I’ve been wanting to talk about something that comes up a lot in teams, especially when things get stressful—how we tend to criticize our leaders, whether it’s captains or mentors. Having been the team president for my former team for two years, currently a regular team member on 2531, and now the head coach for an FLL team, I’ve seen it from all sides. It’s easy to get frustrated with leadership when things don’t go the way we want, but I think it’s important to remember that captains and mentors are human too, and they’re often dealing with just as much (if not more) stress as the rest of us.
Mentors, for example, are often balancing work, family, and other commitments outside of the team, but they still dedicate a ton of their time to helping us succeed. A lot of them don’t get paid to do this, and even when they are—they’re volunteering their time because they care about the team. They’re tired, stressed, and make mistakes just like the rest of us. But it’s easy to forget that when we’re frustrated and start pointing fingers.
I’ve also heard from a lot of teams that sometimes people feel like leadership is being “dictatorial.” I definitely understand why, but it’s also a label that’s thrown around a little too quickly. Are there times when leadership makes decisions that feel too top-down? Sure, it happens. But more often than not, those decisions come from needing to manage time, budget, or other things we don’t always see. Calling someone a dictator doesn’t really help the situation and usually causes more division. It’s better to talk it out and understand the bigger picture before jumping to conclusions.
At the end of the day, most captains and mentors are trying to do what’s best for the team, even if it doesn’t always come across that way. They’re not perfect, and they’re definitely not immune to the same stresses we’re feeling. So before we criticize, let’s take a step back and try to see things from their perspective. And if something isn’t working, let’s communicate openly and offer solutions rather than just venting frustration and causing more division.
While I’m definitely not saying people’s criticism of leadership is unfounded every time, I am just saying that more often than not the way we point fingers doesn’t fix anything, and I think the motto I want us to think about here is to prioritize “progress, not perfection”.
I’m curious to hear your thoughts—how can we give feedback in a way that’s constructive while still recognizing the effort leadership is putting in? What has been your own team’s experiences and what are some potential solutions?
I genuinely agree. As a student, I’ve experienced feelings like this too, and I’ll say that I understand now that it’s not fair for me to criticize others in a negative way without acknowledging all the good things they do for the team. Even if I believe their decisions are unwise or the time we spend as a team is not working, from their perspective it might be the way they want us to learn as a team. I do teaching for other stuff in my community (SO) and I also have been on the student side in some of those scenarios. I have seen deep frustration among students in FRC, SO, and FTC who suffer from the “mentors took too far of a step back” or “coaches are doing too much and need to teach us instead” and being on the in between, it’s tough to watch. I agree
I feel my mentors, my peers, and the people who work under my leadership in other clubs/teams on this one. I think, however, it may be advisable, as a person with this kind of experience, that everyone takes a step back.
For one the students and the ones under the leadership, take a step back and look at the big picture of what they have to lead and all they have to manage in life. Don’t treat them like robots or as non-humans.
For two the mentors and the leadership, I think also take a step back and observe/get to know how the people under you or the people you lead feel about your leadership. The more people who are frustrated with your leadership, the worse your leadership is and the less effective it becomes. It’s a very delicate balance.
and to address this, I like this. Complain all you want, but it doesn’t do anything. Actually having team conversations and being open to input from others and helping them understand your decisions and why you choose to run things a certain way can help dispel these troubles. You have no idea how many times for Science Olympiad I had to clarify head coach decisions to the poor kids who thought the coaches were throwing on purpose (we didn’t have enough funding, we have 50 bucks).
So for the constructive feedback, I would say most conversations should be made known to mentors. (this was an edit looking back. what i mean is that its unhealthy to just complain about problems in private. doesn’t help at all usually)
If people have a problem with the team and need a clarification, as leaders you should build a community to where it feels safe to share those concerns/potential issues your team might see. It’s important to also open conversations to recognize the positives of what the students are bringing up and also the positives of what the leadership is doing. When you start with positive, I think its been proven by statistic that you’re less likely to blow up the room in fiery shouting with the ensuing discussion. This does not mean you always listen to what the team says, but at least be willing to have the discussion.
Perhaps it’ll be more helpful for me to share my SO team’s experiences and the resolution/solution. While i was a student with SO, under the leadership of the head committee, as I shared the students were quite frustrated. I made the decision, in the future, to begin mentoring some the kids and also being a bridge between the mentors and the students. It’s better when you have some sort of mentor figure to help the students understand the decisions of the head committee, who can relate in feeling to the students, but also simultaneously be open to what the head committee has to offer. I think that was the real solution to the SO team success, we’ve grown 4x since the last year i was a student on the team, because of better decisions and more motivation among the students to build community and understand the decisions of the Head Committee.
Bit of a long comment, but I’ll address the issue this way. Long conclusion incoming:
Make sure both “sides” (filler word, no better word for this) actually understand each other. Humanize the other sides, realize people make mistakes, they have to juggle so much in life.
To the leadership, you all have the job to spur your team on to open discussions and creating a safe environment where your students can share and also promote the best end learning result. FRC was never about winning or building the world’s best robots. The mission was, is and always will be to provide life-changing robotics programs that give young people the skills, confidence, and resilience to build a better world. Come to agreement, try to resolve the issues in your team. If your team is divided, you’ll never have the true success. It’s imperative you help the team and the people you lead understand the decisions that you make as a collective leadership. It’ll lead to conflict if its not clarified. Chan Master Yuan actually once said "There are three essentials to leadership: Humility, Clarity, and Courage.”
True leaders recognize their limitations and mistakes, remain open to learning, and acknowledge the contributions of others, choosing not to completely shut out the thoughts and opinions of othrse.
