Teamwork Reality
My opportunity to work with a few teams has broadened my perspectives on engaging collaboration. One such unforgettable experience involves my childhood friend, Cletus, and our primary school days at G.S Njanung, a government primary school in the Balikumbat sub-division, Bafanji.
Cletus and I shared a fun-filled primary school life. We were always together, known for our humility and respectfulness, which often earned us leadership roles in various group activities. One day, our teacher appointed us as leaders of two groups tasked with tilling and planting groundnuts on the school farm.
As the leader of my group, I divided the work equally among the pupils. I instructed them to till and plant their assigned portions while I waited to record their names. After about an hour, I noticed Cletus and his group members heading back to school.
"What happened?" I asked with curiosity.
"We've finished our work," Cletus replied.
"The whole group?" I added in disbelief.
"Yes," he confirmed.
I was shocked but remained behind for another hour until my group completed the task. When we finally returned to class, I went straight to Cletus to understand how they had finished so quickly.
"What happened? Did you take some sort of "Ngambe", or how did you finish so early?" I asked, half-jokingly.
Cletus laughed. "No magic, my friend. If you let them choose what they can do best and want to do, they'll do it faster and more efficiently."
Cletus had grasped an essential leadership principle: effective delegation based on individual strengths. While I had assigned tasks uniformly, not considering who might be faster at tilling or better at planting, Cletus allowed his group members to choose tasks according to their skills.
Teamwork is the harmonization of members' skill sets to achieve a common goal in a shorter period. As leaders, we should understand that:
- Nobody is perfect.
- Some people are more creative than others.
- You can't do everything yourself.
- Understand who you are and don't expect everyone to be like you.
As a leader, understand your team so well. Master their strength and weaknesses so that you will be able to know which group of persons at the start of a project and which at the close of you project.
Let me hear of your funny experiences at your earliest days of leadership
Team work I might say can be a big task when you assign the wrong task to the a particular person, as they get to choose the role the can play, that will make the work more efficient, I have played a leadership role from my elementary role as a class prefect I even allow them to choose the chores they prefare because it will make the task faster.
#sec-newbie
@jubil12, you are right but as a team lead you should be knowledgeable enough to know the capacities of your team members. Sometimes people will not want take on tedious duties even when the have the skills necessary to handle it. So endeavor to balance up as a team lead
Sure I will take that into consideration, thank you friend