Aditya Y. K. Ponnapalli [Gray – 3]

Principled Leadership Journal

Coporate Governance

8/27/15
The team decided to make me Team Leader.

Observed: 8/10/15, Recorded: 8/28/15
We decided to make Evin our lead presenter because he is good at public speaking.

Observed: Throughout the Pre-Term, Recorded: 8/28/15
Before starting any assignment / project, we would sit down and plan on how to go about it. Sometimes divide the problem into smaller pieces and assign tasks based on each person’s strengths and weaknesses. For example, for our final project presentation, Lauren did the slides because she is good with Powerpoint. Me and Vika did most of the research and analysis. Robert and Evin did most of the writing and editing work.

Collective Action Problem

Observed: 8/21/15, Recorded: 8/28/15
There was a proposal that student evaluation scores be eliminated from the grades assigned to the student presentations and that the presentations be graded 100% by the faculty. I was initially quite indifferent to this because I did not quite understand the implications of this at that time. But, in hindsight, I feel we should have accepted student grading because it would have indicated that we trusted each other.

Lobbying

Observed: 8/21/15, Recorded: 8/28/15
Lobbied to have one of the Accounting assignments to be assigned to myself. This was our last group assignment and all the ones before were done by others on the group. One of the group members would take responsibility for each assignment and then we would discuss it on the next day. So, this time I wanted to take responsibility of the assignment and spoke to my group members about this and managed to have their approval for this.

Trust, free-riders

Observed: 8/10/15, Recorded: 8/28/15
In the beginning I was a little skeptical about how we would do as a team because we were basically strangers to each other. I guess everyone on the team had this doubt but with each passing day we got to know each other more and more and now we have developed strong friendships. I was also apprehensive about how the Americans in my group would treat a person like me who comes from a completely different culture, professional background, etc.

8/28/15
In the end I have to admit that I was lucky to have had very open-minded and friendly people in my group. Also, there were no free-riders in my group. Everyone chipped in and played their part effectively when required.

Internal Evaluation

8/28/15
My evaluation of everyone on my group is very positive. We are a group of bits and pieces joined together to form the complete picture. We might have had differing opinions on many occasions but never had any sort of conflict over it.

Observed: 8/10/15, Recorded: 8/28/15
I initially thought that Evin was an overbearing personality because he is very outspoken. But, with each interaction I realized that this was not true. He is also a good listener and takes into account others’ opinions.

Note: I sincerely apologize for not recording these entries in a contemporaneous manner. I have mentioned the dates on which each observation was made.