Love or Grade?

[sonicx059]

I am just voicing somthing that's been hurting my mind for a while. There is a ninth grader who is the leader of our team. I could have been the leader but I let him do it. I am an eleventh grader. I am the only student on the team who has ever been entered in a FIRST competition. My friend Marteal is the only other person besides myself who has even built a robot. I am in this for the love of building robots the leader is in it just so he can get some extra points is his class. Thats all I wanted to say if you read this i am sorry for wasting your time.

[thegathering]

I'm in FIRST because I love programming and I love the FIRST community.

Personally, I don't believe one should be in a leadership position if one's in it for incentives (grades, money, etc). Leaders should treat their position as a reflection of their devotion to their passion instead of as a way to benefit themselves.

[LordTalps]

Team lead should know as much of the robot as possible, at least in general enough terms to explain it in its entirety. Your leader won't be up to mark if they aren't dedicated.

2% of $1.

[Winged Wonder]

Maybe, since he's a freshman (nothing against freshman... i was once a freshman shoved into a leadership position, but i wanted to be there), you should have been the team leader and he could be your understudy. that way he would learn to love robotics, but he could also have some title or whatever to put on his resume...

[DonRotolo]

I agree with Thegathering's points.

But please remember, just like being a Manager at some company instead of an engineer, the Manager is not the best Engineer; instead they are the best at managing PEOPLE and making surte things get done on time.

Where I work, most managers are NOT good engineers, nor are they particularly skilled at whatever work their department does. Instead thay are excellent leaders, inspiring people to produce their best work, working the politcs to get the workers reasouces so they can work better, cutting deals with other managers so everything rubs smoothly... You get the idea.

In short, they are managers, not do-ers.

If sonicx059 is a great do-er but not necessarily a good manager, then being the manager (leader) might not be the best choice. The leader, however, needs to be leading and not building the robot - building is NOT their job!! Keeping the schedule, procuring materials, making sure tools are available and functional, assigning specific tasks to people (and checking their work), juggling everything so that it ALL gets done and NOTHING is forgotten - that's the Leader's job.

So, take a long hard look at your skill set - are you a better builder, or a better leader? Doing what you do best benefits the team most.

Don

[Dominicano0519]

Originally Posted by LordTalps

Team lead should know as much of the robot as possible, at least in general enough terms to explain it in its entirety. Your leader won't be up to mark if they aren't dedicated.

2% of $1.

i agree that a leader should be a little into everything but then again

a good leader should just be able to appoint leads for each sub-team and then tell the mentors, on a weekly basis or whenever they show up ,the progress each subteam has made.

i believe that appointing leaders is pointless because leaders surface in any situation

thats what we do and our team is pretty close and very effecient

[Taylor]

Can you say for certain that the person you described does not care for robotics or has no "love" for it after it's shipped and competed?
Frankly, I find that hard to believe. It's not hard for FIRST to set the hook.