Lead (The Team Player)

Lead (Team Player)

Leader - Team Player - Servant Leader

For a team be successful not everyone can be the outright leader. In fact, the outright leader should be few. That's why in yesterday's post I mentioned about doing 'small things in a great way', because it's not always possible to do great things! :)
For those who didn't get to see the pic here it is:

And this is what this post is about, leadership, from a team player's perspective.

Whenever I go for motivational talks, the speaker there is always like: "Do you want to be a leader? or do you want to be a follower?" and then they will paint all the good points about being a leader... When I was younger, it seemed very plain and simple and I just tried training up those leadership qualities. (you guys should to, but do read on...)

But as I grew older, I started wondering, without these 'followers'...who will leaders lead? Will they still be called leaders?  In fact, leaders are leaders because they have people who follow them or listen to them.
This being said, it makes leaders sound much more important than 'followers'. If you've noticed i've been using '' whenever I say 'followers', why? The very same reason why the motivational speakers I listen to want us to be leaders. Being a leader sounds so much better doesn't it? That's why I prefer using the term: TEAM PLAYERS

Yes, from the head of the table to the guy in the corner, everyone is part of a team. And everyone has a role to play. Yesterday's post was about being the outright leader, the one who takes the initiative, today, I'll talk about the members in the team, the ones who do the 'little things' in a great way. I'll try to guide you guys through...

FIRSTLY, you gotta stop thinking that the things you do are 'little things', even though what you do may be considered small in the picture, you must make it BIG while you do it! Basically the advice here is to do things WHOLE HEARTEDLY.
While I was doing my internship, the first 2 weeks of the job involved me doing data analysis. Now it sounds really cool when I call it data analysis. But in reality, all i was doing was: sitting at a desk typing in data into an excel sheet. Of course, later on in the internship I did much more interesting and cool stuff but for that first 2 weeks, I just had to sit there and type data, and the worst part was that the data was handwritten and in different languages...yeah :/ So how did I pull through? Every sheet I did, I did it to the best I can. Eventually I completed nearly 1000 forms that's right a Thousand. :) and if I can do it, why can't you? :)

SECONDLY, being part of a team means you got to CONTRIBUTE. Be it ideas, assignments, suggestions, whatever! You have to contribute. Don't always wait to see if the outright leader guides you, sometimes they are waiting to see if you do it yourself. Basically, this is like taking the initiative from another perspective (a team player's perspective).

THIRDLY, and finally (don't want to overload you with too much in one post yeah :) ), LISTEN. Most people will usually advise the outright leader to listen, but the team has to listen to each other too. Effective communication is the best way to success. At my internship, my bosses practiced alot of communictaion and that's the reason why their business is progressing everyday! Effective communication is the big word, the easier way to see it is just simple listening. Yesterday on twitter, I had a late night (early morning) tweet: "Ignore haters but ALWAYS take constructive feedback". How do you know if it's constructive feedback?
Listen.
If it's for your own good and the speaker usually doesn't gain anything from it, it's constructive advice (To Lift You Higher).  This is good for you. Take note though that it may not always sound nice, not everyone mince their words first and it may actually come out quite blunt and hurtful. An example is this blog, I think before I type, because I know that not everyone will take blunt speaking, but is the advice good for you? I sure hope so. Alot of people don't listen (and they don't know it), what they do is this:

There's no harm trying to understand someone elses point of view. In fact doing so benefits you, because after understanding if you don't think it's good, you can still stick to your idea. BUT ALWAYS listen first. You never know, there may be some really good insights waiting to be told :)


So what have we gone through today? As a team player you have to: 1) Do things whole heartedly. 2) Take the initiative and contribute 3) Listen (especially to constructive feedback)
I'm not all that good a person, I have countless flaws, but if I can do the things I post, I'm very certain you can too :)


Do catch the blog on sunday when I do my 1st week post -it'll be special- :)

Hi there overseas viewers! :) For those who don't know, I'm based in Singapore, so all the timings and all is based on Singapore time. Also, this is a non-profit blog, so basically I don't earn a cent! :) This blog is just to help you guys and yes there are truly helpful people out there. 

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