want the team to look like. They talk to the gratuating seniors and to alumni and hear whatever suggestions they have, and what they think was good\bad with the team in the passing season in particular and in all seasons generally. Only the juniors (soon to be seniors) have a deciding vote on who does what, and they have their discussions behind close doors.
A month or too after they start discussing, the team has a concluding meeting, with all the team members and mentors and sponsors (basically, anyone assosiated with the team and wants to come). In that meeting we discuss the passing season, what went right or wrong, and the meeting is concluded with introducing the new management (all leadership roles and who takes what role).
Officialy, the juniors start their term at that moment, but in the time between the last event and the announcement they practically share power with the seniors.

Re: How should leaders be selected?
 

According to our handbook, the captains (we have 2-3 co-captains each year) are selected each year "by the mentors with student input". That basically comes down to the students voting, and the mentors holding veto power in case the students vote for someone popular who doesn't have the right skill set.

We have a smaller team, so we don't feel the need for applications or essays - with only 20 students, everyone knows everyone else pretty well! I think we would implement some sort of application process if we got significantly larger... There are teams with 50+ students, and getting to know them all to a sufficient degree has to be difficult!

Re: How should leaders be selected?
 

Or 100+ on FRC11 (plus about 30 on our JV team, MORT Beta FRC193) :rolleyes:

Re: How should leaders be selected?
 

In the past, we used a variety of methods to choose leaders. Last year at the end of season party, we asked the students to vote on whether they would like to elect their leaders or whether they wanted a dictatorship (i.e. mentor selected leaders). They almost unanimously voted for dictatorship because it meant they didn't have to worry about the popularity contest problem.

The way this played out is that we asked for applications in the fall from students who wanted a leadership role, making it clear that they were expected to have robotics as their primary extracurricular activity during build season. Our lead mentor assigned the roles, after some consultation with the other mentors. I think it's worked out pretty well.

Re: How should leaders be selected?
 

Why refer to this as a dictatorship at all? I don't mean to poke at semantics, but this one intrigues me.

Re: How should leaders be selected?
 

I think it was just a shorthand for "we tell you who is in charge" as opposed to "you elect who is in charge". I can't remember whether the term came from the mentors or the students, but we may have been having a Monty Python moment.

Re: How should leaders be selected?
 

Ah I see :rolleyes:

Re: How should leaders be selected?
 

Help! Help! I'm being repressed! :D

Re: How should leaders be selected?
 

We do an election process, we always have since 2007.

On our website (that is horribly outdated, we lost our student that was working on it) we have an nifty graphic showing how the team works and it explains our elected roles. The link is http://piperrobotics.com/operations.html

Re: How should leaders be selected?
 

3173 does an application process, but not nearly to the degree that MORT does. Essentially the students are nominated by their peers with the mentors adding in anyone to the process that they feel has been overlooked. Then we let people consider the options for a few days (we generally nominate on a Tuesday or Thursday and then vote at our meeting on Saturday). The lead 2 or 3 mentors will count the votes and make necessary adjustments in case someone who really should not have been chosen is selected. We have never had an issue with that but it is clear that they reserve the right to do it. I think that the thought that "If I make a joke vote it might get tossed out" is enough to make people just think that they will take their vote seriously.

We have not had an issue so far with this process and having been a leader since my sophomore year in 2011 I have heard from people that they were happy with everything that myself and the other leaders had done for the team.

Re: How should leaders be selected?
 

Team 20 does a nomination process, followed by an application process which is reviewed by mentors, then a democratic vote from the students decides which of the eligible candidates will be named team co-captains. The nomination and application parts of the process ensure that students that want to be leaders and who have earned the respect and recognition of their peers and mentors will be vying for the leadership position. The democratic voting allows the students to be the ones who ultimately choose who will be the leaders on the team.

This was our first year with this system, and so far it seems like it works well. This year we did the voting for the student leaders in the fall, but we will try doing to voting in the spring this year so we will have the established leadership transition over the summer months.

The role of the co-captains is to represent the students in the organization, help run meetings, and to be role models for other students on the team. The great thing about this model is that it still allows students to take on leadership roles throughout other parts of the team regardless of whether or not they are a co-captain.

Re: How should leaders be selected?
 

The way we have it in past years is that our Team captain is selected by popular vote(he/she's the person you want to follow) and then our department captains(mechanical, programming, electrical, communications) were nominated by receiving 20% of the team's vote. From this pool of nominees, the newly elected team captain selects his department captains so that they will work together.
I know that there are a lot of flaws in this system, but since our team is not at the point where I believe can have an application process, etc, this is what we do. Though some other members on the team and I who are going to be next year's officers are changing how our team works.

