What do you do to lead?

[ehochstein]

I wasn't able to find a specific thread on leadership since 2007, so I've decided to start one.

What I am looking for is a description on how you lead on your team. Whether you are the lead coach/mentor of your team or a student on a sub-team I want to know what you do.

How to you motivate others to accomplish tasks? What do you do in the face of disappointment or victory? How are you an everyday leader? What keeps you going - what inspires you to inspire others?

Please keep in mind everyone has a different style of leadership and different things work for different people. We are not here to criticize anyone, this is merely a thread to explain how you lead others.

[Akash Rastogi]

I think Isaac or another member of 33 will chime in soon, but check out the book Tribal Leadership. I just recently downloaded a copy as well thanks to his recommendation.

This thread has some relevant posts http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...light=motivate

Dealing with disappointments - http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...disappointment (also check out the thread I made regarding this back in 2010)

[Seth Mallory]

On our team the students are the leaders. The mentors job is to teach how to lead when there is a need. Most of the leadership training is done by veterans and students who were Boy or Girl Scouts. The mentors just give some guidance. The motivation is provided by the student leaders. We feel that teaching and letting them practice of leadership is one of our important goals. Our team is organized on the Boy Scout troop modal and it has worked fine for 17 years for us. What works for other teams is the way they should do it since there is no 1 perfect way.

[nathan_hui]

Honestly, it's really hard (in my opinion, but maybe I've just had the luck to have really bad experiences) to get high school students to really get into the role of being leaders. It just doesn't seem to be in them to be able to turn around and say "No, this simply won't work" to friends, or to really get on someone's case for not doing something. In the few years I've been FIRST, I saw maybe 2 natural leaders in the team I was on.

The model that CHS Robotics (2473) uses is senior-junior mentorship. We try to place the veteran team members in positions where they have to train the rookies in the skills necessary for robotics, engineering, and leadership. The mentors are there to step in when necessary and to provide guidance and mentorship for the veteran team members. The problem is that many of the veteran members are simply not mature enough to be leaders or teachers.

As for how I personally lead. I lead by example. As team captain, I spent the most time in the lab, of the entire team. As a leader, you need to do 200% of what you expect your subordinates to do. I also lead by setting a very clear objective for the team. I always had a schedule posted on the wall, where everyone who wanted to look could look at it. Keeping in touch with your subgroups is also important - everyone needs everyone else to be successful. I did this using meetings, but dinner, walking around and chatting, and a systems engineering department (if you're lucky to have those resources) work just as well. Another key thing about my leadership style is discipline, and you'll hear this from many leadership trainers. As a leader, you need to hit the team fast, hit them hard, and hit them often with discipline as soon as you become their leader. It's so much easier to slack off with discipline that to ramp up discipline partway through.

Leadership is essentially the same set of skills, no matter what industry you're in. I would suggest looking at the NOLS leadership course - while it's designed for outdoor leadership, many of the situations are similar, and I feel the way they put the material is quite effective.

http://www.nols.edu/about/leadership...p_skills.shtml

Edit: To add on, one of the biggest things to being a good leader is having a vision of what YOU want your team to be and do, and convincing the people you lead to share that vision. Thanks to Mr. Charles Williams for that advice. It's what has kept me going.

[ebeattie]

This year we tried a more student oriented form of leadership within the team. They meet on off days for a few hours and work with 2 of our mentors as well as with our board of directors (occasionally as our BOD members are very busy!) These students mostly discuss changes in community service requirements and how to keep up our chairmans "status" among others. This being the first year, the impact was minimal due to the fact that most of the projects we wanted to complete took time! This year the students wrote the WFA, made business plans to purchase team spirit items and planned the team banquet at a banquet hall (we have previously done it in the school cafe). in time, I feel that this program will be a great addition to our team! There is no requirement to join this group other than to be a team member. Students can join at any time although we find that the same students attend each meeting. It is also noted that students involved with this group will be considered for the deans list nom over those who are not. I was a senior this past year and i really felt that I had a very strong voice in how the team was run and I have not always felt that way in the past. I feel that a student/mentor/parent relationship is VERY important in the success of a team and starting a student leadership group definitely bonded that gap for us.