Quote:
Originally Posted by Sperkowsky
Well of course. I was more addressing the fact that they were leading without it being formalized.
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Formalizing leadership also helps resolve disputes. If a student is qualified and well-suited to lead, and is offered such a positions and accepts, they deserve respect as a leader. FRC is full of teenagers, who might not be the most complacent to a student leader in the same way they would be an adult (not every teen is this way, and some teams don't really have this problem, but it does happen). Offering a formal position can come with an outline of "here are your responsibilities, and here are your privileges". For example, maybe a CAD leader can delegate CAD duties to people on a CAD team. While all team members have input, the delegation and final approval of parts might be the responsibility of the CAD lead. If the CAD lead is given an actual title and formal position, as well as some authority to make the decisions in their jurisdiction, things often flow quite smoother, and the design process can be streamlined.
This year, the person leading our CAD was not really given any way to enforce their responsibilities. Thus, people who disagreed with the CAD lead didn't bring their ideas or designs to her to discuss before finishing them and adding them to the final assembly. Soon enough, a few weeks had passed, and there was no time to go back. Despite the frequent queries from the CAD lead to inspect and discuss design ideas FIRST, the design ended up being cobbled together. Consequently, the mechanical parts constructed from those designs didn't work very well together.
TL;DR: Actual leadership titles and responsibilities that are actively backed up by mentor support can really matter when disagreements arise