I
find that frequently my role as a team member switches dramatically. There are times that I take on a task-facilitating
role and others I take on a relationship-building role. On many occasions, I take on both. I generally do my best to help the team work
together and get the job done. In my
current position I often play both parts, take on two roles, I am the Officer
in Charge of the Installation Deployment Readiness Cell and the Wing
Installation Deployment Officer. Often, I
work the many tasks that come my way, while simultaneously working with the
people in the office to get tasks done.
Because the Non-commissioned Officer in Charge is gone, at the moment, I
have even more tasks, roles and responsibilities. It is very exhausting and stressful for
everyone. Due to this situation, I find
that it is important to keep the tone light, avoid complaining about tasks, and
encourage people in the tasks we are given.
I try to be light-hearted and strive to help everyone in the office get
along.
There
are many task-facilitating roles that one can have, depending on the situation
and associates I switch roles, which are as follows: direction giving,
information seeking, information giving, elaborating, urging, monitoring,
process analyzing, reality testing, enforcing and summarizing. I may have to switch drastically and
immediately in order to best fit the situation. While I am often giving tasks,
I am also inquiring how to accomplish, or improve on a way we are completing a
task. I am also monitoring tasks that
are given out and making sure they are getting done. There are some occasions that these tasks, or
methods, are inefficient, so I move to reality testing. Sometimes things look better on paper than
they do in real life and changes need to be made to the process. There are on occasion, tasks that no one
wants to do and everyone “forgets”. While,
some of these tasks seem pointless and a waste of time, on these occasions I
have to enforce and remind in order to make sure they get done. In our job at work, it is also important to
brainstorm. Frequently we are given
tasks or goals to accomplish without a clear way of getting there. We will sit down, explain the problem and
discuss ways of accomplishing it.
Communication is incredibly important on a day to day basis and even on
a minute to minute basis. There are days
where I will find myself walking out of my office every few minutes to update
people on new information or changes.
The
next set of roles are the relationship-building roles. In reality, these roles go hand-in-hand with task-facilitating
roles. If I find that I am immersed in
the roles of the task-facilitator, but am not taking on a relationship-building
role, then I am probably doing something wrong.
Relationship-building roles include the following: supporting,
harmonizing, tension-relieving, confronting, energizing, developing, consensus
building and empathizing. When giving
out tasks, I should also be working to create harmony, support, energize and
any number of the relationship-building roles.
Things can get very stressful and fast paced at work. I know that I am often asking people to stay
late, work quickly, do more work, and sacrifice for the mission. On top of all this, they are often going
through things in their lives that make work difficult. The more time away from home and family I ask
them to give, I know that I am asking them to replace one responsibility for
another. It is important that I am
supportive, empathetic and do my best to encourage and relate to them. I will often make jokes, goof off and jump
around to lighten the tone. I know that
when I am stressed and frustrated it shows and can make things difficult at the
office. If I let the stress of work turn
my mood foul it will only make things hard for everyone. Being able to bury my frustrations and stress
and show a side of excitement, energy and light-heartedness is very
important. When others at the office are
stressed, I will empathize with them, and then push to help them get the work
done so that stress can be shed. When we
are stuck at work because of the needs of the mission we will take breaks to
joke around, play mini games or tell stories on different subjects. When the stress has diminished a little bit,
we will jump back into the task. This
enables us to take a breather and start again.
There are times that work is like a marathon with a great many areas
that require sprinting. If we don’t take
time to rest and rejuvenate it will cause burn out.
I
find that I am most satisfied at work when I can intertwine
relationship-building roles with task-facilitating roles. When we leave work having accomplished a
difficult task, are still in a great mood, and not dreading coming back to work
the next day, because we all enjoy the busy, yet fun work environment, then I
am happy about the way I am able to run the office and the work we are doing
there. If both tasks and relationships
begin to crumble, that’s when I will need to take a step back and reexamine
both my managerial and leadership roles.
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