LeadershipTrip

Story 1: Stopping a Bully

One day in primary school I had just sat down on the field to take a break from an intense game of football as it was a hot summer day in New Zealand. Shortly thereafter Daniel came down to the field crying. I asked him what was wrong, and he told us that Jason had pushed him into a corner and confronted him. I knew Daniel and Jason as friends, so hearing this news was confronting. However, I realised that I could change the situation as I was good friends with both. I spoke to Daniel about what had happened and asked if there was anything he would like me to do. Daniel wanted to find out why Jason had decided to bully him. A few days later I saw Jason saying some mean things to Daniel again. I pulled Jason aside and asked him why he was saying these things to Daniel. He told me that Daniel was bad at football and that it was annoying him as it caused him to lose all the time. I was unsure of how to make Jason listen to me as he was obviously hurt, otherwise he wouldn’t have picked on Daniel. I chose to agree with him about Daniel being bad at football. I felt that this would de-escalate the situation and make Jason less adverse to my opinion. I then tried to explain that Daniel just didn’t care that much about football and was more focused on other things. I said that if it was every in my control, I would try to put them in different teams. But I also told Jason to get over it as it wasn’t a big deal. It didn’t annoy the rest of us. In the moment nothing really happened but over time I realised that Daniel was not being bothered as much.

Story 2: Peer Support Leader

During my final year of high school there were opportunities to apply for prefect and peer support leader roles. I put my name down for peer support with little belief that I would get the role as it was only offered to 20 or 30 students across a year-group of nearly 500. I was new to the school and had only just started to fully settle in. To my surprise, I was offered the role. This was my first major leadership role. I was given a year 9 class of about 20 students to look after. I was tasked with being their role model and senior figure within the school. Throughout this leadership role I learned about patience, teamwork, trust and how to guide people using my previous experiences. I could not lead these students through heart-felt speeches or grand gestures. I had to become a leader in my own right, through giving advice and being there for these students when they needed me. I knew I was not born to be a leader, but I wanted to help these students and I had some good experience in trying to fit into the school.

Story 3: Leading Veolia Project

My internship at Veolia came about due to a project I did at USyd. I was fortunate enough to present my final solution to the Veolia CEO and Chief of People. On a whim I connected with them both on LinkedIn and sent through my CV. A few weeks later I received an email asking if I was interested in getting involved in their reporting and compliance team. I said yes. However, I was completely unqualified for the role and had shown no prior interest in working in reporting and compliance. On my first day I realised that my manager and I were the only people responsible for reporting matters across Australia and NZ. About two weeks ago my manger took some leave to visit her family in Fiji. This left me completely responsible for all reporting matters. I was the go-to guy for over 400 sites across Australia and NZ and was responsible for moving 12 reporting matters along before my manager returned. I was overwhelmed, bombarded by emails, invited to meeting after meeting, and asked to do things I had never done before. To add to this, I was only in the office two days a week as I had to balance my internship with full-time university. Safe to say it was a stressful time for me. However, after the initial rush I took a moment to reflect. I looked at my to do list and decided it was better to just act. It would be unproductive to sit there and plan how to achieve everything. Rather, I thought it would be better to just go for it and see what I could achieve with what I knew and had access to. After a few hours I realised that acting made me feel a lot more confident in my own abilities and switched on to the situation. I was leading without delegating tasks or telling people what to do unless they asked. I was confident in the abilities of those around me and this created a composed and confident feeling in the team.