Leadership Development Camp 2015

This year, I participated in the Leadership Development Camp in a different role: a coach. This was quite a difficult job: I needed to actively participate in the activities with nest members, but I could not be too active so that I took over their space to grow. Besides, when I wanted to give them some instruction, I could not tell them directly, but to give it in form of questions/suggestion. After thinking about these challenges, I set up 2 objectives for my jobs during the camp:

1. Communication among nest members must be clear and effective

2. Everyone must have equal chances to contribute ideas and actions in any group activities

The first objective was the one I worried most about because it is the key that led to the success of the second one. Besides, all members of my group were not English native speaker. Therefore, during group discussions, I asked them a lot of questions whenever I detected ambiguity in their speech. I also told them to make summary after discussion to ensure that everyone has no doubt about their roles in group activities. Thankfully, our group went through all activities without any big troubles and miscommunication. I was even surprised when hearing how well they discussed as a group during the last, yet also the most challenging game of the camp in my opinion: Blind Squares. In this game, all team members held a rope and while being blindfolded, they had to form a square with that rope. From my experience in the last year’s camp, I expected some degree of chaos throughout the game, but that did not happen at all. Everyone communicated clearly one by one. The solution skeleton was initiated by Justin, but then each person perfected it a little bit more and finally, we finished the game within a short time and even have time to “accept another challenge”: Form a circle instead. I was really happy with the performance of my team in this game because it showed how much their communication and mutual understanding had improved after 3 days staying together.

Although as a team, we did not meet any big problems, I realized that I could have done more to facilitate individual growth. Perhaps I paid too much attention to team unity and forgot about creativity. I noticed that during group discussion before each game, once a member in my team proposed a solution, others would almost accept it and then the discussion shifted to how to execute it. Perhaps I should have encouraged each member more, but individually instead of addressing the whole team in order to trigger their questioning ability, which is the root of creativity. By doing that, I expected the discussions would have been more heated and sometimes uncontrollable. However, it would be better for each individual to learn how to control themselves during a discussion.

Anyway, the camp was another unforgettable experience to me. By the end of the day, I am happy to see my team members have fun with each other and grow together.

#saikung #redbird #camp #eagle