Intra, inter and Extra

Day 1 of our leadership course is asking us to reflect on our intra, inter and extra awareness. The awareness of ourselves, others and the wider world.

In a task in the afternoon we were given 4 instructions, the second of which was to select a leader for the task through a formal process. There were 4 of us in the team and after a very brief discussion about process I was nominated by all of the other 3, so I didn’t really get the opportunity to challenge.

The task was to prepare a 3 minute presentation to the Executive about building and maintaining morale, highlighting the challenges and changes required of leaders. We then had discussion and decided a way forward, then we had to pretend to present it.

After the task everyone is then invited to provide feedback on the content and dynamics of the leadership of the task. Basically invite character assassination but in a constructive way.

I was invited to give feedback first on how I thought it had gone and how people had behaved and contributed before they gave feedback on my leadership of the task.

Given that we’d only met each other that morning and had done a couple of small tasks together, there seemed to be already some understanding of people’s skills and attributes. Apparently, I was nominated to lead this task as I had already demonstrated earlier my ability to understand the rules of a task, to methodically approach the task and keep people on track.

Whilst it was really hard to listen whilst others talked about you, it was a very supportive environment, and I didn’t feel in any way threatened or demoralised by what people said. I actually found it uncomfortable because people were saying very complimentary things about my style. In fact there was nothing negative at all.

I was described as calm, considered, logical, methodical, organised, inclusive and paid attention to everyone, and strong when I needed to pull people back on topic and keep them to time. One person even said that they aspired to be like me.

The trouble is that I have no belief in that myself. I’m not saying they were lying about what they said, it would be difficult to accuse the whole group of conspiring, but I just don’t see it in myself.

The group facilitator wrote it all down (pictured) and told me to take it home and keep it to remind me of my leadership attributes, and believe it when other people see it in me, even if I don’t see it myself.