This post is part of a series of reflecting on the weekly chapters of my LiA experience in Singapore. 

What went well?

This week felt more comfortable; by the end of the week I didn’t have to think about which bus to take or which way to walk in order to cross the street onto the right road. I’m starting to notice more things in the office; the workflow, the culture, people’s personalities and work tendencies.

What could have been done differently?

This week, I could have prioritized my tasks better. The needs of the office being so dynamic, I find myself getting lured by many different tasks and portfolios. However, that meant I didn’t prioritize a couple of larger picture tasks that I would have wanted to.

What did I learn about myself when working with others?

Building on last week, I tried to be more open and approachable in the office. However, I found I’m not naturally good at letting go of my individualistic tendencies and it made me frustrated. I also learned that when I feel I’m struggling at a task more than I should, I tend to try and devote all my attention solely to that task to the detriment of all other tasks on my plate. This instinct led me to want to delay working on collaborative tasks requiring my input until I perfected my personal outputs. I want to challenge myself to be okay with prioritizing group outputs over my own when it is demanded for.

I attribute part of this struggle to a clash between Asian and Western ideals. Asian societies are very communal, while Western societies are more individualistic. As an Indian-Canadian, working with the team has required me to think about which side of me – Indian or Canadian - I’m leaning into. I’m no longer ashamed of having to code-switch between Asian and Western, because I realize that different spaces demand different angles of me.

What did I learn about leadership?

The more I observe my office, the more stunned I am of how different the work culture is. Our office space is relatively small and open and is also split into two alcoves. When a team meeting needs to be called, the team moves into one alcove and everyone gives updates or tries troubleshooting an issue. There’s no a structured weekly team meeting, but it served that function.

This observation made me change the way I see leadership. It was liberating to see that leadership isn’t about a upholding a façade of professionalism and order inundated by meetings and top-down directives. Leadership is about knowing your team, your goals and having a clear vision of how to get there. And if leadership in one space looks like weekly meetings with a clear agenda, that doesn’t dictate what leadership in another space ought to look like. As someone who leads school clubs and hosts lots of meetings in my week, this observation made me realize that my job is to critically reflect on what makes my team more productive rather than how to run a pretty, well-oiled machine.  

What do I want to develop or focus on next?

This week, not everything I wanted to “go to plan” ended up “going to plan”. For example, my blog post from last week is still going through revisions and editing. By the end of this week, I felt disappointed. But after I consulted my task tracker and saw the amount of ad-hoc tasks we had this week, I realized that “productivity” in the non-profit space means responding to dynamic needs quickly. This lack of stability is unsettling to me, but an important part of being a leader in this space. I want to focus on developing more comfort with responding to ad-hoc tasks.