Personal Learning Paper on Group Dyanamic

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`LEADERSHIP AND INFLUENCE

Another important aspect that I could associate myself with was Leadership – the process of being able to guide and direct the behavior of people in work environment. A leader is one who is committed to his/her work and looks at the long-term effect. As a member of SRC, a committee close to me I took the opportunity of being the POC for Vakritva as an opportunity to become a core member next year by showing that I have the ability to lead and hold the events. Most of the times people catch the eye when they deliver to their level of expectations when they get additional responsibility. As the POC of the Vakritva important I got the opportunity to lead the team and was a sort of an informal leader within the group. Also, everyone being my batchmate we all were equally responsible for delivering and so all that was needed is democratic style to be followed whereby we all discuss and collaborate as to what needs to be done and how so as to ensure the success of the event. Some traits that we learnt a leader should have like – ability and desire to lead, self-confidence, knowledge, honesty and integrity are some traits that I believe I possess. Having confidence that I can pull of an event even though it is being organized for the first time is something that I got. I thought of all possibilities and challenges that we could face and discuss with other people while being brutally honest with them is what helped them also to understand that I was sure of what and how I wanted to organize the event. If I could attach any style of leadership with whatever little opportunity I got would be Employee Oriented Leader as I felt concerned with any concern of my batchmates if they could not become a part of the event. I focused more in ensuring that everyone feels a part of the event and does their bit. I wanted to be the Team Management sort of a leader with focus on work as well as relationship. This would be a win win situation for not just me as a POC but for everyone associated with organizing the event. For me personally a transformational leader is far more effective than a transactional one. A transformational leader allows people to develop and hone their skill than being evaluative. Supervision is lesser for a transformational leader than a transactional and he focused on long term achievements than short termed. Even I looked at how this can help SRC to become a better committee and organize more such events where we can work with everyone and bring a difference in the society. A transformational leader has to be like a role model and be purposeful and inspire others to be like him. This is where I want to become someone like a Virat Kohli. Going forward these aspects that would like to inculcate and make myself better.

DECISION MAKING

The process of decision making is another aspect that I related to while working in groups. In this we learnt on how exactly decisions can be taken and its types – Programmed and Non-Programmed decisions. As Vakritva was an event held for the first time all the decisions were non-programmed as we didn’t have any previous experience to fall upon. It needed intuitive instincts, risk aversion, creative thinking while taking decisions. Many a times while choosing topics and how to go about the event structure it was our judgement and creativity that we fell back upon. Since the core team also had no experience it was an unstructured position hierarchy where everything was left for us to judge and move forward. While taking all the decisions related to the event we had the budget constraint. Thus, most of our decisions followed the principle of Bounded Rationale. There were at times we found ourselves short of how we would have liked to publicize the event and its organizing with budget constraint. We followed cognitive style of decision making where we had people who were gathering all information and giving alternates to ensure better and a more successful delivering of the event. Being an inaugural event intuition and creativity were our best friend. We needed to think of possible ways to attract more people and make the overall impact of creating awareness amongst people in a better manner to make it better success. When all of us sat down as a group to decide on format, topics, rule of the event we had a mix of Brainstorming, Delphi and Devil’s advocacy technique. We had to brainstorm to narrow down on what we expected the participants to talk about and be more creative with. After a lot of deliberation and planning process we finalized the topics like manual scavenging, old age homes, juvenile crimes etc. Luckily all our decisions were taken in the green light stage and we didn’t feel excess burden of any barriers. As I had earlier held such events I was an expert and suggested a few topics and format amongst other things. Many people had their doubts and they asked while I focused on convincing them with how I planned out the event in my mind. Under Devil Advocacy method we had someone who was given the task of being a critique to our event so that when we deliver the event we would have thought of what all could go wrong while performing the event and how we could mitigate it and deliver an impactful event for everyone.

CONFLICT MANAGEMENT

Conflict is defined as series of argument/disagreements between two parties. The consequences of conflicts could be positive or negative. In our case the conflict had a positive outcome. The conflict arose due to different viewpoints on not only the topics that could be chosen but also the competition rules and format. Someone was the opinion of not including juvenile crimes while some wanted this to be included. Some people wanted the format to be such that we give only 2 minutes for preparation while some were in favor of our final decision. What I realized was that conflicts aren’t exactly bad. It allows room for more healthy discussions if taken in the right spirit. It also helps build a feeling of belongingness amongst the people in the activity as they feel a part of the organizing team by giving their suggestions. Another advantage I found was that it helped get more creative with our topics and format for the event. This would never have been possible had there been no discussion and no positive conflict amongst us. Some causes that I found which give rise to conflict amongst us was the different skills and abilities. Some of the people weren’t exactly familiar with the social issues while they were incredible in helping us finalize the format for the event. Everyone comes with a different value system and ethics. Some of us felt how much of an effect would the event make in our life but I strongly feel that more we talk about these issues the better we