9/28/11 Networking and "Inner circles"

So for class last week we had one of our readings about a leadership style that consisted of having two groups, one that was the"inner circle" and an "outer circle".  I dislike this leadership style but I can see why people would use it.  I dislike it because for the people who are in the "outer circle" it can cause feelings to be hurt and bring about tension and harsh feelings on the part of the "outsiders" towards the "insiders".  I have had experience as a member of both groups, and while being a member of the leader's group of "go-to" people makes you feel great and think it is a really good way of doing things.  When you are on the "outside" it can make you feel really bad and not perform to the best of your abilities.  While reading this chapter I couldn't help but think about and episode of The Office.  In this episode Will Farrell plays a character who is attempting to be the new manager after Michael Scott leaves, and Farrell is doing his best to attempt to find his leadership style.  He decides that he is going to select a group of the men in the office and make them his "go-to" guys.  This move caused wide spread panic across the office and for a number of reasons, including this leadership style, Farrell's character was no longer manager or even part of the company by the end of the episode.

I would also like to make a note of how awesome my group for the activity was, we worked so well together and helped each other in the conversations, so Bailey and Katelyn, thank you!

I really enjoyed the speakers and felt that they did a good job of making us engaged and interested and they did so by utilizing their skills at networking.  I really enjoyed listening to them even though I may not know much about their respective fields, for example I know nothing about being a patent lawyer, but they still made me feel engaged.  They also did a really good job of giving us really good advice, which I found very helpful.
That is all for this week, I will let you know how tonight's class goes! Not that i expect anything but great like all of our speakers have been.