Re: How should leaders be selected?
 

Fight to the death

Re: How should leaders be selected?
 

It should also be noted that we often change the leadership "structure" from year to year to better adapt to the current crop of upperclassmen's talents and abilities. There's no one-size-fits-all solution to team structure, and different students react differently to positions of leadership.

This too.

Re: How should leaders be selected?
 

This thread is particularly interesting because, for the first time, I'm on a team that use the mentors/leaders appoint the new leaders.

In the past, I've been a part of the voting system. This system has its merits when monitored closely by mentors (as it was), but if let wild, then the system can easily devolve into a popularity contest.

- Sunny G.

Re: How should leaders be selected?
 

No. To the pain.


The teams I've been around typically do a student vote.

Re: How should leaders be selected?
 

This is an interesting discussion.

On 33 we don't select leaders per say. While the mentors meet to discuss who will be on the pit crew, drive team, scouting, CA presenters, etc. this is really more of acknowledgement of the respective students' hard work. The truth is that leaders select themselves through their actions -- encouraging other students, putting in the hard work, and generally showing a passion for the program beyond their peers.

Each year that I've been on the team I've thought to myself, "Man we lost some great seniors this year," and each year younger students have stepped up on their own to fill those leadership positions.

Regards, Bryan

Re: How should leaders be selected?
 

I think this is a great point. A lot of times it is just easier to keep the same structure year after year, but sometimes it isn't right for the current team. Some years the leaders may be focused in mechanical, or programming or scouting or business. Some years you may have three qualified leaders while other years you struggle to find one. It is probably best to organize your team/leadership structure to match your students stengths instead of forcing them into roles or positions that isn't right for them so they struggle to fulfill.

Re: How should leaders be selected?
 

This is the system that our team currently uses and it seems to be working. Is it sustainable? Only time will tell.

Re: How should leaders be selected?
 

It is obvious that leaders emerge on their own in most cases, but I think the application process (with variance each year as Eric stated) is a good way to bring organization to the whole thing. It also allows students to apply who aren't as well known amongst their peers but the mentors can all see potential. Overall, I think the application process allows the mentors and the graduating seniors to really get a feel for what direction a student wants to take the team in and through an actual plan, not false promises like most elections.

I'm a bigger fan of application/interviews + graduating seniors' recommendations because I've seen it yield more consistent results when it comes to team leadership.

Re: How should leaders be selected?
 

In my opinion leadership isn't something chosen, it's earned. I think the students that are already leaders on the team should be the ones taking these positions. An important aspect of leadership is, well, the ability to lead. If students aren't well known amongst the team the probably don't have many leadership traits. Is that true all the time? Of course not. I just find leadership is something is reliant on peers. I think this strategy might work well for assessing technical skills of team members and seeing who should lead smaller aspects of the team.

Re: How should leaders be selected?
 

Being on a team that has always had a nomination/student vote way of doing things I am curious as to how a leader is chosen when using an application process where the mentors decide.

Specifically what decision is made when there are two attractive applications. One of which contains the most deserving student on the team who has always done what he/she needed to do and beyond. The other whose lights just turned on recently and became this strong motivated force that is demonstrating a real knack to lead (more so than the first student) yet lacks a lot of the effort put forth by the first.

Basically how does one decide between the person who deserves to have a leadership role vs the person who would best fit the position. Or maybe, in your opinion, these are the same thing?

Re: How should leaders be selected?
 

To me, the person who would best fit the position is, by definition, the one who deserves it the most :)

In situations when you have more than one very strong leader, it's worth considering a structure in which they both play a major role in leading the team.

We try to fine-tune our team structure each year to fix things that didn't work as well as expected, but it can also be to better-utilize the talent of a given group of students.

Re: How should leaders be selected?
 

Having a written application for a team also has a very beneficial side effect: It helps students prepare for writing university applications, and other such applications in the future.

Answering questions such as "Why do you want this position?" or "How do you see yourself as a leader?" on something such as a robotics team application does wonders to help students write their personal statements on university applications. The types of questions that could be asked on a FRC team leadership application are analogous to many of the questions asked on a typical Engineering school application. I found my experiences writing team applications gave me a lot of practice, and my university personal statements were less of a challenge for me.

Re: How should leaders be selected?
 

Our team (our largest size in the last 6 years has been ~25 students, ranging down to 11 students) has gone with a cover letter/resume/interview process all reviewed/run by the mentors for the last 5 years. Initially these were reserved just for those applying for leadership positions, but now all students are invited/encouraged to participate each year to give them practice for future interviews within our team for leadership positions and beyond. It is conducted very much like a job interview (professional attire, multiple interviews with different mentors, etc).

