Recognizing the “Me” in Team: A Journey of Self-Awareness through Teamwork in the Emerging Leaders Institute

 

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What do you get when you cross an environmental scientist with a microbiologist, biomedical researcher and statistician? The start of a bad joke? Well, yes, but also an amazing interdisciplinary team of Duke research trainees known as Team W.A.K.E. (Wil, Asiya, Kevin and Eduardo). Hailing from different backgrounds and disciplines, the four of us came together in an effort to discover and refine our leadership abilities through the Emerging Leaders Institute (ELI). As part of a team project we completed in the program last spring, we scoured different leading research institutions and developed a flexible Mentoring Action Plan to improve mentoring relations between graduate student/postdoc trainees and their faculty advisors. Our framework provides mentors and trainees the opportunity to identify their communication and management preferences, create space to communicate said preferences, and support faculty and trainees in aligning expectations and setting goals.

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This was the first team project I’ve been part of where the journey was more important than the end product. And don’t get me wrong, when you put together a team of high achievers who are working to improve their leadership skills, you are going to get a quality product! But for ELI, the facilitators primed us to approach our work with intentionality and self-reflection at the core. After some initial panic at the condensed eight-week timeline to complete our project, we decided it was most important to leverage our key personality traits while also being vulnerable in sharing our shortcomings and asking for help.

Personally, I wanted to wield my gifts of optimism and communication to encourage a positive group dynamic. I am normally the first person to jump in with ideas and volunteer. This has led to a tendency to overwhelm myself with responsibility and doesn’t always allow others to shine. I needed to learn how to listen, delegate and offer my services when they made the most sense. We operated as a team in every sense of the word, and I felt very supported as each member stepped up or stepped back to allow each person a chance to contribute and feel valued.            

—Asiya

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Teamwork at ELI was different than I’ve experienced before in that each team member was invested in uplifting others in their personal growth journey. I believe that sharing candid self-reflections of our strengths, weaknesses, and personal goals led to effective teamwork and personal growth. For starters, I believe it improved team communication and dynamics when we all gained a deeper understanding of each other’s strengths and specific goals for personal development. We actively sought opportunities to enable team members to achieve their individual goals. For example, we encouraged teammates seeking to build direct leadership skills to lead our weekly team meetings.

As a result, everyone felt heard and engaged, which I believe led to a great team dynamic that I haven’t seen in other team projects.

Personally, I believe we all accomplished our personal growth goals set at the beginning of this journey. As part of this team project I sought to improve my task delegation and active listening skills, and I must say, having teammates to help me develop these qualities and keep me accountable made the process very fulfilling. I believe this experience will help me lead more effectively in future roles either directly or indirectly.

—Eduardo

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It is just incredible how valuable I found the learning process to be in the ELI program. Teamwork helped me understand the diverse elements we must consider in the process of developing ideas and providing solutions to academic problems. Definitely, our team project was focused more on the process than the final deliverable. In the practice of thinking as a team member, I was able to recognize we all have leadership skills that need to be evolved and matured in a continuous community relationship.

Our W.A.K.E. team was truly full of this diversity, where I found all the support to understand myself and others. I am thankful for having such an amazing opportunity of sharing with wonderful people. I never imagined my efforts were so valued even when they seemed to be just basic blocks to build on our project.

The most enriching experience I can recognize from this program, besides the uniqueness of each of my teammates, is the particular focus to work on self-awareness. By knowing how I react when facing daily challenges, I can develop tools that help me to take control of my emotions and thus perform at the best of my abilities for others. I was prompted to discover my leadership qualities by all the great people involved, from the facilitators to my personal coach; I came to have a broader and clearer picture of what kind of leader I am called to be. Particularly, I was challenged to test my communication skills when leading meetings and connecting ideas. None of my colleagues should miss the opportunity to grow as individuals through the amazing ELI program that the Duke Graduate School offers. It’s simply remarkable!

—Wil

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I’ve learned through the wisdom of family, mentors, and clichés that “the journey is more important than the destination.” However, in our fast-paced performance-based culture, it’s a difficult concept to practice. I’m eternally grateful that ELI provided me the resources to use a team project as a means to grow as a leader, a team member and a person.

Early on, we learned of our own strengths and weaknesses while establishing fruitful team expectations and norms. This led to candid conversations with my team of our self-reflections and personal development goals. These conversations helped each of us to identify aspects of our project as growth opportunities for each other. For example, I needed to practice intentionally shutting up, listening actively and taking time to reflect. The added listening and reflections allowed me to delegate more often while offering to lead in areas where I can best contribute. Throughout the project, we developed a culture where I felt valued, heard and supported, balancing our focus on the project itself and the growth of each team member. This experience definitely sets a very high bar for future team projects. I can’t wait to emulate the same growth culture and develop my leadership skills in future teams!                           

—Kevin