Throughout my sophomore year, I took HONR 401 and HONR 499 courses to develop my research competency. For these courses we were assigned a research team to work with for the year based on criteria such as topic interest. This was the first full year of the COVID pandemic and meeting online definitely made the teamwork portion of the class more challenging. I think it may have also affected personal motivation toward project tasks that needed to be completed. This was especially difficult when the class involved many assignments requiring teamwork. My experience in this group was not great, but I was able to find a role that worked well for our team dynamic and a leadership philosophy to guide collaboration within similar groups.

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This experience leading my research team fulfills Teams 3 and 4.

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At the beginning of our time researching together, I noticed that my team didn’t always complete things before our meeting time, such as required readings. In addition, they weren’t involved in conversation and one of my team members rarely joined our meetings. I discovered early on that my team needed some direction between meeting times. I allowed them to continue taking on an uninvolved role in our research but influenced them to contribute. To do this, I came to our meetings very prepared with what would need to be done in the coming week. I led the conversation and made sure everyone had something specific to do before our next meeting. They began completing their work because I had given them clear direction on what to do and made sure they understood.

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I quickly learned that not all groups can have equal collaboration amongst members. Sometimes there needs to be someone directing the flow of work and conversation. I made sure I wasn’t overstepping my place and that they were comfortable with their assigned tasks. By doing this, we were able to complete all our work as a group. This helped me form a leadership philosophy for working in groups: when equal collaboration is not possible, it may be necessary to guide the group towards equal contribution to the workload. Whether it be unmotivated group members or the nature of the work, a leader sometimes needs to direct each team member to complete the goal. This was the case in my honors research courses, and it influenced the role I took on within our research team.

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I will likely encounter unmotivated individuals in my future career, and I now have experience guiding a team to become a bit more motivated while still making them feel included in their assigned tasks. This will undoubtably be useful as many workplaces transition to allow telework.