Leadership: Humane Society and Brianna Essays

Submitted By veronika3811
Words: 1884
Pages: 8

Our group did our second LIA project at the Washington County Humane Society, which is located inMD. The Humane Society is a non-profit organization that helps improve the quality of life for animals. “Through education, legislation, action and leadership, we strive to eliminate overpopulation and to foster an environment of respect, responsibility and compassion.”(Humane) Animals can go into foster car and the humane society, will offer food, litter, blankets, toys to those who want to foster parent. Also, volunteers are always needed and appreciated. The humane society gives thanks to volunteers because without those who volunteer, what they do to help animals would be nearly impossible. The humane society accepts donations. A few dollar here and there or donation of toys, food, and any other supplies the pets can use. Any help at all is great. Remember you could save a life. The humane society shelters several dogs, cats, birds, hamsters, and even guinea pigs. Through this leadership in action, our team experienced positive leadership and follower relationships. We faced the obviously challenges beforehand, such as agreeing on a date and time to volunteer or time. Conflict of schedules definitely played a negative part. However, we overcame this challenge and started to succeed at our mission, which was to work well as a team to complete the needed project and help us learn the leadership theory, pros and cons of leadership, how to form follower relationships, etc. Our team was experiencing teamwork which is defined as “an understanding and commitment to group goals on the part of all team members.” (Lussier & Achua, 2010) So from the beginning we were committed on a date and time the project would take place, which would write the paper and/or edit the paper, and what the responsibilities would be during the volunteer time. Our responsibilities were split equally between the three of us in the group. This created some pros and cons. When it was your turn, to decide an organization to volunteer for, it was all on the one person, who played the role of the leader. In, this case Brianna had to contact the volunteer organizer, schedule a time, play the role of leader in each tasks completed, then write the paper. Because of this responsibility being put on only the leader, the other team members’ kind of stepped back and withheld. This action is known as social loafing, “is withholding effort toward group goals when one is not individually accountable for one’s work.”(Lussier & Achua, 2010) Our group partially overcame this obstacle by all agreeing to 1) have the leader write the paper 2) have the followers edit & add information). This helped strengthen our paper since three brains are better than one. “You may have the greatest ideas in the company, but no one will know that if you can't communicate them. To be an effective communicator, it's just as important to listen and ask questions as it is to put forth your own ideas. Listening carefully to your audience will help you determine whether your ideas are being understood.” (Communication)
Communication was the key in this first part and because of this we learned what not to do and how to build better leadership-follower relationships. Furthermore, this helped us strengthen our leadership skills, and taught us the importance of team building and brainstorming. As a team, we were able to share ideas, express thoughts and concerns, and as questions in order to move forward in completing our team’s goal/mission. Since our team became better communicators, we were more likely to listen and less likely to fail as a leader and follower. Through out of LIA, Brianna, Melissa, and Veronika were sure to provide feedback to each other. Feedback is “the process of verifying messages and determining if objectives are being met.”(Lussier & Achua, 2010) Afterwards, we each evaluated each other on a number score basis. This evaluation form showed each team member how their