The key in terms of the development of my leadership skills within the class is a focus on broadening my skill set, rather than attempting to develop a completely unfamiliar one. It wasn’t as if I was completely new to writing an essay but it rather honed in pieces of that ability that I hadn’t previously devoted time to, such as writing for a listening audience, or workshopping a cohesive narrative with a team as opposed to pieces of a presentation.
For instance, the speeches required for the Ancient Athens game gave me an opportunity to focus on how one writes effectively for a listening audience. In particular, I was presenting for an audience with almost no visual aids aside from what they could see of my face and body language. It was a sort of covert leadership, in that it forced me to walk them through the argument in a more intuitively logical way than a traditionally designed argumentative essay. None of my audience had the ability to re-read or even tangibly see the points I was making, so it became far more important to guide them through the argument, not through evidence and counterpoints (though those played a part too), but through ways they could intrinsically grasp. My final product became dedicated to walking them through the streets of Athens, seeing destruction or deprivation, and leading them to the conclusion that Athens needed whatever aid I proposed at the time. The traditional structures took a new form; I had to work to ensure I wasn’t pedantic or too convoluted, but I also wasn’t so monotonous to listen to that my voice became white noise. Really, it boiled down to the balance that effective leadership requires: engaging the group (or team) in such a fashion that they could reach a solidified position and feel as though they had enough evidence to support that, without simply frontloading them with information and jerking them into a conclusion. As with most issues within leadership it was rather about guidance and a consciousness of the needs of those you wish to serve or work with.
The same concept began to appear in the process of beginning our podcast for the class, in part due to the difficulties of online learning. Much of the class had issues tackling the project, likely because it’s a very different form of teamwork than we’ve encountered in previous classes. The podcast called for a cohesive, dynamic plan to build a narrative and create an ambiance that best suited the subject matter. It could not be sectioned off and portioned out like bits of a PowerPoint presentation, forced more into individual projects pieced together into the same set of slides instead of an actual group effort. Podcasting called for each of us to invest in playing with the creativity of our teams and each other’s strengths. We all knew how to write – maybe if not for a podcast medium – and submit projects, but it manufactured a situation in which we actually had to work to find the careful midway between melding our ideas and maintaining the integrity of our individual contributions. If of a different sort, it was the same principle as before; the strive to find balance between guidance and coherence without narrowing our focus to ourselves.
Each time we encountered a project, it provided us with a unique environment in which to round out a more full, effective skill set than what we might’ve begun with, and learn how to balance a more soft-handed version of leadership than traditionally understood. I have no doubt that knowing the difference between and equal importance of guidance and directing will be of no small value in the future, particularly within my professional career.
