What went well?

The progress I made; what was achieved and done

This week, I spent time on several things:

• I spent time on Sunday in Waterloo, Ontario, running a pop-up booth to recruit high-schoolers for the upcoming 1UP Leaders Lab.
• I designed two posters for our client consulting branch intended for businesses and institutions trying to reach out to understand young people more.
• I helped update web graphics for our sign-up page.
• I created locally-informative trivia questions for bingo trivia icebreakers for the upcoming 1UP Leaders Lab
• I wrote up a report on the Bike Share Meadoway Ride to present to the project consulting team on Friday, creating visual infographics and inferring analysis of demographics and ride preferences.
• Attended team meetings to brainstorm how to attract more high-schoolers to our school programmes by lowering barriers to entry, and revamping our website to modernise and simplify communication.

What could have been done differently?

Things that did not get done and/or could be changed

Due to my own personal life circumstances, I unfortunately have missed one check-in meeting and nearly missed the check-in meeting this week as well. This was my own mistake which I felt reflects poorly on my part to my supervisors, although typically I do not have trouble getting to meetings on time. I feel that I could do better in terms of disciplining my time. In addition, I felt that I was slow to work at times due to the fact that the work could be quite boring to me, such as writing up the report for Bike Share Toronto. While this was not great I felt that there might be ways of putting myself up to the task and making it more interesting to myself as I tend to spend higher quality effort doing things I find fun rather than dying of boredom.

What did I learn about myself when working with others?

Contributions, behaviours and values I exhibited

Most of my activities were solitary tasks. However, at the pop-up booth I was more reluctant to reach out and not sure how to make the first move when it came to talking to people. It was mainly my partner, who seems more socially approachable who taught me how to approach people. However, I was better at memorising an elevator pitch to enhance recruitment effectiveness. I learned to play to my strengths that would complement her own, which allowed me to collaborate more effectively and let me observe ways that I could improve my pitches at the same time.

What did I learn about leadership?

Leadership attributes and insights I developed

Leadership through research and project management skills were an aspect I developed this week while working on my reports. Thinking about the Bike Share ride, I compiled the demographic data and responses into Google Sheets, which allowed me to realise that many people at the ride belonged to a demographic of middle to old-aged people who had plenty of disposable income, free time with a generally heterosexual family background. This showed that cyclists that preferred to use their own bike were not Bike Share's target audience; but rather Bike Share should be focused on poorer, marginalised audiences instead such as children, young adults, and also people with children and help to develop new bikes based on needs, such as transporting groceries. I felt that I gained new insights by thinking about survivorship bias, and really helped to synthesise new information that would help a respectable initiative gain more traction in the city.

What do I want to develop or focus on next?

What I still need to develop

Time management skills are definitely a priority. However, I feel that I am still working on side tasks unrelated to my main priority, which is the upcoming Leaders Lab set to occur on the 17th and 18th of August. To tackle this, I should take more initiative to take on more responsibilities during those two days.