The story happened in 2004 and it started after I was elected as the Troop Leader of the Scouts...
Being a bold and young man ready to take up any challenge, I had all my goals in mind on which direction we'll be heading that year. I was very excited and eager to share with my committee all about my plans for improvements. Therefore, a few days after the election, I held a meeting and announced my goals and plans for the year.
Things were going on quite well at start until after I met with an accident and fractured my foot. I came to school after 2 weeks. I walked with crutches for almost 3 months and it was a pain to move around. I couldn't handle most of the things in this situation and appointed my Deputy Leader as Acting Leader and Senior Group Leader to assist him though I still attended the weekly activities and assembled the troop.
I realized, things didn't go according to what had been planned. I couldn't do much as I wasn't informed. The committee split and some of them even went to the extent of not attending meetings and submitting reports. After my foot recover, I took over but I never expect to lose their support and my power incrementally as day passes, resulting in more internal problems later on. The situation had become so bad that eventually I had to do all the work myself.
I did try my very best to work things out with them. We met up countless times to improve things but ended up to no avail. It was quite some hard time for me as I sat for my SPM (Malaysian Certificate of Education - Senior Level) that year.
If you were me, how would you handle the situation?
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Thanks for your sharing, Jason. From the way you described the incident, it seemed pretty bad.
ReplyDeleteWould you be able to provide more details on what you mean by "things didn't go according to what had been planned" and how you "couldn't do much as (you) weren't informed"? What led to the split of the Committee - disagreement, or the change / lack of leadership? That will enable them to better offer solutions.
Ms. Lim
Hi Jason,
ReplyDeleteLong time no see...
I believe the meetings that you called for after you recovered could have been made more interactive by asking your members for suggestions on what to do for whatever plans your were planning. This could have made them more active in the plans drafted and slowly they may have become more involved.
Also, you could have assigned groups by mixing the students from the spilt groups and give a task to each group to handle. This might have maybe forced them to take responsibility and maybe the plans could have taken action more significantly.
Hope this helps :)
Cheers,
Keerth
Dear Ms. Lim,
ReplyDeleteActivities were postponed or cancelled, changing venue at the last minute due to late application submitted to teahcers of the Dept. of CCA. I was bedridden in hospital and home for 2 weeks and thus was not informed.
After I came back to school, I did make initiative to follow-up on certain tasks but the responses I received were negative. I believed the split of committee was partly due to my Deputy Leader did not fully support me.
Thank you!
Cheers,
Jason
Dear Keerth,
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting on my post! =)
Yes, you're right. I couldn't have more agree to what you said. If I were to do that, I guess things won't become that bad.
It would be rather difficult to implement this because they were assigned to departments chosen by themselves. Our activites are on-going every week and not project-based unlike the CCAs in universities. However, this is what I am thinking to suggest to my society for the next term. ;)
Thanks a lot ya!
Cheers,
Jason
Thanks for the elaboration, Jason. Now I am curious: why did Deputy Leader 'not support you'? Was it due to differences in opinions, or was it due to the fact that he had to take over your duty on top of his, or was it...the list can go on. Did you find out the reason why?
ReplyDeleteFrom what you'd shared, my feeling is that issues were not communicated well at the Management level, leading to the chaos that followed. It seems to me as if this is an interpersonal conflict between you, the Deputy Leader and Senior Group Leader? If so, you may need to make more obvious the relationships among the 3 of you, as well as the actual conflicts that had taken place.
Thanks for the effort, Jason!
Ms. Lim
Hey Jason,
ReplyDeleteLeading an entire scout troop isn't easy, even if the accident (very unfortunate indeed) did not happen at all. To have one person of approximately the same age in charge of about another 80-100 others is quite a feat, especially in a uniformed group when regimentation and discpline is forcibly advocated. I can relate to you as I was from Scouts' too, however it really wasn't my cup of tea and I left as soon as I had completed my secondary school tenure; at least I saw it through.
Coming back to the situation, I have learnt in my experiences that, in order to lead, one has to first win the people's respect. And respect has to be earned, not demanded or forced, even in a regimental setting like any uniformed group.
From what it seems (Pardon me, I may be making some assumptions here) , when things went wrong, there must have been a heavy amount of miscommunication and misunderstandings between the different levels - between the juniors and your deputy leader, as well as between yourself and your deputy.
There must have been some cracks somewhere in between, and if I had been in the same situation, identifying these cracks would have been the first step that I would have taken.
It is easier said than done, and please take this just as a personal viewpoint, but if I were in your shoes, I would have relinquished the position and allow the deputy to take my place for good, and thereafter appoint someone who is the next most competent as the new deputy. I seek this opinion as I believe, as a leader, the utmost priority would be to carry out a plan of action that is in the best interests of the Scout Troop, the school as well as your fellow scouts. Then again, every experience is always a lesson leart.
-jiajie
Dear Ms. Lim,
ReplyDeleteThere were a few stories before that year which I do not mention here due to limited words. Our organization structure is rather complicated as we function in 2 different ways - the Leader and Executive Committee.
I guess if I were not to be elected and two of them became the Troop Leader and Deputy Leader, things might have not become so complicated. Well, things went through and I had learnt a great deal on how I should handle such situation in future. =)
Thank you Jia Jie for your comment. It could be the right thing to do at that point of time because my parents and siblings urged me to resign due to my condition and my studies.
Regards,
Jason