Conflict resolution

Once on my job I was asked to work a few saturdays. I agreed, but there was a misunderstanding about which saturdays I was expected to work. My boss was expecting me to show up one weekend, but I was waiting for him to let me know what saturday he needed me to work. There was a big thing with him, and my co-workers were upset because they had a heavier work load since I was not there. To resolve the conflict, I went to my boss and explained what happened, and that I felt that there had been a miscommunication. I explained my point of view and asked what he was expecting of me. We were able to come to an agreement on what worked best for both of us. I also apologized to my co-workers for the inconvenience and everything was fine.

Teamwork

Through the exercises during this week's leadership class I learned a few things about teamwork.

First, I learned about myself. I tend to have a cynical view of teamwork; like it is a necessary evil in life. You have to learn to work with people, whether you like to or not. My personality (as we learned in last week's reading) dictates that I am the kind of person who would prefer to do things my self, and not rely on the group to get it done. I'll admit that sometimes I feel I could do a better job on my own, or that I could do it faster on my own. I often feel that I don't need people. But through working together on the project that we did in class, I learned that it was necessary for everyone to give his input. Each person had some knowlege of the story that was crucial to the solution. If I had tried to do it on my own, it would not have made sense, because I did not have all of the story.
Second, I learned that I'm not as smart as I'd like to think! Even after feeling pretty confident that I understood the solution to the mystery, some one would say something that I had forgotten or would bring up a point that I hadn't thought about, proving that I did, in fact need everyone in the group in order to be successful myself.
Teamwork is valuable, because the whole is more the sum of it's parts. Mathematically and physically that statement is not true, but there are some things in life that cannot be explained by either math or science, right?
One of those things is this, that we can do more together than each of us can do apart.

What is a servant leader?

When I think of leadership, I feel that servanthood goes hand-in-hand with it. There is no leadership if there is not service alongside it. Think of some of the most prominant leaders we have in this country. Our government officials are elected on the basis that they will serve their communities or those who are electing them. Police officers motto is "to protect and serve". There are few leaders who fill a leadership position where there is not some kind of service involved to their community.

I believe that I leader who does not have an attitude of servanthood has selfish motives. Someone who does not see himself as a servant to those under him will not care about their needs, their wants and their desires. They will either frustrate their team, or their team will not stay with them very long. They will not be a very effective leader. In order to be an effective leader, the one in charge must have a deep understanding of what it means to put their goal, dreams and desires aside and think of those of others. This is the heart of servanthood, and it will build a strong, unified team.

Service - Learning

When I was in highschool I was part of a team that traveled each summer for 2 weeks to work in a small village in the mountains of Ecuador. I believe this was one of the coolest experiences I have ever had the opportunity to be involved in. Each year for four summers in a row I raised the money I needed, got my shots and flew to Guayaquil, Ecuador. I met so many people down there that were so cool even though they were so different than me. I wanted to connect with those people, but of course not being able to communicate with them was frustrating. This pushed me to learn spanish and become fluent at it. Each year we took our team from the States, along with the team from Guayaquil and drove up into the gorgeous Andes mountains to a village called Tulabug Escaleras which sits on the shoulders of an extinct volcano.

ECU Mission Team in Guayaquil, Ecuador 2006

Some of the activities we participated in included working with the local school children, washing hair and teaching the families of the community about simple hygiene, assisting the Doctor while she saw patients, and doing games and activities with the children. Of course we also spent time seeing the sights and hanging out with our new friends. It was an incredible experience because I got to be a part of something so much bigger than just myself. I saw a people who had very little in the way of personal possesions or luxury. Yet they were really no different than myself. I think that I learned that I could live without some things when I went to Ecuador, and I definately learned to be thankful for everything that I have. The United States IS a very blessed country, even with all of our problems and issues. I am thankful to be an American, and I hope to use that blessing that I have been given to help other people in other parts of the world that do not have the same opportunities that I do.