With such a small team, most of the leadership positions (Electrical Lead, Firmware Lead, Electro-Mechanical Lead, Chassis Lead, Media Lead, Scouting Lead, etc) are already known ahead of time because only one person is interested, but there have been several cases of two students competing for a role. This system has seemed to work fairly well at preparing students for future interviews as well as keeping order with the leads.

I will note that our drive team is not chosen in this way. Though it is also a decision by the mentors, it is done during the build season and weighs skill, driver/field experience, rule knowledge, judgment calls, etc. Only members who pass our team's game rules test with a certain score on the first try (I believe it is a 90%) are allowed to try out for any drive team positions (including human player). There is no application for this process and any interviews with the candidates are not formal.

Re: How should leaders be selected?
 

The TechnoKats restructured a few years ago to have a student technical lead and a student business lead. Both positions are selected by team vote. Students apply for the roles and mentors decide which of the applicants are eligible candidates.

Various subgroup leaders -- software, mechanical, electrical, fundraising, outreach, scouting, spirit, etc. -- are appointed by the corresponding mentors for each group. The appropriate choice is usually obvious, so it's usually more a case of approving than of appointing.

Re: How should leaders be selected?
 

"Elections will be held for the positions of president, vice-president, treasurers- and secretaries-in-training, and the Safety Czar, except in cases of only one interested person. The positions of senior treasurers and secretaries will be "carry-over" positions: At the appropriate time (after the season has ended) the treasurers- and secretaries-in-training will step into the vacated senior positions as needed. This is to create a body of leadership which has been trained during the previous season to perform the specific leadership and record-keeping roles required."

Quoted directly from our constitution.

This means that anyone, excluding incoming members, can run for any position. At one meeting after the end of build season, all the nominees give a speech on why they should be elected. We then immediately have everyone write down their votes and reveal the winners within the hour. Mentors are allowed to weigh in, but do not have a vote.

This system has worked really well in the past and makes is so people cannot say "I could do a better job." It makes every student accountable and satisfied with their leadership the next season. :)

Re: How should leaders be selected?
 

The form in which you select leaders is somewhat based on how your team is structured.

On my team (I will not say which team is mine), we usually do applications for most applicable positions. We have applications for Drive team, Pit Crew, student leadership, etc. However, in addition to having applications, we also have other forms of selection, like interviews. For example, for Drive team, there is both an application to be filled out, an interview to occur, and additionally, we have a skills analysis for driver, coach, and human player skill when we select drive team. But when selecting Chairman's Presenters, there is only an interview.

The people who decide how they want to select students for positions are the same people who will end up working with them in the according role. So our strategy mentors work with our drive team, our robot design and build mentors work with our pit crew, our NEMO/Awards mentors work with the awards students.

The only way any of this is possible is through our team structure. With 40+ students, our team had to get a bit creative with how we would organize ourselves. We have subteams, specifically 3 main ones: Mechanical, Eletricalm, and Programming. Additionally we have other subteams, like awards, strategy, marketing, leadership, but all of our students have 1 main subteam, like the 3 mentioned above, and the others listed are optional, and students may join as many as they wish. All of our mentors also have main subteams.

In terms of selecting specifically leaders, we have a 3 step process. Students must fill out an application, do an interview with our student leadership mentors, and give a speech to the whole team. The whole team then elects their leaders, however they do not have the final say. The mentors largley take into accout the results of the voting from the team, and usually the results from the vote are identical to the mentor's preferences.

Our leadership subteam is composed of 7-9 students. We each have our own individual role, aka FLL Coordinator, Team Captian, Communications, Public Relations, Subteam Coordinator, etc. We elect around 8 students in the spring after CMPs, then we also elect a New Student leader the following winter after school starts.

Another large part of how we run our application process is being anonymous. When we have applications, they are numbered and we cannot put our names on them. It helps filter out bias within the system, even though most of our mentors can probably guess whose application their reading based on the handwriting or what is written.

This is how my team chose to do it, and it has been very successful, our student leadership and engaging structure has produced us 4 Dean's List Finalists, and the structure also helps our mentors mentor us, this can be demonstrated by our 2 WFA Finalists. Additionally, our unique student leadership aspect has helped all of our students organize community service events, fundraisers, and demonstrations, which has contributed to our team winning Chairman's 4 times in 9 years.

Many aspects of structure, organization, and leadership revolve around the natural features of the team, like size, composition, resources, etc. Teams that want to have successful organization and structure need to find what is best for their own individual team.