The faces of leadership in our SkuleTM community
ILead’s Photographer, Aldrin Villamayor, continues to build upon this series and uncover various ways students characterize and live leadership. This is the 3rd instalment of the In the Field Leadership Series.
Ashkan Amirghassemi, 1T7
While I was doing my PEY I remember working with people who seemed intimidating and always spoke with a firmness in their voice. Coming back from my placement, I thought that same type of leadership style that I’d observed would be effective in my design teams, but I realized that style wasn’t comfortable for me.
I was trying to force myself to be someone else when I was leading; I wasn’t leading authentically. I found that I felt more comfortable working with my team when I focused less on trying to be authoritative and more cooperative.
Rosemary Jose, 1T9
We were all very passionate about the project, at least in the beginning. We planned to have it finished by December, but as time went it kept getting pushed back and it was frustrating for us. If I had to give some advice to my past self, I would say try and keep the ball rolling, and set smaller goals.
In the beginning it was always sort of like, ‘Two or three weeks we’ll get this done, maybe,’ instead of it being, ‘Lets get this done in the next two days and then we can work on the next step over the next three days after.’ The key is breaking those bigger tasks down into chunks that are more manageable.
Tanishq Singh, 2T0
In leadership positions I feel that it does, to an extent, help to be an extrovert, or at least have some extroverted tendencies. You need to be able to communicate freely and transparently with your team regardless of its size, and ultimately you should feel comfortable talking with people.
Sometimes it helps to be outspoken as well, because when you voice your concerns it may allow others to feel comfortable with voicing their own and seeing the different perspectives from different members in a team is very important.
Zachary Wang, 2T2
The project I was working on with my team was wastewater management. I was the team leader and at times it was tough. A couple things I learned from being a leader are that you cannot be lazy, you have to be patient, and you cannot be easily irritated by your teammates.
You have two options: study or hang out with friends. Once you release yourself [from the pressure of studying] it’s always difficult to get back to work. Actually, I’ll confess. I usually start with studying, but end up hanging out with my friends.
Follow this series using #InTheFieldILead
Check out the last instalment here!
– Article and Photography by Aldrin Villamayor