As a Spartan Orientation Leader I have had to learn that sometimes it is best to step back and let others take the lead. This was an extremely difficult lesson for me to learn at first, especially as I consider myself to be a vocal leader, but I learned that at the end of the day it is whatever will work for the betterment of the team. This does not mean that I now have no voice or opportunity to include my input on things, but it just means that I will take a second before saying what I think is best.

I think that sometimes stepping back is the best thing that you can possibly do for your team, because it then requires you to develop and/or strengthen your active listening skills. I have noticed that a lot of times within my Spartan Orientation Staff people will tend to ask questions that have already been answered, or everybody wants to jump in and say their peace all at once, and that is what is expected with a group of leaders, but stepping back is necessary for everyone's voice to be heard.

Not only does stepping back encompass not being the first and consistent one person always voicing your opinion, but it can also mean maybe not jumping so soon to blame your teammates. For example, if you are a server at a restaurant and the guest complains that something was wrong with their meal you would not want to blame the cooking staff, you would want to apologize to the guest and politely ask the cooking staff to re make the item and/or compensate the guest if needed.

Another note is to know that every day is not going to necessarily be a good day for you, and if you are having a bad day, stepping back can be extremely helpful for you as well as for your team. If you are going through something or something made you feel some time of way communicate that with your team, you don't have to necessarily tell them all of your business but just give them a heads up like hey guys, I am going to let y'all take the lead today because I am having a hard time at the moment. Your team would rather you tell them upfront and then they can then do something about it, then you being upset all day and that affecting your interaction with guests and your work ethic. Remember, your team is there for a reason, and you have the power to allow yourself to lean on them for support if needed.

Me and my staff have been doing a lot of work over the past 5 months going into our Orientation Sessions, and beyond physically learning information to then relay to students parents and families, we also had to learn how to work with each other, and set ground rules for what we all expected for ourselves as well as from one another. These things have really helped us to bond and warp close relationships with one another, to where I think I could comfortably say that we all would be able to support one another if something was to go array.

I think that it is critical for every team, whether it be a sports team or a group of people working in a firm or a restaurant staff, to work together for the common good and betterment of who they are working for. Not only do you want to respect each other, but you want to respect and be nice and courteous to the guests, because your one bad interaction with that person will outweigh all of the good things that happened to them that day.

When you take a step back and allow everybody's voices to be heard it makes your staff/team closer and you will want to work harder for them. At the end of the day everybody wants their voice to be heard and their words to mean something. All I am saying is to try to be more considerate of how you interact with your team, because it will make a world of a difference in a positive way, and your guests will pick up on it too.