This past Saturday was the first ALISS Service Learning meeting date for the library development project at Theodora House. As I reflect on the progress we made as a group over the weekend, I realize that this was a subtle opportunity (whether I recognized it, or not) for me to demonstrate my leadership abilities in a small team setting. However, I find it difficult to "lead the pack" when 1) the group is of 5 or less, and 2) I consider the members of the group friends. Now, in regards to this particular meeting, we all have a common interest in this library collection, and in the work we put into it. So the experience was very light, positive, and focused as we all knew what we were there to do. However, I wonder if under a different context how one would handle leading a group in a project where 1) Not everyone was interested in completing, and/or 2) There were personality conflicts between participants of the project.
This weeks readings from Bolton (1979) on the three approaches to relationships resonated with me as I thought about the habits I've adopted when leading and following others. As stated before, the experience I had this past weekend was a piece of cake! I was working with great people, and we all demonstrated a healthy balance of submission-assertion-aggression. But, what if it all played out differently... Say one of us was overly submissive and tried to take on the majority of the workload to please the rest of us. Or, maybe another of us might have thought that her ideas and processes superseded those of the rest of us, and they began to bully the project into what she thought was best. These are attitudes that I will need to be prepared to confront as this project continues to progress, and that I will need to have a strategy for diffusing in order to maintain the integrity of the work being done.
Bolton, Robert, Ph.D. (1979). People skills: How to assert yourself, listen to others, and resolve conflicts. Prentice Hall, Inc. Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
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