*Sorry I've missed many posts, I will be putting it up later on if anyone who is bored to death enough to read my reflections on chapters they read a while ago.*
I felt that in "The Team Message" segment, there was a lot of emphasis on 'making' everyone level. I found this kind of interesting and also something that I haven't been conscious of.
First, I have to admit that I've never been in a team sport, or a school club that had a certain, clear goal to work for. So I probably lack in experience compared to most people.
Well, I was in the koto-club through junior and senior high, but we never had to 'create' a shared identity. At least we didn't think we did. It had 10 club members at the MOST, we were basically the outcasts in school, so we had a pretty strong bond without much effort. Most of the students' at school didn't know the koto-club existed, even some teachers would mistake us for the tea-ceremony-club because of our yukatas. So, we all had strong feelings towards the club, its survival as a school club, and each other.
We never had communication problems like informing and getting everyone involved, since it was hard to miss/forget/purposely exclude someone when you only have 10 members in the first place.
However, we always have had a great leader : our coach.
She actually is every example that came up in the book-at least so far-and in class, including the common-enemy example Yusuke gave. Our coach is an experienced koto player, of course, and she has taught generations of the koto-club. And, I never noticed this until it came up in RW, but she did most of the things suggested!
She knew each of our talents/weaknesses, and she implicitly let everyone know by mentioning it during our group practice. At a difficult part of a piece, she'd stop the group practice for a minute, and make everyone play that part individually. She yell straight out what's wrong if you weren't doing it right, she'd complement you with joy if you were good at it.
She also would have us talk about the mental image we each had for the piece, a few weeks before performance, and at the last rehearsal we'd come up with a 'keyword'. It wasn't a goal exactly, it was more like something to look forward to in our own performance.
Also, this is the thing I hadn't even considered before I read L@E, but, she values little parties and get-togethers a LOT.
In the 6years I was involved, we never missed one Welcome-new-members-party, Farewell-senior-members-party, not even a Uchiage-ζγ‘δΈγ- after a performance. I always loved these, but never really considered them as playing an important role in teamwork. But come to think of it, without that it would've been nearly impossible to have the strong bond we always had.
There's a lot more I want to talk/brag about my koto coach being a great leader, but this is getting long and sidetracking from the book, so that will be in a different post.
Anyway, I was gobsmacked when I noticed my coach had done all this mentioned in L@E, although I don't know if it's on purpose or if she was born with Super-good-leader-genes!
Hoping to find more surprises in the rest of the book :)
It seems like you had a wonderful mentor through out your high school days! My club coach had an exact different approach to how he treated us. He wasn`t very emotional or vocal at that matter. But he still made a great impact on us and I consider him a great leader( oh, but come to think of it maybe part of it he being the common enemy at times helped!haha). I guess not all what we call good leaders fit the description in the book, but it sure does have some pointers that you realise have been covered by them.
ReplyDeleteI loved all the Uchiage and various parties that were held for occasions! Though the teacher did not initiate those, the club leader did, and I think it really helped in strengthening our bonds. It was nice that they took the opportunity to acknowledge the hard work we have done, or welcoming newcomers-the effort to unite was what was important, and those parties were a good chance to get to know other team members at a more personal level. After realising how much they meant to being part of a team, I made sure when I became a leader to make sufficient occasions to go out and have some fun.
Hi Kristi,
ReplyDeleteGreat post, and I am so glad to be hearing more from you. Your koto coach does indeed sound like a great leader, and I am glad you are able to better appreciate her talents. Just a thought, along the lines of expressing gratitude for the good things in our life: Write her a letter telling her how much you appreciate what she did for you as a leader. She'll be delighted, you can be sure of that, and you will feel awfully good about it as well.
L@E. LOL. I used to be in a very strict volleyball club in junior high. There were about thirty members in the team(including senpai, and kouhai) of which only six and a few "bench warmers" would be picked as players. But obviously there would be conflict there, about who would be picked as the six players. At a certain point, those six players would ore or less be always the same, and the rest would just be the rest. But now that I come to think of it, I wonder why the other 24 members would remain as a team, when they had practically no chance of becoming a player. But your blog post made me realize how our coach was so good at keeping us unified. She'd often open parties where everyone of us would be treated fairly.
ReplyDeleteSo I'm now thinking that a lot of the leaders may already have the leadership aspects given in the book without knowing. Yuca mentioned in one of her posts that leadership can both be natural and nurtured. But it is interesting that some people are born to be leaders! I wish I was one as well...
Hi Kristi,
ReplyDeleteWe haven't heard from you after this post, but you were off to a great start.
I know you got very busy this term and had trouble staying on top of all your work, but I appreciated the work and the participation that you did provide. You seem like a very sweet and good person, and I think once you get your feet underneath you that you will do great, both as a student and in life.
Ken