Teams Tackle Timed Tasks, Leaders Emerge
Davendra Brijlall stood in the background, while the rest of his team directed a blind-folded student to turn over four cubes, so their colored sides wouldn’t match.
As a team leader, Brijlall, a senior Economics and Finance major, had coached his team through the Marble Race, the team’s first activity at the Team Leadership Challenge held on April 5 on Rider’s Lawrenceville campus.
“I asked myself how are they going to learn how to be leaders if I don’t step back?” Brijlall said. For that, Brijllal’s team should thank because he not only allowed them a chance to be leaders, but also to work as a team in order to win a meal off campus.
The Team Leadership Challenge was geared toward students in the Leadership Development Program. During the event, students were randomly assigned to five different teams, and were presented with a series of timed challenges. Teams moved from station to station to compete for the ultimate prize – a $25 gift certificate to Macaroni Grill.
“In the program, everyone has an opportunity to be a leader,” said Dr. Marc Wallace, director of the Leadership Development Program.
Teams were presented with five different challenges that allowed individuals to demonstrate their leadership skills, as well as teamwork. Each challenge had materials, an objective, a set of rules and proposed outcomes. For example, at the Wood Block station, three wooden stakes were placed in a triangle. A team had to move a stake of five wooden blocks in different sizes from one stake to another. However, at no time could a larger block be placed on a smaller block. So, a team would have to devise a plan and communicate with each other under a time limit in order to successfully complete the challenge.
“The Team Leadership Challenge definitely teaches teamwork because it makes people come into a situation they never seen before and work together,” said Brijlall, who has participated in the program for four years, currently serves as vice president for Asian Students at Rider, diversity chair for Student Government Association and adviser for LDP.
Other stations included a Marble Race, in which a team had to move a ball to a bucket placed approximately 50 feet away from the starting point by using only a certain number of semicircular tubes; Math 24, a mathematics card game where a team had to achieve 24 by multiplying, dividing, adding or subtracting using each of the four numbers on a card once; and Cup of Dreams, where a team had to relocate ping pong balls from the top of a flipped plastic bowl to the outside of a circle without touching the balls with their hands. At the end of the day, all five teams gathered in the BLC Cavalla Room to compete against each other to see who could build the tallest and/or most creative cup tower, only using cups, glue and paperclips.
Keshia Maughn, a junior Finance major, and her team, who won the dinner, all agreed that the different challenges were rewarding because they learned teamwork and the ability to work with strangers.
“It was sort of like a class project in the beginning of the semester,” Maughn said.
The Leadership Development Program, offered through the Center of Development of Leadership Skills, attracts students from various backgrounds, including education, liberal arts and business students. Students have the opportunity to apply to the program at the beginning of each academic year, or may be nominated to the program by a faculty or staff member. Program requirements include successful completion of the Foundations of Leadership Course (LDP 200); ethics or multicultural studies elective; leadership skills seminars; and co-curricular/experiential leadership opportunities.
