Different Hats

This week I had so much fun in our lab in leadership. There were different colored hats, which each represented different leadership styles.

blue: was the leader of the leaders, and made sure everyone had an equal opportunity to speak
red: was wrapped up in the emotion of the situations, and was especially angry or upset
white: focused on the facts and figures of the situations
green: came up with the creative ideas to solve the problem
black: was realistically focused on the risks
yellow (my favorite): only focused on the positive

I never thought that such dynamic traits could be used in leadership, but they are all necessary to solving a problem. The blue allowed everyone to share their opinions other wise the emotional red hats would be venting to the group the entire time. The white really showed the logistics of the situation so we were able to approach the situations in a more realistic way, or else the green though they came up with the creative idea, some ideas were not as helpful to the group. The yellow hats always focused on the positive and counteracted the negative statements from the red, and the black. Even though the black was negative, they proposed realistic problems that could affect the success of the missions. Each hat had its own purpose, and made me realize that each of the traits they stood for are needed to create a dynamic leader.

I had the yellow hat for the first scenario, in which we were all stranded on a island. Being yellow really showed me there is a positive side to every situation and to count our blessings because, " we are alive and have each other." But being yellow, I could only provide positive feedback, even though I did have ideas on how we could get off the island, that was green's job, not mine. Without all of us, we would not be able to get off the island. And I think we successful made a plan, whether the seahorses would have really worked, who knows?!