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Leading an FTC Team

Like any kind of team, leadership is hard. You will find roadblocks at each step. Here are a few bits of advice to help you get your team started and moving in the right direction.

Students do the work​

If you are a student leader, you will have to fight to keep control of your team and help ensure mentors do not become overbearing. If you are a mentor, you will have to fight the urge to dive in and work on the robot.

When mentors are too involved (also known as mentor-building), the value of FTC suddenly is gone for the students. The point of FTC is not to win and advance. That is the reward. The real point is for the entire team to learn life-changing skills.

Involve everyone​

Do not fall into the athletic structure of "juniors and seniors do the work and freshmen and sophomores do busywork and have to 'earn their keep'". Not only will this result in disgrunteled students, a feared leadership structure, and lack of motivation, it will also cause your team to fail.

This is because it takes a long time to build skills. Certain things can be taught easily like how to turn a screwdriver or how to use power tools, but there are things that cannot be taught like the best way to follow the engineering process, what tools or products to use when, how to delegate to other groups, etc. Even your freshman (or first-year teammates) should be hands-on to the real, production robot.

During the beginning of the season, involve everyone in the brainstorming and strategy discussions. Your more advanced and experienced members will naturally think less creatively, but if you involve your less experienced members, you may get some good ideas!

Mantaining a chain of command​

Leaders vs Bosses

A chain of command is extremely important to the structure of the team. Your chain of command will feel less important as a rookie team, but as your team becomes larger and begins to work on more elaborate projects, you will need to have a single point of contact for all your team members and for external requests.

You should always be accessable and approachable to everyone on your team. Your teammates should be comfortable coming to you for everything from questions to suggestions to requests to issues within the team. You will have to listen to their needs and act upon them.

Preventing a mutiny​

info

Mutiny

noun, plural mu·ti·nies.

  • revolt or rebellion against constituted authority, especially by sailors against their officers.
  • rebellion against any authority.

- dictionary.com

Is mutiny a git of an extreme word? Yes. However, it is something you have to be aware of if you hope to be a good leader for your team. It serves as the ultimate punishment for a bad leader, and once it starts, you cannot recover.

Mutinies come out of contempt for a leader and usually occurs when the members of the team are unable to see how their contributions are contributing to the overall success of the team.

There are many things you have to do to stay in good graces with your team:

  • Be respectful to your team members
  • Be respectful to your mentors
  • Never assign busywork
  • Keep a public ledger of your team's progress