True leaders lead with a clear vision, articulating their goals, values, and expectations clearly. If there is no clarity in decision or no explanation for choices, division occurs.
True leaders make the tough decisions and take the calculated risks, even if its hard. Be courageous my fellow leaders/mentors of the next generation, and do not falter in your willpower.
To the students, understand the plights of your mentors, captains and leadership. They’re human too, so don’t conspire against them or try to execute random plans that you haven’t gotten guidance on. It’s going to break your team. It’s more important to share the things you have trouble with than to keep silent and let your frustration build up. Sincerely try to understand the other side and do not treat them unfairly, even if you have problems with how they’re running the team. Complaining and being a jerk doesn’t fix anything. Talking with your leadership and attempting to understand their action course is going to result in a much better end result.
Good day Chief Delphi! Have a wonderful day.
To address the edits: Its such a long comment i needed to go back and see if what i said made sense
I have been leading large parts my team has for some time now and have faced challenges and criticism for work distribution. Honestly, it can be really disheartening and dealing with arrogant newcomers poses special challenges: it’s not their fault they just don’t know about what they don’t know. I say all this to 1) say that were people too and each minor job we give out isn’t a personal judgement as some people seem to take it and 2) ask for help. What did you do in the past to help and deal with distribution? I don’t want to be “that” jaded and doctoral leader but feel like I’m headed that way.
This seems to be two different things in one. So I’m going to address both
Obviously newcomers aren’t really fully aware of all the nuances and stuff of the work. Our team is small enough that we can actually give our freshies / newbies an entire subsystem to deal with. Not alone, more like they pair up and tackle the subsystem together. Obviously for CRESCENDO, given you need to design the intake and shooter relatively quickly and will need a lot of fundamental experience and knowledge, you wouldn’t give the newcomers that. Maybe a basic climb mechanism for instance. Don’t degrade the newcomers. Challenge them. Humiliate them with the challenge if they really are complaining everything is too easy. Give them the opportunity to lead the manufacturing of the subsystem and force them to grow. You also have to emphasize why certain roles and subsystems are important. Explain that it’s not really a minor job, it’s just a lot more time-consuming and requires the experience of a 1/2 year to a year or something to actually know how to make the subsystem or get those major tasks.
To the topic of criticism, don’t take it personally, take a step back and evaluate the criticism
To address being jaded and doctoral, I assume you mean being worn out–> losing patience and also being too top-down /rigid. I think this type of mentality stems from the fear of failure, but also it stems from the own student mindset.
I think it’ll be harder to address this without knowing what your team culture is like surrounding this, but from my FRC team experience, generally we give the harder subsystems or the ones that need to get done faster to the experienced CADders because it’ll go faster, and the easier subsystems to the less experienced CADders (or have the less experienced CADder shadow the experienced CADder to learn from them). For programming its more or less the same thing. Experienced programmer teaches less experienced programmers the base idea, holding their hand through the processes, but gently letting go over time until they are ready to do it with minimal help. Because our team comes in with the learn mindset and dont really know anything, this arrogant ‘I know everything’ isn’t really a problem for us, but I can see why this may be the case.
I’ll also say the way i have my event team (for SO) work is that if someone comes in that’s very arrogant about what they know, I’ll channel that overconfidence into responsibility and assign them a challenging problem or challenging task that 99% they’ll need help on to understand. That’s how I’ve defeated the arrogance of my students. They realize they can’t do it, and then they ask for help. Anyways… it helps them see what it takes to deliver on responsibilities within the team. It also gives you a chance to recognize their achievements if they succeed or help them learn from mistakes if they fail. Win-win I guess.
The goal here is to give them something hard enough to reality check them. Encourage a growth mindset within your team as well, that’ll be super important. No matter the skill level or how good someone might be, the leaders and the seasoned team members still continually work to improve and learn.
Leading is hard, I know, but I know you’ve got this, don’t give up even if its hard to bear
This is a skill to encourage everyone, students included, to practice. Communicating clearly and openly is the kindest thing you can do. Start with facts (and be really critical about what is a fact, not just what you think is a fact). Say how the facts make you feel. Then listen to the others respond and work with it. But don’t hold back on that process because you’re worried it will hurt the other’s feelings.
For a student or mentor looking to take over some of the “dictator’s” responsibilities, maybe. But normaly… actually I’d say no, don’t waste time trying to understand the big picture. Rather…
Ask for small, incremental changes that make sense in your corner of the world to see how they go. Even a true dictator should be willing to change a little bit, or give some reasons for why not to change. Keep working to bump the needle and see how folks react.
One thing I’ve been critical on students of in the recent past is having a good intent that they want to “make an big impact”, but have only very nebulous ideas as to how to take steps toward that.
The best advice I know to give them: Think small first. You’re unlikely to guess randomly and pick the perfect way that you can change the world. As you find successes in the small things, look to how they lead to larger things. Keep learning, and keep executing. You’ll find your path soon enough.
I want to go up another level, to regional management / perhaps even HQ level.
Having gone from a freshman cannon fodder (literally when we did shooter tests that year I was the target) on a team to today being a regional director with many many steps in between, the people I work with all want the best for the students. Sometimes decisions look odd, but staff capacity, budget, technical limitations, etc. balancing all of those, results in things that even we don’t want to do sometimes but we just have to, to make it work.
We are always open to constructive suggestions.
Seeing people go into teardown mode about every thing they don’t like however, is actually extremely demotivating. We pour our whole lives into this, and seeing people seem to be very upset is disheartening. We want everyone to have a good experience.
