I got to experience the characteristics of an effective team (Ch.1) first hand today at swim practice! I thought of this class immediately during our team meeting today, because I feel like the Purdue Women’s Swim Team exhibits all the of the following traits that make an effective team—a clear, elevating goal, a results-driven structure, competent team members, unified commitment, a collaborative climate, standards of excellence, external support and recognition, and principled leadership. Our meeting today was held to discuss the goals of our team and what we wanted to accomplish this season. We narrowed it down to ten goals that we really hoped to accomplish by the end of our season. The results-driven structure comes into play, because everything we do involves working towards our goals (swimming, dryland training, weights, etc). It is a given that all of our team members are competent, otherwise they would not have made it on the team. Even as a team of 35, we are unified because every person on the team would do just about anything to help another team member. We showed a collaborative climate in determining goals today, because everyone got a chance to contribute to the meeting, and if any conflicts came up we would discuss them before making a final decision.
The goals we chose will be challenging to accomplish, but the entire team has faith that these goal are attainable. As for principled leadership, we have four team captains who are approachable, good listeners, and all-around great leaders for our team. Lastly, we have a great deal of external support from the John Purdue Club, as well as other student athletes, and the University.
-Kristen Gilson
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