Teamwork and leadership are inextricably linked, which is why b-schools evince great interest in knowing how good a team player you are. What if you haven’t been a regular member of any team? Will that spoil your chances of admission?
Well, maybe there are more ways of demonstrating teamwork than you think. Let’s look at a few possibilities:
There are so many things you must have done as a member of a group. Perhaps you have been a member of a church choir or the dance troupe of a cultural organization or the goalkeeper of your local football club or a member of a committee that organizes annual fetes. Whatever the case may be, you have been involved in doing things together with other people – which means that you have had opportunities of engaging in teamwork.
The ability to listen attentively and sympathetically, without interfering the flow of what people are saying to you, is an essential part of your teamwork skills. If you can cite occasions when hearing out someone patiently and trying to understand what that person is attempting to convey to you has helped you to solve a problem or collaborate with others, then that would be a good way of demonstrating an important teamwork skill.
Perhaps there were tensions between neighbors in your locality that had arisen from certain misunderstandings. One day things came to a head, and an ugly quarrel broke out. You mediated, and largely on the basis of listening properly to all parties, you found a way to resolve the issue.
Let’s again consider the previous example. Let’s suppose the quarrel between the two parties was about the garbage that was being dumped in the drain behind their houses, with each party accusing the other of being responsible for the drain clogging up. It so happened that the municipality cleaned up the drain twice a week, which was not enough. You mediated and got the warring parties to agree that each of them would pay a certain common sum to hire a cleaner twice a week to flush out the drain.
The initiative you took to resolve the conflict is an excellent example of your capacity for teamwork. It doesn’t matter that the ‘teams’ were small. Your behaviour demonstrated a high level of leadership.
So, it’s quite possible that you have actually been more involved in teamwork than you realize!
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