Reflecting on the fall semester 2022 as a Team Leader in Syntre Osk. Reflection is based on my own experience and will go over different things that have happened during this fall and where has it led and how I have felt about them and reacted to them. The experience will be separated chorology to Start, Middle, and End chapters. The chapters will focus on the main learnings and thoughts of that time. There will be introduced different methods and theories in the chapters, but they will be described shortly.

Start 

The start came in May, where I and Samu Nyqvist were announced to be the next leader pair for SYNTRE. The time of the announcing was busy because there was a summer season starting and World Hockey Championships on going in Tampere. Ignoring the busyness and focusing on the feeling, it was amazing to be granted the responsibility and trust to be the next Team Leader of SYNTRE. Meaning I would get a role where I could make a change in our team and lead the team toward better team working and quality learning. There were many ideas coming to my head and also fears regarding it. But with the teammates’ encouragement, it felt nice and exciting. After the spring semester of 2022 was finished we were able to focus on the next semester with Samu and started having a regular meeting once in 1-2 weeks to go over our visions and what we want to do as leaders. We were also able to have an enriching conversation with our last TL/BL Doneé Barentze and Taru Jytilä, where we shared feelings and thoughts regarding leadership and SYNTRE’s team and team members.  

One of the biggest calls from the team regarding leadership was transparency and how it should be made seen. This was something me and Nyqvist gripped to. As well as how to make teams’ learning time more effective, more valuable and continuing. From there we agreed to be transparent leaders who are willing to and want to show the work they do for the team and what is the reason behind the action. For transparent leadership to work leaders should be able to explain the reasoning behind a strategy/decision, openly communicate about metrics, take responsibility regarding their actions and mistakes, welcome questions, and give valuable answers, not to avoid difficult conversations and topics and make information easy to access by everyone, For most of the semester I believe as a leader I have been following these features by posting weekly overviews, giving an explanation behind the decision or thought, owing to the mistakes I have made and making time for people when they asked it for.  

One promise to myself that I made at the beginning of the semester was not to micromanage people or the team. Micromanaging means “where managers feel the need to control aspects of their employee’s work & decision-making to an extreme degree – more than is necessary or healthy for a usual working relationship” (Bougham-Chandler). For me, it was important that the team members would not feel that I was micro-managing them, because I am known to be a person who might control things too much or put too much attention on how everything is going along and whether is everyone keeping up with their tasks and deadlines. I wanted to avoid that and made sure to be conscious of it when dealing with people and deadlines. 

For the quality and continuous learning that we wanted to provide to the team with Nyqvist, we started brainstorming different ideas and methods. For us, it seemed to be one of the important things in the team that was holding the team down and kept brought up in the team. The solution that we came up with was to have modules that would focus on a direct topic and would be managed by a group of people from the team depending on their interests. The module would be depending on its size and how wide the topic 2-6 weeks long. In that time period, the team would go over a variation of tools and topics regarding the module topic, which they would hold a paja about. It was planned to be a team working exercise and team bonding because the group would need to plan the module together and see what are the different things they want to discuss in it and who would take lead with what. In this way, the responsibility wouldn’t be on one person but rather on the whole module team. Meaning if one gets sick there would be someone in the module team to help out and they could share their knowledge together and plan pajas together. We familiarised ourselves as the leaders with our curriculum to get a better view of what things should be learned in the upcoming semester to tell the team so the module and paja planning would be easier. We introduce the team to the module idea at the beginning of the fall and planned together how it would work and what we need to do for it to work. Together as a team, we came up with a plan and module teams and we agreed to follow this way of organizing learning.  

Middle

During the semester there were ups and downs that we needed to face as SYNTRE’s leaders. In the semester we faced problems with the module’s way of learning and how it is managed, a member leaving the team, mökkipaja arranging, rules and how they are followed, information flow, finance situation, ressu system and lack of motivation/action in team members as well as some more sensitive topics. In my opinion, we kept our promise of transparency in our actions and reactions facing different situations. Sometimes it felt easier to arrange things for the team and manage them but sometimes it was difficult to deal with the team members and have trust that they respect the team and deliver what they have promised. Many times I found myself questioning myself as a leader and if I am working well for the team and if there is something I am not doing well or doing something wrong. Lots of self-doubt sometimes but thanks to team members’ support and being able to share these thoughts with Nyqvist I was able to face the feelings and the self-criticism. One of the biggest motivations also came from a saying that was introduced to me in the Tiimimestari session in the spring that says “a leader is there to serve the team and works as an enabler”.

As a leader paired with Nyqvist, we agreed to work together on things but take more responsibility for some things. For example, I was responsible for making the weekly updates for the team and guiding the Learning and culture department and Nyqvist held team meetings and was part of the financial department. Between each other we were also able to write an essay regarding Friendship Leadership where was explained how leader and leadership should be earned and practiced in a way that you are not a boss but a friend to your employees. It follows ten laws of friendship leadership and has five different aspects that should be followed. It was a good way to learn about this way of leadership and it influenced at least my own way of practicing leadership.  

End

When thinking back about how much I was giving to the team and what kind of work I was able to do, most of the work is made in the background. There I used to remind myself of the saying “when it is easy for the provider but hard for the end-user, it is not ideal. But when it seems easy to the end-user, but it works for the provider, then it is done well. It reminded me that it is hard work to be a leader and most of the work is not always seen, but as long as the team member is satisfied it is work done well. This background work could have been things like going through sensitive cases with individuals and supporting them or discussing strategic moves and how to implement ideas and changes to the team without making it seem forced or unpleasant and having it so that it would benefit the team or solve a problem inside the team. For example how to make teammates more conscious about each other’s projects and the state of their projects. For this particular problem, we decided to include project minutes in the team meeting, where the project manager goes briefly over what is up with the project. This way team members know more about what state is the project in and can learn and offer help.  

For me, the goal that I have made this semester as a team leader has been that I have managed to improve transparency in the role of leading. I have practiced friendship leadership and tried my best to succeed in it. I have been constant with providing weekly overviews for the team. I have tried to be available as much as possible, but with this, I feel that for one moment I failed to do. I have hopefully inspired people and been there to support them. I have not micro-managed the team and have allowed the team to evolve in its own way. There are many things I could have to improve and maybe if I ever get to be a leader another time I wanted to try the 1:1 with the team members and activate the team more to take responsibility for team bonding with different tools.  

But time goes fast and even though you try to plan and manage everything it just flies without even noticing. The more to the end we went with the semester the more confident I came with the position and the role and the more I would like to have to continue and use the knowledge and confidence that I gathered. It feels like the moment you are getting started is the moment when you need to give the keys to the next ones and trust that they keep good care of the things you have made. It is unfortunate that I am not able to continue and make upgrades and take forward on things that I started, but I do have full trust in the people who are going to take over that they will make things better in their own way and help them to practice their vision. 

References:

 Soluessee: Tunnelmajohtajan pieni käsikirja – Proakatemian esseepankki 

Tiimimestarit, Johtajuuden kerta

Toivanen, H. 2019. Friend Leadership. Vaasa: Oy Fram Ab.

Brougham-Chandler A. 2022. 7 signs you’re dealing with a micromanager (and how to manage them) 

May, E. 2022. Are you a transparent leader?