Group yourselves into...

When I was in fourth grade, I was a "line leader." Yes, I was one of them. The people who shout at the end of recess and lunch: one, two, three, four!—and everyone would race their arms in front, then down, then "hands at the back" as they quietly shuffled into the classroom.

When there was a group project assigned, and we were supposed to pick a leader, all fingers would point to me. And I usually expected it, already armed with my list of ideas of what we'd do.

Back then, whenever we'd have group dialogues (sometimes those were really just a reason to get out of class), my friends would always complain about my bossiness. Me, bossy? I'd always rationalize my way out of it and they'd agree. Haha, talk about being really bossy!

When I was in college, I hated group projects. I never wanted to head anything because I was worried about non-active group members (read: freeloaders!). I eventually got assigned to be an officer for both of my orgs. What a nightmare! It was so much harder than our third year investigatory project (which won in our Science Congress, btw. haha!). I was handling money for both orgs (one as Marketing head, and one as Finance Officer). For some reason, the bossy me was nowhere to be found! I managed to pull through and even cited examples from my experiences whenever I got asked in job interviews about working with a group.

You know, I used to think I liked being in a group better than working alone. But really, being a leader in a group sort of feels like you're working alone if you do all the work by yourself. It all depends on your team. I guess I've just been lucky most of the time.